This adaptation of Gabrielle Roy’s short story, published in 1966 in the novella, The Road Past Altamont (La route d’Altamont), introduces a younger audience to the semi-autobiographical protagonist, Christine. 

During a lonely and oppressively hot summer in a small Manitoban city, Christine befriends an elderly man who shares her love of adventure. While the days grow hotter, he and Christine retreat into their imaginations. “The heat is strong enough to kill everything, except perhaps the idea of coolness,” says the old man to Christine. 

To beat the heat, they travel by train to Lake Winnipeg. At the water’s edge, they are spellbound. “The waves lapped near their feet, whispering that they were happy to see them. A delightful freshness washed over their faces. Christine felt her joy was as great and deep as the lake.” 

Rogé’s watercolours, rendered in a muted prairie-grass palette, capture these delicate moments as if nature and the characters have paused for a portrait. 

Struck by nostalgia, the old man contemplates mortality. Fearing the inevitable loss of her new friend, Christine confesses the quiet grief she carries. Together, they marvel at the wonders of nature. 

Devoted readers of Gabrielle Roy may long for her original prose, but Dominique Fortier’s abridged version honours its spirit. In adaptation, Fortier might have done away with Christine’s imaginative play as the colonial figure, French voyageur La Vérendrye, and she should have removed the cultural stereotypes embedded in the dialogue.

But as a celebration of intergenerational friendship, of everyday adventure, and the wonder of Canada’s lakes,The Old Man and the Child is a story worth retelling. Though Roy did not write it with climate change in mind, the tale resonates in the present moment, as billions of people around the world face increasingly severe heatwaves driven largely by fossil fuels. The lake and all its beauty serves as a reminder of what we stand to lose, and what we must protect. mRb