Finding Our Roots on the Nivernais

We were catching some shade, cozying up with the requisite vin rouge in front of a café in a village named Vermonton, in the bucolic heart of the Burgundy region of France. That's when the crazy man jumped out at us.

At least he seemed crazy at the time. He jabbered at us excitedly, pointing at the French soccer jersey my nephew Marcus was wearing.

We quickly realized he was simply slow-witted and he didn't mean to frighten us. Mostly, he was excited to see strangers and especially thrilled that Marcus happened to be wearing the jersey.

The owner of the café, a beleaguered woman who apparently keeps order in this part of the village, came out to scold the man gently, to ask him not to frighten off her customers. He exited into the darkness of the café, downcast and chastened.

***

"These are our people," my sister Susie said.

The "our-people" comment has become the running joke of our journey.

We had gone to this particular region of France to "discover our roots. But, in typical self-deprecatingly cruel Livernois humor, we invariably found "our people" to be mentally or physically challenged in some way.

My brother Tony had researched our genealogy, trying to discover the genesis of our surname, and tracked the Livernois lineage to the Burgundy region of France.

"Livernois" has long baffled us because it doesn't seem to mean anything. He managed to track the lineage back 10 generations to a man named Paul Benoist.

Benoist was born in the 1600s in a province once known as the "Nivernais," but emigrated to the New World as a young man after being recruited by Catholic missionaries to help settle Quebec.

Upon his arrival, Quebec administrators recorded the illiterate carpenter's name in variations that usually included both his surname and the province of his origin. Over time, he became known as "Paul Benoist dit Livernois" and subsequent generations boiled it all down to "Livernois."

To celebrate Tony's 40th birthday and to thank him for his research, a group of us rented a 50-foot houseboat named "Saint Valery" for a week-long excursion on the Nivernais Canal in the heart of Paul Benoist's homeland.

We rented the boat from a firm called Locaboat, which specializes in providing floating homes they call "penichettes" in backwater areas of Europe. The penichettes are a marvel of compact, efficient design, sort of like a floating RV.

After an hour of instruction, the Locaboat folks handed us the keys and we were off on our own for a week on the Nivernais Canal. We spent the first night docked in Joigny, a city about the size of Monterey on the swan-infested Yonne River, and toasted the moon rising over the St. Thibault Church.

We set off early the next morning and somehow managed to avoid collisions with bridges, barges, abutments, other boats and swans along the way. We would discover "our people."

***

During our research into the trip, we read that navigating the waters in a pinechette is somewhat like trying to guide a cork along an iceberg. But we found the boat relatively easy to manuever, mainly because they move so slowly.

We quickly encountered the first of what would be 67 locks along our 62-mile route. Entering a lock is like moving from a base of tranquility into a mad rush of activity, involving a lot of rope throwings and gate openings and rushing waters and gate closings.

We hit 12 locks during our first day, all on the Yonne, before settling in for the night in the city of Auxerre.

Auxerre is a charming city, really, so I wouldn't want our own horrible experience in Le Quai restaurant to discourage anyone from visiting the town. In fact, we would have enjoyed seeing much more of Auxerre, except that it took the cooks two hours to complete our order.
Fortunately, there was enough time left after the way-late dinner to cross the sweet footbridge that spans the Yonne and catch a free outdoor reggae concert at a public park.

***

We left Auxerre around noon the next day and the first lock of the day took us into the Nivernais Canal. The difference between the Yonne and the Nivernais was immediately evident, as though we had floated through the gates to a fairy tale.

The tiny canal is framed by wispy green forests and rolling green pastures and quaint old villages that seem to be lost in a medieval dream. We half expected to see seven dwarves whistling past us en route to the mine, or at least a gnome or two.

Our boat lolled along under a balmy sun, stopping under a stone bridge to deposit us for a spot of wine in a rustic café in an old-world village named Vaux.

We steamed ahead dreamily for the afternoon, eventually tying down along a village named Vincelles, ate like royalty at a funky little outdoor restaurant called Hotel de le Poste, and retired for the evening after a rousing card game.

***

The next day, we turned back on the canal to give our niece, Hannah, a primer on the fine art of wine tasting as she prepares for her 21st birthday.

In the village of Bailly, quarries that once provided stone for the construction of Parisian buildings are now occupied by a wine cooperative called Bourgognes de Vignes en Caves. Better yet, there's a perpetually cool (and I do mean cool) wine tasting room in a cavernous spot in the maze of caves and tunnels that provides samples of the best wines of the region.

***

A handy hint for canal travelers: Always bring along an enthusiastic and athletic 13-year-old. My nephew, Marcus, made a name for himself among lock-keepers and other boaters along the Nivernais Canal for his willingness to drag boats along locks and towpaths.

Marcus approached each lock with vigor, leaping onto ladders, catching ropes, helping lock-keepers cranking cranks, and opening and closing gates.

Kathy, our sister-in-law, brought along a bunch of trinkets to offer as gifts to the lock-keepers and it was Marcus' job to present them, which he accomplished with the sort of ritual ceremony reminiscent of paintings I've seen of William Hudson offering beads and baubles to Native Americans in exchange for Manhattan.

We arrive in Vermonton about 4 p.m. on our third full day on the river, which gives us enough time to wander the streets and finally plop down at the outdoor café in the village center.

"We're among our people," Susie declares.

***

These are our people, indeed.

About 10 minutes after our encounter with the well-meaning jabbering man, a middle-aged woman wearing a pink print dress shuffled up the steps to the boulangerie next door. She, too, was very obviously disabled.

She soon exited the boulangerie with two baguettes, shuffling past us with wide vacant eyes into the café.

Soon after the pink lady disappeared, a wiry old gentleman with wild hair flowing to his belt and a black-and-white beard as long as his hair bounded past us into the café. The left side of his beard was perfectly black, but the right half had turned completely white, and the man had purposely parted the beard for its strange effect.

He was not challenged in the way of the pink lady or the jabbering man, but he had the look of someone you might have seen in "Helter Skelter."

***

We were told in advance that eating in the Burgundy region of France would be a treat, but we never expected this. After hanging out at the café in Vermonton for wine, we wandered over to Auberge de l'Espérance for dinner.

By far, this spot alone is worth the flight to France. The rustic little restaurant is owned by Annie and Claude Simon. Claude is the cook who pokes his head into the dining room every so often to make certain everyone is happy, while Annie's easy laugh lightens the entire room.

We happily plowed through four courses in just under two hours, but we could have easily lingered.

***

Disaster struck on our fourth day, when St. Valery kept dumping its fresh water supply.

Fortunately, Kathy brought a cell phone and we were able to call the Locaboat headquarters to report the problem. Locaboat sent a mechanic out to our mooring at Chatel-Censoir, yet another charming village, and the mechanic cheerfully found and fixed the leak.

The next morning, a couple of us found a taxi for a 20-kilometer ride to Vezelay, a quaint little tourist city on a high bluff that boasts great religious significance. Pilgrims flock to Vezelay to visit the basilica where Mary Magdalene is rumored to have been buried. Whether she was actually interred in Vezelay is the stuff of Da Vinci Code mysteries, but some of her relics are on display in the basilica crypt for good measure.

We encountered a number of monks, priests and nuns bustling to and from the church, the convents and the monasteries that have the historical stronghold on Vezelay. Their presence lends a spiritual lift to a civic center that is otherwise composed of Carmel-type curio shops.

***

We stopped on our fifth night at yet another charming village called Villiers-sur-Yonne, a town bereft of any single commercial enterprise. So we whipped up a fabulous dinner with some leftover chicken and whatever we could find in the refrigerator.

The locks are ubiquitous on the Nivernais Canal and they mostly break up the calm of the day. They also give us some insight in French society.

The lock-keepers were an interesting mix of young university students working summer jobs; grizzled aging women who bitterly perform the rote task; entrepreneuers who sell cherries, wine, artwork or books; and blissed-out families who come out to greet us warmly.

A pitched-roof house stands near each lock -- the lockkeepers' homes -- and each facility reflects the character of its keeper.

At Ecluse de Ravereau near the village of Merry-sur-Yonne, a ceramacist named Bruno Comparet has established his studio downstairs. He dashed out of his studio in his Jockey briefs to greet us, Marley blaring out from the first floor of the lock house.

A few locks down, a lonely aging woman dragged out, carrying with her the countenance of one who can scarcely understand how life could be such a drag. Instead of the requisite display of vibrant geraniums that greeted us at most locks, her facilities were covered with spider webs and dandelion.

Our favorite lock was Ecluse de La Place near Chatel-Censoir, where a heaving family had turned the facilities into a sprightly little shrine to yard-gnome fantasies. Children poured out of the house to greet us, while grandma vainly exhorted them not to be too much of a bother.

***

Another unexpected bonus on the Nivernais turned out to be the fellow boaters we encounter along the way.

There's the warm nod and hello from the Dutch family moored next to us on the first night; the instant camaraderie with five German gentleman with the well-stocked bar who we seem to bump into at odd spots along the way; the retired Naval pilot from Florida who is constantly trouble-shooting any mechanical and wine-supply problems we might be having; the Englishman who now spends half his days on the Nivernais.

***

We purposely set off early on the sixth day so that we could arrive in Corbigny, our final destination, on time. We needed to be in Corbigny before the locks closed at 7 p.m. because the boat was due back before the locks open the next day.

But we got seriously sidetracked when we stopped for lunch in Tannay, another charming village that promised great food, a post office and a bank. We walked more than a mile along a tree-lined road through intermittent rain and eventually found a restaurant with the promise of great food.

By the time we finished a three-course lunch, we had already burned up almost 2½ hours and we still needed to walk back to the boat. Our postal and banking needs would have to wait.

We finished the day three locks short of our destination and frantically called the Locaboat folks in Corbigny to explain our situation. They shrugged it off, telling us not to worry. As long as we had the boat back by 10:30, there would be no problem.

We spent the final evening aboard Saint Valery at Chitry-les-Mines, another charming village.
We cleaned the refrigerator of the last of our stinky cheese, finished off the last of our wine and wished like hell we had booked the boat for two weeks.

***

By now we were bemused by the people we encountered in the café of Vermonton. I peered inside and saw a group of locals, including the black-and-white bearded man, huddled around their beer at the unlit bar.

A few minutes later, the woman in the pink print dress emerged from the darkened café in the company of the jabbering man. Arm-in-arm, they carefully worked their way down the steps onto the street.

The jabbering man was silent now, earnestly helping the lady in pink to her home in what was obviously a daily and sweetly tender ritual: She prettied up for her trip to the boulangerie, then stopped at the café to be escorted home by her friend.

The magic of the moment turned mystical when the black-and-white beard man suddenly appeared at the doorway behind the couple, opening his cupped hands to free a dragonfly he had trapped in the café.

The dragonfly lingered for a moment over the couple, then disappeared into the blue sky above.

These are our people.