Merry Cranberries from Jan & Alan

...I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.

Truth to tell, we feel no wiser or more civilized than we were a year ago but at least we’re a whole lot older than Huck Finn ever was. From the far-flung frigid west coast Jan and I extend our warmest season’s greetings. Perhaps our unaccustomed Arctic conditions are the result of excessive carbon emissions; maybe we could try blaming the frostbite entirely on George W. Bush. Everything else seems to be his fault so why not that too.

Mind you, as glass-house-residents I suppose we should be careful about throwing stones. We’re mostly getting about under our own steam these days but over the past few months we’ve left exhaust trails from London to Brugge, from the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the sandstone cliffs of southern Utah and myriad points hither and thither. In September we made a return pilgrimage to Canada’s First World War battlefields, appreciated the magnificent Canadian memorial at Vimy -- hidden from view during our inaugural visit in 2005 -- and completed a small personal mission, visiting the final resting place of all the Boularderie, Cape Breton, soldiers I’ve ‘adopted’ over the past several years.

Scientists tell us the north Atlantic suddenly warmed four degrees this summer. We could tell. We soaked up the wettest summer on record at Big Bras d’Or. Fortunately the roof of the summer palace kept the water out and we revelled in our customary allotment of loved ones’ conviviality.

Our fall migration in truck-and-camper from Cape Breton back to the west coast took us on a southward route through some of the most splendid American geography we’ve laid eyes on since retirement turned us into rolling stones a decade ago.

We enjoy the best of times and a bit of the worst as well. Sadly, Jan’s mum, Diane, died unexpectedly a month after our return to Victoria. Happily, Diane got to enjoy some time with the newest clan member before she left us. Jan is hopelessly smitten with her granddaughter, Alexandra Grace – ‘Lexi’ to her nearest and dearest. Once upon a time Jan feigned indifference on the prospect of becoming a grandmother but fact has turned fiction on its head. Have you ever seen a nana more dewy-eyed than the one featured here? Meanwhile I get to enjoy the miracle of being a grandfather without ever having had to endure the vicissitudes of fatherhood. How very grand it is.

American Idyll Finale: Lunking at Lassen, Looking for Lena

From the straight blacktop lines of the Nevada high desert we followed a long and winding route into the tall conifer forests of the California Cascades, to Lassen Volcanic National Park. We hiked to Bumpass Hell – no guff – and gaped at the fumaroles, steam vents and boiling mudpots adorning this natural wonder.

After overnighting at our last state park, Castle Crags in California, it was off to southern Oregon where cousin Terri Livingston Helkenn and her beloved Ed have set up new housekeeping along a beautiful stretch of the Umpqua River. They call it a ‘barn’ but the brand-new carriage house that Ed has just completed is nothing like any barn you’ve ever seen or could imagine. We’ve known Ed and Terri only three years – since the quest for Great War family history set me in search of long-lost relatives – but it’s as if we’ve been friends forever.

After three relaxing, entertaining days at Indian Bend on the Umpqua we convoyed to Tillamook on the northwest Oregon coast. Terri and I are grandchildren of two members of the noteworthy Livingstone family of Big Bras d’Or, Cape Breton. Lena, the eldest of eleven Livingstone siblings, lived and died at Garibaldi, just north of Tillamook. We mobbed the library, city hall, county clerk’s office and pioneer museum for traces of Lena, finding none. We located the grave in the Odd Fellows’ cemetery but were disappointed and more than a little sad to discover it unmarked. Except by us who never knew her, Lena is pretty much forgotten.

We camped one last night and enjoyed good fresh seafood on Ed’s 60th birthday. After a fond departure from the cousins we paused at Seaside OR to gawk at the monument marking the place where in 1806 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark reached the Pacific. Then it was on to Bellevue WA to spend one final convivial evening, with Jan’s favourite cousin Julie and husband Kim.

The rain had spared us pretty much the entire 28 days we spent in the USA. Approaching the Canadian border, rain returned. I confess to a small degree of postpartum letdown. Our adventures in American geography – Shenandoah, Black Mesa, Great Salt Basin, Zion, Cathedral Gorge, Lassen, et al – exceeded all expectations. Yep, I’m sorry it’s over.

--Alan

American Idyll 5: Zion’s Towers, 72 Murders, a Massacre & Great Basin’s Bristlecones

Beware great expectations, Jan often cautions. But given all I have read about Zion National Park keeping expectations trimmed wasn’t easy. Suffice to say Zion exceeds expectations however great they might be. Sheer three-thousand-foot sandstone cliffs of many colours, canyons so narrow and deep sunlight is scarce seen at the bottom. We climbed 1,500’ along a razor ridge to astonishing views of Zion Canyon. Brave Jan defied her fear of heights and revelled. Look at our Flickr photos and you’ll see why.

From Zion’s geographic glory we headed west, seeking out the site of an 1857 massacre of 120 emigrant men, women and children by Mormon militia acting on orders from church leaders. Thence, drawn by more small red print in the Wal-Mart mapbook, we landed at a Nevada state park tantalizingly named Cathedral Gorge. The unique and remarkable geography we found there was equal to the name. We stopped at the nearby town of Pioche, which experienced a bonanza of silver and lawlessness in the early 1870s. It is claimed 72 men died by gunshot and stabbings before Pioche’s Boot Hill cemetery accommodated its first interment from natural causes.

Twenty years ago I traveled in May to Mount Wheeler in Great Basin National Park to see some of Earth’s oldest living things, bristlecone pines growing above 11,000’. Alas, May is not a good time: I was foiled by armpit-deep snow. October proved superior. The snow and ice were navigable and we communed with the ancient pines, some of them three thousand years old.

Think of Nevada as a great washboard inclined more or less north-south. Long jagged mountain ranges alternate with high desert valleys. We drove Highway 50, billed the ‘Loneliest Road in America’, across the middle of the state. Only a few communities dot the landscape of mountains and vast expanses of sagebrush. Driving west into the afternoon sun, we crossed thirteen mountain ranges before losing count. Cross the summit of one range and you see three more against the horizon, the first dark smoky blue, the others progressively paler in the distance. When I first drove Highway 50 two decades ago Tom Waits seemed my appropriate musical companion. This time Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen and David Francey provided the counterpoint.

Having a long way to go before our Saturday rendezvous with cousin Terri and Ed in southern Oregon, we drove well past nightfall. With little light contamination along most of its length Highway 50 provides a fine dark night sky. Venus blazed low over yet another mountain range, Jupiter higher behind it, only slightly less resplendent.

--Alan

American Idyll 4: Ornithopods, Cinder-cones, D.H.Lawrence, and John Wayne too

Before seeing Oklahoma with my own eyes I imagined featureless rangeland proceeding as far as sight allows. Certainly we found some of that, especially in the western half of the Panhandle, which left me wondering afresh what the original Great Plains must have looked like before they were fenced, ploughed and converted to cattle mills. But Oklahoma delivered surprises too. The Black Mesa area at the far west end of the panhandle is very dramatic and evokes the wild west as well as anything you see in New Mexico or Arizona. While there we chanced upon our first-ever tarantula and gawked at the fossilized footsteps of an ornithopod dinosaur.

We crossed the Oklahoma-New Mexico state line and – without really intending to – found ourselves on a beautiful quiet byway, NM 456, in the far northeast corner of the state. NM 456 is lined with multi-hued mesas, one of which gave a cattle operation an apt name, the Weddingcake Ranch. We had the road pretty much to ourselves; Jan even collected a ‘lifer’ bird here, pinyon jay.

No doubt some of my friends will frown at me giving Wal-Mart a plug but, what the heck, I’ll do it anyway. The Wal-Mart Rand-McNally map book is a terrific buy at six bucks. I am especially grateful for the small red print you can find on every sheet, if you look for it. I had never heard of Capulin National Monument until the map disclosed its existence. We went there. We were astounded. Capulin is an extinct cinder-cone volcano prized for its perfect symmetry. We walked down into the heart of the crater then around the entire rim, which sits at about 8,200 feet above sea level. We learned lots about cinder-cone volcanoes and marvelled at the big views we had in every direction.

Taos, New Mexico, has been in my sights for decades. Once upon a time, long ago, I read a lot of D H Lawrence. He lived at Taos in the 1920s and liked it a lot. We arrived in Taos around midday on Saturday and quickly concluded that a city ordinance must require that every building be constructed in neo-adobe mode. Most of the businesses in the downtown area seem to be galleries and artisan studio-shops. Everyone we saw looked trim and well-heeled. We enjoyed a very good lunch at a trendy-looking restaurant and eventually asked the couple sitting next to us for directions to Lawrence’s Taos abode. They could. We went. His old cabin is in the mountains about 17 miles north of Taos. It looks much as it did 80 years ago; it was easy to imagine him writing under the big pine in front of the cabin porch. I am glad we went. The birding was good too: we added several upper-elevation birds to our trip list: Steller’s jay, scrub jay, Clark’s nutcracker, pink-sided junco.

We camped high in the Carson National Forest, at Hopewell Lake. Mountain chickadees sang in the conifers beside the camper. Otherwise, apart from a few elk hunters, we had the place to ourselves. Snow dotted the ground here and there. The hand of man showed only a little. But there was this: a small sign adorned with two American flags that read: 9-11-01, Never Forgive, Never Forget. Our overnight stay at Hopewell was perfectly quiet. Not even an owl broke the stillness.

Another US national monument crossed our path: Aztec Ruins in northwestern New Mexico. Here long-ago ancestors of local native Americans built a complex city and went about their lives for two centuries, then about 1200 AD they disappeared. We walked among the ruins and contemplated the ephemeral nature of life.

A great American filmmaker, John Ford, made a classic ‘duster’, Stagecoach, in the early 1940s. It starred John Wayne. Even today the movie is beautiful to look at. Ford made it in Monument Valley, straddling the Utah-Arizona state line. We went there late in the afternoon. The light was fabulous. Jan called the place ‘stupendous’. She is not given to exaggeration.

--Alan

American Idyll 3: Visions of Ivory

At Brinkley on Interstate 40 in east Arkansas a big billboard boasts that the little town is ‘home to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’. You have a much better chance of seeing Bill and Hilary Clinton riding naked on a tandem bicycle at Brinkley than you do of spotting an ivorybill there, but never mind, there’s a good story here anyway. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker was thought extinct for the past seven decades but in 2004 reputable observers reported seeing one or two in the vicinity of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge south of Brinkley. This was so astonishing that numbers of experts who think they know better simply don’t believe it. I’m inclined to accept the claims and feel heartened by the notion that a big beautiful woodpecker – North America’s largest – could be hanging on by a toenail or two in the wilds of southeastern Arkansas despite the best collective efforts of 300 million Americans to wipe out their habitat. Jan and I of course did not get to see one; the closest we got to an encounter was seeing a lovely illustration on the cover of an Arkansas birding brochure but what fun it was to imagine that we might have been within a hundred miles of a healthy mated pair going about their carefree business in the same fashion their ancestors did throughout the eons.

Jan and I like American national wildlife refuges. Typically they are beautiful out-of-the-way oases often as devoid of people as they are chock-a-block with birds. Two refuges entertained us in the past few days: Holla Bend in Arkansas and Salt Plains in Oklahoma. Neither provided spectacles as grand as some we have seen in other NWRs but we always feel rewarded by the time we spend in these marvellous places.

NWRs are there for wildlife, not people; normally there are no camping facilities so we look for nearby public campgrounds boasting unique or attractive natural features. State parks have been very good to us on this trip: lately we’ve had fascinating geology at Petit Jean, mountain vistas at Mount Nebo (both in Arkansas), salt flats and selenite crystals at Salt Plains, expansive sand dunes at Beaver Dunes (both in Oklahoma).

At this time of year crowding is not a problem – we can usually find a corner off by ourselves. We camped at Great Salt Plains State Park adjacent to the NWR, went to sleep with a horned owl calling from a tree beside us, then awoke to find a huge flotilla -- hundreds of white pelicans and double-crested cormorants -- rafting down the Arkansas River Salt Fork right behind our camper. Try matching that at your typical KOA campground.

On these transcontinental migrations all we can ever do is a trace a long thin line, trying to ensure the current line is sufficiently different from the ones we’ve traced before. Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma were ‘lifers’ for us this time so we headed out into that new territory. Following Oklahoma 64 along the Oklahoma Panhandle, squeezed between Kansas to the north, Texas to the south, we know we’re now well and truly in the west: prairie-dog towns, loggerhead shrikes, singing western meadowlarks, rusting ranch windmills. New Mexico is next on our horizon.

--Alan

American Idyll 2: Days in Dixie

George Washington National Forest in Virginia provided sanctuary from Interstate 81. We had out-of-the-way Elizabeth Furnace campground almost to ourselves and went to bed with only a chorus of crickets to let us know we weren’t alone in the world. In the morning we ambled through a forest of soaring unfamiliar hardwoods – hickories, ashes, walnuts – and got reacquainted with some of the birds of Dixie: red-bellied woodpecker, Carolina wren, eastern towhee, tufted titmouse to name a few.

Having spent time in the White Mountains, then the Green, we moved on to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Shenandoah National Park. Jan impressed me no end singing every word of John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’. No wonder he so adored Shenandoah. After two vista-filled days there we decided we’d lingered long enough and needed to make up some ground before falling hopelessly behind schedule. Back to Interstate 81 we went. How gratifying it was to find that the Virginia’s segment of 81 is vastly calmer and more scenic than Pennsylvania’s. On the road our favourite music sounds even better. Who better to accompany us through Tennessee than the incomparable Jesse Winchester. Mississippi, You’re on My Mind, Yankee Lady, Biloxi and of course, The Brand New Tennessee Waltz never sounded better.

Jan demonstrated yet again why she is the woman for me. Cruising past another vast field of ripe cotton she commenced to recite Robert Service from memory: Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows...

Tennessee delivered two out-of-the-way state park campgrounds on the US long weekend, Panther Creek and Meeman-Shelby. On our late-in-afternoon walk in the former we found six woodpecker species. A rule of thumb we abide by: if woodpeckers like it, so will we. At Meeman-Shelby at the edge of the Mississippi we camped in a tall forest of oak, cypress and tupelo and, at night, listened to barred owls outshouting each other. In the morning we went down to the high cottonwoods at the edge of the Mississippi and got lost in a reverie of Huck Finn and his pal Jim rafting down the great river.

In Memphis we visited the national war cemetery which dwarfs even the biggest of the Great War cemeteries we saw in Flanders only a month ago. Nearly 14,000 Civil War soldiers are buried here, more than 8,800 of them unknown.

--Alan

American Idyll 1: Mountains of Every Hue

We bade farewell to Nova Scotia after turning the key at Big Bras d’Or and spending four perfectly relaxing days with Jon and Kathleen at Halifax. Before leaving Nova Scotia we detoured to Port Greville on the Parrsboro shore to pay respects to George Perry, an old pal I admired from the get-go who in 40 years has never given me reason to change my opinion of him.

We spent a night with Cousin Carol and Herb, her spouse of 50 years, at Nackawic, New Brunswick. I am known to claim that Carol was the first woman I ever slept with, during a visit with us at Dartmouth long ago. The truth is, she was a teenager, I was only eight and I have no recollection of trying to exploit the situation. Carol is still a babe after all these years – and ever so kind too. Two hours after leaving Nackawic, well into Maine, I realized I’d left my laptop at her place. She and Herb generously drove to the border at Houlton to return it to me. There was a time I thought my father somewhat harsh for calling me ‘Halfwit’. Nowadays I consider him to have been too kind, perhaps by half.

Maine gave me a new sense of itself, not necessarily a flattering one. After eight years of George Bush how could anyone be hot for a four-year date with John McCain? But here’s the rub: we saw 39 McCain campaign signs before our first Obama one hove into view, a life ring to a man drowning in heavy seas.

We rendezvoused with Bob Nagel in New Hampshire and spent an entirely happy day wandering among the White Mountains, eyeballing a galaxy of fall colours, tramping a creekside trail, enjoying one another’s company over beer and Aussie wine. There are wooden ships, Bob likes to say, and iron ones too, but there’s no ship like friendship.

Driving through New York we only waved at the Adirondacks and Catskills. Perhaps if they were called the Pink Mountains, or maybe the Chartreuses we might have lingered awhile longer to supplement our mountain crayon collection.

On our own again At Gifford Woods State Park at the south end of Vermont’s Green Mountains we climbed a thousand feet and gawked at the view from Deer Leap Overlook.

Interstate 81 through Pennsylvania was often hair-raising, evoking a demolition derby. South of Harrisburg, boxed in by 18-wheelers on all fours sides, I thought, this is an accident waiting to happen. Soon afterward traffic ground to a standstill and we quickly learned why: tailgating had claimed two big trucks, one of the trailers snapped in two, gutted of its 20-ton load of turmeric. Or was it 40? Who knew there was so much turmeric in all the world.

By now we were in Civil War territory – or War Between the States if you prefer – passing Gettysburg, Martinsburg, Antietam.

--Alan

Back from the Front -- Mission Accomplished

We are back on the left side of the Atlantic after our two-week return engagement with Great War ghosts. After spending ten congenial days with our captain, fellow Western Front Association member Jack Patten, and six other Great War pilgrims, Jan and I rented a little diesel Renault Elf Twingo and went right back again for three more days – and 680 kilometres – in the battlefields of Flanders and the Somme.

We visited some of the same sites that drew us during the 2005 bicycle venture – and a great many more that grew important as a result of all the reading and research I have pursued in the intervening three years. A big disappointment of the 2005 trip was that Canada’s national war memorial at Vimy Ridge was under restoration, hidden behind shrouds and scaffolding. Now it has been splendidly restored; our afternoon at Vimy was a highlight of the trip. Our bias, shared with many who are not Canadian, is that the Vimy memorial is the most magnificent among the hundreds scattered throughout Belgium and northern France.

Jack saw to it that his troupe had occasional relief from the Great War. We heeded the Second World War and The Hundred Years War too, visiting German V2 rocket sites near St. Omer and in the Eperlingues forest, and the 1415 battlefield at Agincourt. Once on our own Jan and I took a short detour from the front and visited Brugge (Bruges), the remarkable UNESCO World Heritage Belgian city.

Especially gratifying for me was managing to complete a personal mission: to visit all the sites where the 22 Boularderie soldiers lost in the war are buried or remembered. Jan indulged my ardor to visit a number of sites related to people and events significant to the great-uncles who fought in Nova Scotia’s 25th Battalion. Uppermost among those was my visit to the grave of Elsworth Young, my uncle Harrison’s friend and platoon-mate, who was among 23 Canadian soldiers shot at dawn for desertion during the war. Before departing for Flanders I spent part of an afternoon with four of Elsworth’s great-nieces. I look forward to seeing them again and reporting on our experience.

We were blessed with good weather and good fortune and I return with plenty to think about and a hatful of ideas for further projects.

--Alan

Back to the Front

We are in Halifax all atwitter about our departure tonight for Heathrow and Sunday’s return to the Western Front of Flanders and France. In 2005 we shared our maiden voyage to the First World War battlefields with pedaling pals Mary and Mike. This time we’re sharing a van with eight fellow Great War aficionados who will be as keen as ourselves to eat, drink and sleep Canada’s battlefields for ten days or so. On the first visit Canada’s magnificent memorial at Vimy was under restoration, covered in shrouds and scaffolding. Now it is restored in all its original glory. We can hardly wait. Our itinerary includes several stops to accommodate my wish to visit the graves of Cape Breton soldiers not on my radar three years ago.

On the way to Halifax we paused at beautiful Marble Mountain at the west end of the Bras d’Or Lakes to visit cousin Dan Livingstone and tap into another mother lode of ancient family photographs. I never tire of looking for fresh treasure and exult when the effort leads me to new nuggets.

Our hosts in Halifax are sister Kathleen and brother-in-law Jon. Jon is 20 pounds leaner three weeks after open-heart surgery to replace a faulty valve. Those who are acquainted with my excellent bro-in-law will be pleased to hear he is doing well: it is only a matter of days before he’ll be leaping over tall buildings in a single bound.

--Alan

Cousin Dan Delivers Archival Gold

After nearly a week of fair weather the rain and drizzle returned with a vengeance to Cape Breton. SAD [Seasonal Affective Disorde] erodes the psyche. How marvellous that worthy indoor pursuits have come along to provide relief. Cousin Dan Livingstone came for a visit bearing archival treasure: two of his father Harrison’s old photo albums. I spent hours photographing the old pictures. A selection is available for viewing on my Flickr site.

In the waning days of August Jan is in canning mode. We are the richer for a big cache of green tomato chow and several jars of the prized bakeapples. While Jan preserves I watch for breaks in the rain to snatch opportunities for making progress at construction of a new storage shed. Rainfall amounts for August are two and a half times normal. I have only dim memories of sunny days.

Only a week to go before we head back to the Western Front to mingle with Great War ghosts. I busy myself familiarizing the brain with the whereabouts of key places, battles, cemeteries and grave sites.

--Alan

Robert Masterfinder

Jan has yet another reason to cherish The Great Nagel. Blessed with a fine day Monday we three spent several hours clearing brush from Bob’s old Big Hill road and scouting a new trail route across his back forty to Dalem Lake. She oughtn’t to have needed the reminding but Jan got a refresher anyway: that it’s a bad idea to wear beloved jewellery whilst working in the woods. Her comfortable old fleece sweatshirt sports a hole, a souvenir from an old bonfire spark, hidden by a brooch as we set out on our bush-whacking adventure. Several hours and a few kilometres later, alas, her brooch was gone. It was only small consolation that she discovered the loss only moments after a serendipitous close encounter with a beautiful barred owl. A day later she resolved to mount a search for the brooch. I set our chances of finding it as somewhere south of 10,000-to-one. I was wrong. Robert has a long history of finding other people’s lost jewels and valuables. But spotting a bauble on a sidewalk or a sandy beach is one thing; he couldn’t possibly find Jan’s brooch in a five-kilometre stretch of trackless woods. Retracing our route, Jan and I walked right past the brooch. Robert didn’t. I was amazed – and still am.

Just because we don’t have running water or real electricity here in the Big Bras d’Or woods doesn’t mean we live like poor folk. Chef Jan is forever turning out four-star feasts on our little three-burner gas range. Once in a while I feel duty-bound to give her a break in the only culinary art I can fake a modicum of skill: East Indian cookery. Cape Bretoners apparently have no taste for Indian food; at least that’s what we conclude from the paucity of ingredients we find in local stores. But in the absence of garam masala or real paneer we make do with what we find. On Monday I put together a four-part extravaganza that seemed pleasing enough to Bob and The Mighty Sparrows, Lynn and Louise.

Though well past their childhood years the twins still have lots of wonder in them. After dinner, under a starry night sky, we went down to the swimmin’ hole in search of something wondrous. Now that we’re into the final third of August we found what we went looking for. Late August brings a bloom of bioluminescent diatoms to our shore: tiny creatures that light brightly and briefly when the water around them is disturbed. How marvellous it is to swim in a galaxy of tiny water fireflies as the stars of that other galaxy twinkle overhead.

--Alan

Here Came the Sun

Wednesday brought a most astonishing and welcome surprise: sunshine. After another grey drizzly start to the day, the cloud cover broke and the long-unseen sun showed itself for the first time in a fortnight. Jan proposed that we head out, binoculars in hand to see if we could find thirty bird species in our own woods before noon. By mid-August fall migration is underway and we soon found a little flock of songbirds taking a feeding break on their southward journey. Together with our three of local breeding warblers -- Magnolia, Blackburnian, Black-and-White -- we found Black-throated Green and several American Redstarts. Every one a jewel. A gang of twenty White-winged Crossbills noisily announced themselves and provided a good look. The song of the Hermit Thrush, beautiful and evocative, has only one rival, its near relative, Swainson’s Thrush. We heard the former and had a close look at the latter. Yellow-bellied and Alder Flycatchers boosted our list by two. A Brown Creeper, not frequently seen in our neck of the woods, brought us to an even thirty, right on target.

Sunshine endured right through the afternoon. Feeling like lottery winners we stayed outside, took our first saltwater swim in eleven days. Good fortune persisted. Lynn and Louise call our place The Resort. It lived up to the billing for their arrival later in the afternoon. We stayed outside savouring the sun and a glass of Viognier. The Darlings hosted a four-star feast at the Spaghetti Benders Restaurant just up the road. Back at the cabin clear skies continued. Open starry nights have been a rarity of late but this night’s was the exception – and just in time for the annual Perseid meteor shower. Hail the cosmos.

--Alan

Laugh, and a Few Pals Laugh with You

Laughter is the best antidote. To foul weather, break-in artists, failing infrastructure -- take your pick. Big Bras d’Or in the summer of ’08 manages to make even Scotland’s weather look good. Last year during our September ride through the Scottish islands and highlands we were spared rain on only four of 28 days. No wonder, I asserted at the time, my ancestors fled that gloomy sunless land. Hah! Over the past 25 days our part of ‘New Scotland’ has delivered only two rain-free days. Mea culpa, Caledonia, I take it all back.

So what to do in the face of bad weather? You laugh. And one of the most efficient routes to a laughter-fest is to invite The Darlings, Lynn and Louise, out for supper. My tiny perfect cousins have only one rival as geysers of relentless good cheer and that would be irrepressible Mary Ellen Sanseverino, but no one, not even Mary, matches them as merrymakers. On the weekend we called on the darlings to share a scallop feast with us at Bob’s -- and lift the clouds for a spell while they were at it. Lift they did. So what if some of us stayed up way past our normal bedtime. Who cares if a few woke up the next morning feeling slightly tattered after one too many glasses of wine. Good Presbyterian girls they are, marooned in a nest of atheists, wonderful singers who somehow manage to turn a dusty hymn into something as cheerful as a rollicking Irish pub song. Arrange some time late in a convivial evening to get them singing ‘Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling’.

Pity the poor unfortunates who never get to wake in the Maritimes to CBC Radio’s ‘Weekend Mornings’. A phone-in musical request show that delivers a sense of our part of Canada, this one-of-a-kind program features a studio stallion and frequent spins of Wilf Carter, Hank Snow and Stompin’ Tom but also regularly introduces us to bright young songwriting lights. Some of us arranged to have light-of-heart, light-in-the-loafers Randy Campbell call in a special request for our beloved Bob. Not the parvenu David Lee Roth version, but the gold-standard Bing Crosby arrangement of ‘Just a Gigolo’. Those of us tuned in Sunday morning fell off our chairs from all the laughing.

Keep smilin’.

--Alan

Nova Scotia Farewells

So long anticipated, so soon over. Long-distance pedaling pals Mary and Mike are back on the road again after a four-day stay with us at Big Bras d’Or. They departed for Newfoundland Saturday morning after four days resting the saddle sores. The third of the 3M transcontinental cyclists, Mark, departed a day earlier. On the one fair weather day nature provided during their stay we gave the hiking muscles a small workout, tramping from Lighthouse Point in Louisbourg national park to Western Head.

Saturday featured another sort of departure. We laid the ashes of my cousin Ted in the family plot at St. James cemetery. That farewell featured a reading of Yeats’s Lake Isle of Innisfree and some lines from Burns’s Tam O’Shanter. The family’s less-than-perfect arrangement of Danny Boy was offset by a fine rendering of Flowers of the Forest from young piper Michael MacMillan.

Four kinfolk braved the lousy weather with us over the long weekend – sister Kathleen, bro-in-law Jon, nephew Michael and his bride Alice. At times we defied the bad weather and went looking for orchids at Big Harbour, Frenchvale and Petersfield Park. The later stop delivered our quarry, the lovely Helleborine, Epipactis helleborine.

In the absence of the real sun over so many days we take comfort from the little ‘stored sunshine’ afforded by our essential, cherished Drolet woodstove. That and an occasional wee dram of scotch mist keep the drears at bay.

--Alan

Hail the Conquering Heroes

Oh Joy! Mary and Mike arrived at the cabin yesterday, tanned and oh-so-lean 84 days and 7,900 km into their Victoria-to-St. John’s bicycle odyssey. Check the flickr site (link on right) to see a little portfolio of our heroes. Mike shed 29 pounds along the way, Mary is sleek as a jungle cat. Nine provinces down, one to go before their bragging rights go right through the roof. They landed in early evening while the outside thermometer was still reading plus-80F so of course we all enjoyed a dip in the ol’ swimmin’ hole below the cabin before breaking into the Alexander Keith’s and tucking into a big pot of Jan’s best lobster chowder. Long ago in early May we joined our pals for the first leg of their transcontinental adventure, but today we’d have a hard time keeping their dust in sight. Their marvellous physical and mental state is a great advertisement for the benefits of crossing Canada by velocipede. They’re going to slow down for a few days at Big Bras d’Or, enjoy the view from the cabin porch, get some laundry done, perhaps even stretch out on the hammock for an hour or two. They’ve earned a break.

--Alan

July 26: The War on Sag, Mush and Turkey-skin

All play and no work, my Jannie asserts, turns boyo into a flaccid drone. It’s all well and good to overindulge on lobster, swill beer, and overburden the hammock but, by gum, there’s work to be done too. So well has Jan put her stamp on every corner of the cabin that she’s now demanding renos on the renovations she initiated a decade ago. This year’s major interior project is a set of kitchen cabinets she likes quite a lot, but she cites Shakespeare’s immortal wisdom, “Perseverance keeps honour bright”, and has further shack improvements in full percolation.

I have my own motivation for getting to work. It was devastating enough to have pal Judith Hunt note my “saggy tits”. Then cousin-in-law Diane Campbell added to the misery by drawing attention to my “mushy bum”. Finally Jan herself drew notice to the “turkey skin” gathering around my neck. Enough! I fired up the chainsaw and cut four truckloads of birch, maple et al firewood with pal Bob Nagel. The mountain of firewood requires splitting of course and Jan swears nothing does so fine a job of firming up my saggy boobs and mushy bum as a protracted session with the splitting maul, wedges and axes. I’ll let you know how it goes.

--Alan

July 20: Pedalling Perils

Pity the poor bicycle that gets to haul my weighty carcass over the hills and backroads of Boularderie Island. Mike Whitney – who knows a thing or two about the subject and has pedaled a few thousand kilometres with me – says I am hard on a bike. Mike has been a witness to more than a few of my blown tires, wrecked bottom-brackets and broken chains but Friday delivered an adventure in bicycle breakdown that might have impressed even Mike. Being of wide-body construction I have a tractor-style saddle on my Trek that provides plenty of posterior support and comfort. Jan and I had just begun the eastward ascent of the Calabash Road when I noticed a wobble in the great saddle and quickly discovered that the two-inch bolt securing the seat to the saddle-stem had sheared in two. I was suddenly seatless. Unwilling to walk the bike all the way back home I was left with the sole option of riding it standing on the pedals. Try riding a bike over distance up hill and down dale without ever sitting on the saddle and you too will soon discover it ain’t easy. But the prospect of wearing my seatless bike in a most uncomfortable way was a powerful incentive and I managed to get back to Big Bras d’Or without once lapsing into absent-mindedness.

On Sunday, well-supported on the backup bike, I completed the journey over the Calabash and along Boularderie’s beautiful south side with Jan and Bob. How grateful I felt to have a fine day, my boon companions, the scenic Calabash and a bicycle with a saddle.

-- Alan

July 19: Riding the Big Wave

It is a fine fact of Big Bras d’Or summer life that lobster season lasts till July 15, that three of the vessels in the lobster-boat fleet are operated by friends, and the wharf is only two kilometres down the road from our shack in the woods. While it’s regrettable for the fishermen that the price of market lobsters, just five bucks a pound, is the lowest it’s been in a quarter century, it’s a great boon to those of us who love the endearingly tasty crustaceans.

For the last decade or so the ‘Big Wave’ has wound up the lobster season with a little festival of food, music and merrymaking, an opportunity to tip a beer or two at the wharf with old friends, make a few new ones, and marvel again at all the musical talent that abounds among our friends and neighbours. Sadly, after two weeks of hot sunny weather, the skies turned grey and damp for the big day, but never mind, Big Wavers insist on having fun in whatever circumstance nature provides. The event flourishes in the hands of the same reliable volunteers year after year, and even a calloused cynic such as I am forced to admit it does a fine job of bringing out the best of our neighbours’ community spirit.

Click here for pictures from the Big Wave.

-- Alan

Sunday, July 13: Blair’s Birthday Bash

Every year we look forward to Blair Campbell (Alan’s third cousin) hosting a barbeque marking his birthday. Blair’s wife Shelley Allen, and Shelley’s sister Cindy are local well known musicians (and music teachers) so after all are stuffed and sufficiently lubricated, Shelley’s guitars and drums come out, Cindy puts on her accordion, and all join in to the best of their abilities. Tonight featured an impromptu classical guitar recital by another guest, Doug Johnson. Doug tried out my guitar and found it greatly to his liking, then switched to a steel-stringed guitar and showed his virtuosity in that genre, too. We all had a marvelous time belting out the words we knew and otherwise listening to the beautiful voices of Shelley and Cindy. Happy Birthday Blair (and thanks for the shot of Laphroaig)!

--Jan

Saturday, July 12: St. Esprit Idyll

They know Cape Breton like the back of their hands, the twins. Today they showed us another of their favourite spots: a beach to rival the Pacific Rim National Park, lacking only the people, an improvement in the opinion of our group. We ambled along the beach for hours, happy to wait as Alan took careful close-up shots of every beach-flower, interesting cloud formation or bit of flotsam that we came across. Bob found a washed-up bait bag and filled it with interesting rocks, including one with imbedded clear quartz shining like a diamond in the sun. I found a mussel shell with coral on the outside and a short string of pearls on the interior. Every time we are out with Bob Nagel, the old songs burst out, so you can imagine the five of us walking down the beach singing “Got no diamonds, got no pearls…” Alan kept proposing games involving throwing beach rocks, then winning every game. Some bird highlights of the day were ten whimbrels on the beach (bachelors or early migrants?), spotting four (two different families) downy young spotted sandpipers, a pair of tree swallows feeding young in a light standard.

-- Jan

Wrung out in Washabuck

Always on the lookout for new bicycling vistas we eyed the almost-an-island Washabuck Peninsula and its circa-55-kilometre perimeter road. Too bad we picked the hottest day of the year. People looked aghast as we pedaled by. The long climb from Lower Washabuck to the Gillis Point overlook sucked most of our remaining starch. A kind lady provided life-saving water while pointing out that her outside thermometer showed 40-plus degrees. The crew bailed out at the highland village near Iona. I carried on alone toward Little Narrows to retrieve the truck, arms ablaze in the broiling sun, but was soon overtaken by two Ontario Samaritans delivering Jan on the same mission. Just for the hell of it I carried on. Jan got there first – by a long shot. Our friends Mary, Mike and Mark, two months into their C2C cross-Canada bike trip easily manage a hundred klicks a day, sometimes 160. I decided I wasn’t worth a thimble of Mary’s spit.

The heatwave continues. We installed the infrastructure to the swimmin’ hole and made good use of it in the afternoon inferno. The hammock became a priority too and the cooling birches among which it swings are a great comfort. The sleeping porch provides a little cool at night, but not necessarily perfect quiet. A herd of raccoons foraged unsurreptitiously under the porch corner. The beam of my flashlight reflected six pairs of eyes. Coyotes serenade shortly after nightfall. Meanwhile, the rabbits – more correctly the varying hares – are ever more brazen. They munch on the produce of Jan’s garden and now completely ignore her empty threats of violence. She can forgive the inroads on her celery but the violations against her basil are altogether too much. I propose a whiff of grapeshot; Jan is kind: she insists a length of chicken mesh will do.

--Alan

Riding the Slios

All work and no play gives Bozo a sore back. We vary the woodcutting and whippersnipping with occasional forays on the bicycles or in hiking boots.

The Slios a Briochan [‘SLISH A BROCKAN’] is the name the old Gaels gave the place along the eastern slope of Kelly’s Mountain from New Harris toward Big Harbour. The ancient road is too impassable now even for Leo in 4-wheel drive so we thought this would make an excellent traffic-free bike route. Indeed it was. Once past the last house we didn’t have to share our surrounds with other humans. Warbler and flycatcher song filled the forest. A brave mother ruffed grouse attacked Dennis, causing such a start he nearly fell off the bike.
A splendid male pine grosbeak paraded from the top of a tall spruce. The road grew rougher and knocked me butt-over-bugle on a steep, washed-out, bouldery section; I was still game to carry on to Big Harbour but the others chickened out, opting for a picnic lunch in the cool of a shady brookside grotto at the foot of Beinn Scalpie. Wimps.

Lobster season winds down. We’ve had three big boils already and converted leftovers to a gratifying plethora of chowdahs and sangwitches [those are not typos but Bob Nagel’s preferred pronunciations].

Yesterday being the Fourth of July we did a big chicken in the smoker-cooker, bellowed out a rousing arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner and produced a bonfire to give the Boston Yanks a fireworks display to remember.

--Alan

In Search of the Wild Orchid

We spent the Canada Day weekend socializing with friends and family and swatting away deer flies in pursuit of the wild orchid. The weekend featured visits from sister Kathleen, bro-in-law Jon, niece Mairin and her squeeze Brian. ‘The Bostons’ -- the great Bob Nagel, his nephew Dennis and Dennis’s better half, Nancy -– arrived in time to join in the festivities.

At the Englishtown Mussel Festival on Saturday some of us heard 80-year-old Lloyd Stone relate details of his solo ski trip across the highlands national park that went off the rails when, alas, he ran out of snow. Eight bucks bought us two enormous bowls of mussels, a cup of tea and dessert of blueberries on shortcake. En route to Big Harbour we crossed paths again with Great Hiker Dana Meise, still in our area after allowing himself to be distracted by the allure of the Cape Breton highlands and a whale-watching adventure.

Our quest for orchids took us on hunts along abandoned roads, from New Harris to Big Harbour and thence to Plaister Mines among the gypsum hills and cliffs. After a good day Sunday with Jon and Kathleen we liked the habitat so well we did it again on Canada day with The Mighty Sparrows, cousins Lynn & Louise. Take the measure of our flower-finding success here:

Our Flickr Site

--Alan

A Few Small Verities

Big Bras d'Or evokes what Jan describes as my hackneyed "Ah, the eternal verities." The climate scientists tell us the end is near but I take small heart from the Old Reliables I find around me every spring when we return to Cape Breton.

The carpets of bunchberry and clintonia are at least as spectacular as they ever were. Maybe more. A pair of loons pledge their troth to each other on the still water of Dalem Lake. The flame-throated Blackburnian warbler asserts his dominion from the same tall spruce overlooking our middle meadow as his ancestor did when I first took notice three decades ago. Their deed to the land goes back far before my own. Not all the verities are as warmly embraced as the warblers. Hordes of blackflies greet our every spring arrival. Eventually they wane a bit, only to be replaced by the mosquitos. On the bright side, the bugs are a boon to the warblers. Feast well, my feathered friends. Every June brings a brief migration of carpenter ants. Once upon a time I fretted they would devour the cabin before the shingles had a chance to curl in the sun. The cabin still stands and now I mostly let the ants alone. As Bob Nagel puts it, they're only doing what they're supposed to.

Squirrels have the run of our immediate neighbourhood and why not, they are permanent here, not mere arrivistes like the noisy diesel-powered creatures who arrive in June and are gone by October. Jan was very pleased with her newly painted bathhouse; the squirrels seemed much less impressed but they were clearly delighted with the jar of stale peanut butter we placed in the crook of a nearby birch. Their quarrels over the stuff endlessly entertained.


When I was a boy John F. MacDonald had the place next door to the old Livingstone homestead. the most memorable of the John F. residents was a bilingual
parrot who could berate in Spanish as well as she did in English -- and tell you whether John F.'s son Alistair was out milking the goats. Today all that is
left of John F.'s house is the foundation. The parrot is gone but a forest of Solomon-seal and Day lilies flourishes by the ruin. We liberated a few of the flowers and transplanted them by the bathhouse. The heritage flowers appear to be doing well.




After two weeks back at the old cabin we are settling into our own routines. I have cleared the trail to Dalem Lake of its usual winter allotment of windfall. We found our first junco nest yesterday and heard our first pine grosbeaks and yellow-bellied flycatchers on the homeward leg just this morning. The lake seems warm enough that our first Dalem dip could occur tomorrow morning. Then we'll know that summer has really arrived.

--Alan

Marathon Man

Sometimes serendipity happens too. On Saturday at the indispensable North Sydney Library, where we collect and ship email and pursue our miscellaneous Internet preoccupations, we crossed paths with Dana Meise [pronounced 'MY-zee'], just arrived on the ferry Smallwood after spending 47 days completing the Newfoundland portion of a cross-Canada walk. We are very impressed with pals Mary, Mike & Mark who are embarked on a similar transcontinental odyssey, albeit on bicycles; to cross the country on foot, alone, seems all the more astonishing. Carrying as much as a hundred pounds on his back and averaging 35 to 40 kilometres on each walking day, he actually trudged 65 km to complete the last leg of the Newfoundland slog. Imagine it.

Dana is a 33-year-old forestry technician from Prince George following his bliss from east to west. Our 3xM pals are doing it in the opposite direction. They have been at it for about the same length of time and have already progressed deeply into the blackfly-infested wilds of northern Ontario. Dana has a long way to go. To give him a break from the tent we invited him to spend a night with us at the Big Bras d'Or cabin. He arrived after nightfall -- under his own power of course -- and entertained us with accounts of his Newfoundland adventures. And tales of time spent in the bush west of Prince George with a grandfather who lived off the land on moose, deer, bear and what he grew in his own garden.

When it comes to facing a big challenge his granddad taught Dana that "if you work hard, it comes easy". Dana is walking the country simply because it's a big challenge he has wanted to do for a long time. His night at Big Bras d'Or turned into a rest day during which he entertained us with accounts of his adventures with bears in the wilds of British Columbia and Alberta and his happy encounters with fascinating Newfoundlanders, both human and not. Sharing a stretch of the Trans-Canada Trail with an unworried lynx was one highlight, meeting Newfoundland legendary railway historian Mont Lingard another.

It was a great treat for us to befriend a young guy who is not just a marvel of determination and grit but reflects a positive attitude towards people that we all -- maybe I particularly -- would do well to emulate. We said our farewells this morning, Dana having to submit to a short ride across the Seal Island bridge. No walker, not even one embarked on a Great Hike across the country, is allowed to walk across the Seal Island bridge.

Happy walking, Forrest Gump.

--Alan

Dana Meise's blog:
http://www.thegreathike.com/

Mary-Mike-and-Mark's blog:
http://canadac2c.blogspot.com/

Paradise Lost

Jan and I are settled into the summer place at Big Bras d'Or, somewhat recovered from a rude welcome. For the first time in the 37 years since I built the cabin overlooking the Great Bras d'Or, miscreants broke into the place, looting it of most of my power tools and other items of personal value. Anyone who has had to deal with a similar experience will appreciate the storm of emotions that swarmed us in the ensuing days. My initial homicidal fury morphed into a deep gloom that had me thinking about leaving Cape Breton forever. Now I have reached a stage of looking for ways of making my former shangri-la less vulnerable to thieves and vandals, and trying to restore some of the feeling for 'Bigador' the thieves stole along with the material items. Oddly perhaps, I find myself feeling apologetic on Cape Breton's behalf: we have learned a lot of this goes on around us.

On the bright side, friends have been exceedingly kind and supportive, and the non-human residents of Big Pay's old farm are as delightful as ever. A white-tailed doe and her two yearling fawns make an occasional appearance near the cabin and the varying hares -- still showing white feet -- munch on their grass, evidently not too concerned that the nuisance humans are back for another summer. Jan makes sure there is plenty of sugar water for the hummingbirds but, never mind, the little warriors want it all for themselves and battle endlessly. A barred owl has serenaded us a couple of nights from behind the workshop. Several species of warblers sing their territorial-imperative songs within earshot of us: Magnolia, Parula, Myrtle and the beautiful Blackburnian. We have a fine show of wildflowers, as our Flickr pictures will demonstrate.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/



The calendar says summer is just around the corner but there is no sign of it in Cape Breton. It is the Drolet woodstove that has kept us warm most days, not the sun. Today we're told to expect a high temperature of no better than 13 degrees. But Jan is Doug Brown's daughter and her garden is planted nonetheless.

Given the extra projects delivered by the break-in artists we haven't put much mileage on the bikes or hiking boots but that will change soon enough. In anticipation of our September return visit to the Great War battlefields I continue to look for relics of the Boularderie soldiers who went off to Flanders and France and never returned. Nova Scotia Power doesn't supply us with the wherewithal to operate a sewing machine but that doesn't stop Jan from making progress the old-fashioned way on her 'Jewels of the Pacific' quilt for the Auckland-Victoria Challenge.

-Alan