Mister René

Alexis
Nov 13, 2022
7 min read

Updated: Apr 14

Note : post published November 14th 2022

You could try to imagine him but you'd always be far from the truth, he would deserve an entire book : welcome to René's world.

After Vannøya a small island lost in the north, I'll take you to the fjord south of Tromsø, at the foot of the Lyngen Alps.

Arrival in a somewhat familiar land

The bus rides along the fjords offering me a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. I have been warned that it somewhat resembles the Alps and it's true. Was it really worth traveling over 3000 kilometers just to feel like I'm seeing the "Dent du Chat" plunging into the "Bourget" lake (big up to Savoie) ? Well, okay I'm exaggerating a bit, but the resemblance is striking. I almost expect to see familiar faces getting on the bus.

A message from René informs me that he's off for the weekend, which snaps me out of my thoughts. He won't be here to welcome me. Surprising but why not. Eventually it's Jiři, another traveler from the Czech Republic, who opens the door and gives me a tour of the place. He recounts the first few weeks of his stay, filled with unexpected anecdotes and the initial traits of René start to emerge. René seems like quite a character.

Later I learn that poor Jiři, on his first solo trip and his first workaway experience, spends most of his time alone while René roams around. It seems that René trusts easily. Jiři is happy to see me arrive and I'm glad to have a companion for this little journey, it's always nicer to have company when working but also to share a moment afterward. Especially since René has everything planned out : those three 25-liter barrels proudly sitting on the bar are filled with rhubarb wine just for us. René doesn't care for rhubarb wine.

Elbow grease

But to quench our thirst we have to earn it. Whether it's for the indoors or outdoors, there are about a thousand projects in parallel. René himself says it will never really be finished, always a new project in the works. He's a builder, René, he needs all these projects.

Project 1 - Construction

The first mission is to insulate the winter garden to finish this little corner of Asia he created in the north of Norway. It reminds him of his travels in warm countries, René doesn't like the cold.

Since we don't have precise instructions and our foreman is absent, we put on our work clothes, arm ourselves with a stapler, a cutter, a hammer with a few nails and all our common sense, of course.

The task is punctuated by intense brainstorming sessions with Jiři to best fulfill our mission :

"Are you sure it goes here before that thing ? But it seems to hold up fine like this."

"Where do we start ? Do you have a coin for heads or tails ?"

"Should it look like this ? No idea, but it seems to hold."

We're not achieving a level of perfect finishing, but it resembles something. Well, at least that's what we tell ourselves.

Project 2 - Excavation

But René thinks a winter garden is not enough. So why not add an outdoor hot tub to enjoy the Northern Lights ? René's specialty clearly is enjoying life.

He swings the excavator a couple of times to clear some space in the garden then a truckload of gravel arrives. It's going to take a lot of shovel work since we need to level the ground. But before shoveling there's some hammering, we need to break those frozen gravel blocks. Because yes we waited for it to get really cold to do all this or it wouldn't have been fun.

While we shovel and hammer like there's no tomorrow, Jiři points out that with our work clothes on and dirty faces, we look like the Dalton brothers smashing rocks in a Lucky Luke comic.

And the questions arise : what are we doing here? Why exhaust ourselves at the end of the world breaking rocks like prisoners ? Is this what travel is about ? What pleasure do we get from all this ?

Oh yes I remember now : we prepare the ground and then we'll drink wine in the hot tub until sunrise. It's worth the effort.

Project 3 - Demolition

Before I arrived Jiři and René had demolished a wooden cabin, the remains of which still litter the ground. Our mission, which we quickly accepted, is to erase all traces of the old dwelling. We just make a pile of debris and set it on fire, sorry planet but the landfill is too expensive according to René.

Making the pile is easy even in the rain, but setting fire to soaked wood and soaked rock wool is a bit less straightforward. So René's solution is to use old motor oil and gasoline to light the fire, again, sorry planet.

Here we're only allowed to burn wood in our garden and let's just say that wood isn't the majority of what we need to make disappear. So to avoid attracting unwanted attention with the smoke that would betray us by its color, we wait for nightfall meaning a good 3:30 PM. As we don't want to set the forest on fire we build an intermediate bonfire to somewhat control the blaze we're about to create. Unsuccessful attempt, gasoline flames up instantly and doesn't put fire to anything. Plus the explosions each time we put the flame next to the gasoline are a bit scary. No bonfire, we just use a small fire started the old-fashioned way, and struggle to make only 1 cubic meter out of the total 12 of debris disappear. We're not out of the woods yet. Plus, it's raining, it's cold, mission aborted.

Once Jiři left and the freeze also departed, I went back armed with valuable information : it's diesel that should be used with motor oil, not gasoline. Of course ! Distant physics lessons come back to me, a diesel engine and a gasoline engine aren't the same. Everything becomes clearer, I'm going to reduce that big pile to ashes.

This time no intermediate bonfire to control the experiment, René tells me that if the forest catches fire it's not a big deal anyway because he wants to get rid of it (once again, sorry planet). Okay let's go for it. I prepare the devilish cocktail, trigger the pyromaniac mode and observe that hydrocarbons work quite well, too well. There's no point in fighting against the elements, despite the light rain accompanying me there's no way to control the massive fire.

It won't completely die out until noon the next day, leaving behind only a few pieces of metal twisted by the heat.

Project 4 - Organisation

René's forte is not being organized when it comes to his 1000 projects. He's all about moving earth, shifting rocks, René is quite handy with the excavator and likes having fun with it. But when it's time to tidy up the tools that's a different story. Indeed, the missions always start with a scavenger hunt to find the right tools in the chaos. So Jiři and I muster our courage and dive in.

We begin with the garage : we carry, move, toss things around, then clean and finally organize everything. Then onto the terrace same drill : carrying, sorting, throwing away, cleaning to put everything in place, at last. It's oddly satisfying to see all this chaos now neatly arranged even though we know that once we're gone, El Tornado René will quickly sweep over the workshop. René isn't too fond of tidying up.

Of course, whatever doesn't find its place immediately ends up in mission 3 (see details above).

The good life

Next comes the time to enjoy together. René introduces us to his culture through traditional dishes steeped in history, from cod tongue to reindeer along with various other things more or less questionable (and definitely not vegetarian, sorry animal lovers). Because René is Norwegian, no surprise there, but he's Saami too and I'll stop you right there, it has nothing to do with Scooby-Doo. The Saami are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia and since they've had it a bit rough due to Europeans they have a special status to protect their culture. For instance, they're the only ones allowed to herd reindeer and shoot your dog if it threatens their reindeer. Consider yourself warned, if you come watch out for your dog.

Then there's the tradition of Friday night. On the menu : excessively loud Saami music, flowing gin, and discussions until the wee hours to solve the world's problems.

Now, we can even punctuate all that with dips in the freshly installed hot tub, not bad right ?

And once we've discussed the world long enough that's when creativity starts to kick in, it's time for good ideas. Maybe the best one was the impromptu rifle shooting contest in the middle of the night : France vs Czech Republic in 3 rounds, 4 shots per round, refereed with binoculars. Unfortunately no suspense, we didn't play the French national anthem at the end. Jiři is really good. Or maybe I'm just bad. Without downplaying myself let's say the Martin Fourcade in me stayed in bed that night; I even managed to hit my forehead with the rifle scope on the first shot. I accept my defeat.

René did tell me Friday was his favorite day and now I understand why. He even coined an expression, the "Friday feeling", literally meaning "Today no work, just fun". Well played, René.

Perhaps you're starting to understand who Mr. René is, but make no mistake, a thousand anecdotes wouldn't suffice to paint the portrait of such a colorful character.

The best way is to go meet him and I can assure you you'll never find his door closed. That's how he is.

To infinity and beyond 🚀