We weren't long into our snowy hike in the woods when we came across them, two youngish women, one tromping along on snowshoes directly on the thoroughly tamped-down trail and the other carrying her snowshoes. These were the new-tech type, not the ones we used to wear tramping through Gatineau in years past; our traditional semi-fishtail Green Mountain snowshoes.

They were lost, didn't quite know where they were within the larger community. So there we stood, my husband giving them orientation directions, while they observed how surprised they had been to discover no one else out in the woods. We hadn't ever seen them before, so obviously they were quite raw to the ravine. But despite they were lost they seemed in fine fettle, and as though they were enjoying themselves.

When we first discovered the ravine over a quarter-century ago, we found the trails and directions confusing too, but back then they were narrower forest trails and the bridges barely resembled what now exist, crossing the creek at various points. Back then, there existed far more animals, comfortable in their natural environment. We see far fewer raccoons, foxes, rabbits than we had then, and rarely now see grouse which we so often encountered back then.

It never fails to surprise us to come across people snowshoeing in the ravine, actually. Unless a snowshoe enthusiast gets out there directly after a large snowfall, the trails will already have been trodden by those hardy souls determined to make the effort to break trail. Not exactly the kind of conditions that snowshoes are meant for. It's the romanticism, the history behind snowshoes that enthralls people, and one supposes they imagine themselves coureur de bois braving the wilds of Canada in days long gone.

As for a scarcity of others out and about on the trails, that wasn't our experience. A lovely winter day with newfallen snow -- actually snow still spiralling out of the sky as we proceeded -- a fairly mild temperature and the forest offering shelter from the sharp wind calls out to all those who appreciate such opportunities to commune with nature.

And so, we came across an old familiar in the woods with her little dog Angus, and walked with her awhile, chatting about her son, a local firefighter whom we  also know well, a young man surprisingly patterned after his mother in the very most positive of ways. He had just left for a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, with his new girlfriend, and his two little terriers were left in the care of his mother, so the three little dogs and ours had the opportunity to socialize.

Later on during our circuit it was Max we came across wielding his two ski poles, as usual clad in his bright red jacket so light we wonder how he can keep warm. But he does, by barrelling along the trails at a clip we wouldn't dare emulate. It's the rare concession to extreme cold when we see him out wearing an actual winter jacket. He does however, always wear bright red apples on his cheeks.

He waxed nostalgic this time, telling us about the Swiss canton he was born in, and the small tourist town that was his family home, inaccessible by road, just by train, high on the slope of a mountain. Although he has returned on occasion, his decades of mature life in Canada claim him as purely Canadian. The village, he told us, is just the same as when he left; no motorized vehicles permitted and the thousand residents like it just that way. His brother still lives there, content with the isolation and the village way of life; who wouldn't be?