Farewell Big Bras d’Or

And then there were none. The final Big Bras d’Or days brought greater stillness and dwindling hours of sunlight. The solar panel could no longer keep our batteries charged. We relied on the old-fashioned method of lighting the cabin after sundown: kerosene lamps. The Drolet kept us semi-warm at night as ice formed on the rain barrels and wash basin outside.

Fall colours peaked then began to fade. Furred and feathered co-tenants adjusted to the changing season. On consecutive nights barred owls called within a few feet of the cabin. Can they be courting already? Squadrons of scoters mobilized on the Great Bras d’Or, their maneuvers given away by the whistle of wings. Bald eagles returned in numbers from their hiatus at the Bird Islands. Hares lived up to their ‘varying’ label. Now their feet are white, the colour they will soon be overall -– all the better to hide in snow from those who would have them for lunch. A pair of squirrels set up their winter abode in the woodshed, objecting loudly when I stacked the last of the year’s birch and maple too close to their boudoir.

It takes a while to put the buildings to bed for the winter. I fell off the camper roof when the ladder skidded off the deck on a wet day. Casualties included bruises and contusions but no broken bones. I count myself lucky. By noon hour Saturday the cabin was shuttered and we were gone.

We went to Black Rock at the mouth of the Shubenacadie River on Cobequid Bay and stayed with Nancy and Donnie. We played Scrabble during a driving rainstorm, then when the sun came out we did too. One of the nature guides in the Nelson library got me thinking of slitherers. Have you ever seen a red-bellied snake, I asked. No. On our walk to the river we found one, sunning itself on the gravel road, the first I’d ever laid eyes on.

Now we are in Halifax hanging out with kith and kin. Doris is a little underweight for my liking but I’m grateful that my dear old mother outperforms most 86-year-olds when it comes to walking, laughing and cussing out wayward sons. Yesterday my kid sister Kathleen had a second surgery for breast cancer. The markers are all good and she is a fit, feisty flyweight. I feel confident.

In the city we look for city diversions. We dined with pals Stephen and Sheila at the Old Triangle pub in the heart of the old town. Cape Breton fiddler Dave MacIsaac provided the evening’s musical entertainment. Reels, jigs and strathspeys are not to all tastes: Stephen looked about as happy as if he were having a double root canal without anaesthetic. Jan and I are keen for more. Tonight we’re off to see and hear the great Lennie Gallant.

We are here another week before heading to the winter base camp. Victorians will have us to kick around again November 3.

Alan

Bob’s Birthday Bash Knocks ‘Em Out

Bob Nagel turned 80 the other day -- the youngest 80-year-old you are likely ever to meet. Several of the many Canadians who love him made pilgrimage to Boston and surrounds to mark the great occasion with all the ceremony it warranted.

Keen to make the most of our time in ‘the Boston states’ our contingent drove all the way from Cape Breton to Bob’s Roslindale neighbourhood in one day, more than 1,400 km in 14 hours, much of it in driving rain. But Thursday was sunny and blithe and Robert led us on a walkabout in old downtown Boston that was illuminating as it was irreverent. We country mice gawked at the modern skyscrapers, wandered old cemeteries among the graves of John Hancock and Paul Revere and dined as the Bostonians do on scrod and Sam Adams beer.

Eleven of us rented a sprawling house at Chatham on Cape Cod. We followed our various notions of bliss during the day then gathered in the evenings to revel, dine on fresh local seafood, and beat each other senseless in super-competitive, go-for-the-throat Bananagrams battles. (If you don’t know Bananagrams, do yourself a favour -- get yourself a game; abundant fun is guaranteed while you give your grey matter a vigorous workout.)

We liked the offerings of the Cape Cod National Seashore: Great Island, Marconi Beach, White Cedar Trail. The Cape’s strange flora and fauna -- forests of pitch pine and oak; fiddler and horseshoe crabs, and a host of unfamiliar birds -- impressed the heck out of Cape Bretoners accustomed to fir, spruce and beached lobster shells.

We departed Cape Cod early Monday, intent on spend the night at Bar Harbour ME to hike Acadia National Park bright and early Tuesday morning. Tipped by Kathleen and Jon, we stopped en route at Wiscasset –- which calls itself the prettiest village in Maine –- to pig out on the world-famous lobstah rolls dispensed by the good folks at Red’s Eats. Wiscasset is just about as charming as its boast and Red’s rolls were prodigiously tasty on the last day before the diner closes its doors for winter.

Alas, we woke on Tuesday in Bar Harbour to a driving rain and learned it would last the entire day. After prowling some of the shops to spend our last Yankee dollars on tee-shirts and tourmaline baubles we lit out for Canada where the forecast was for better weather Wednesday. And so it was. We went to Alma NB at the doorstep of Fundy National Park. We dined at Saprano’s pizzeria which just happens to occupy a building I know well: it was my Aunt Kitty’s home for decades. We sat in a corner booth which was a bedroom in years gone by and the place I was conceived in 1946.

It turned out a good thing that rain had washed out the Acadia hike. Fundy was sublime: we hiked the Coppermine Trail and ogled the vistas at Wolfe Point and Herring Cove. We marvelled at the scale of the Fundy tides and paused to gawk at old covered bridges. And we saved the best for last. I had promised Lynn and Louise they would love the geological marvels at Hopewell Rocks. And they did. Jan and I were knocked out too. On our first visit a few years back we arrived at high tide and thereby missed much of the spectacle. This time the tide cooperated, allowing us to walk the entire wondrous length of the beach. Sometimes it pays to give a place a second chance.

Alan

Acadian Ramble

I am hard pressed to imagine a better bet for a good time than to go for an all-day outdoor ramble with Cousins Lynn and Louise. We had a date with others on Saturday but when that fell through we hitched our star to the twins’ and let them lead us wherever they might. We wound up in the highlands national park where excitement began right away. Some workmen at the visitor centre showed us a creature the size of a hummingbird with the wing action of a bat. It was a moth – a big, gloriously handsome one – I reckoned as being one of the sphinx moths but with no field guide in the cabin library I shall bow to those who know better.

The four of us set out on the brookside Acadian Trail where the hardwoods – yellow birch, beech, sugar and striped maple – are already showing their autumn colours. Have you ever tried beech nuts, the darlings asked. We hadn’t, so we did and thus discovered why the local squirrel population seemed so full of vigour and good cheer.

Given a choice the twins always prefer the road less travelled: we departed the trail at its high point and followed our leaders on a wildlife track into open upland scrub. Abundant moose and bear scat had us all peeling our eyes for the producers. The sun remained behind clouds in the early going and given the chill wind, falling leaves and the gold-and-russet hillsides there was no denying that summer’s gone. We followed the perimeter of Burnt Hill encountering occasional bands of robins, jays and sparrows on their way south.

The sun broke through conveniently, at the northwestern extreme of our amble. We’d climbed to the top of the world, a local highpoint, and could see forever, or at least far enough to count the wind generators 85 km away at East Point on Prince Edward Island. At about the same distance we picked out the Magdalen Islands we’d last seen up close in 2006. By now, with the sun powering strong updrafts along the face of the ridge, a gang of freeloaders delivered a sky show. Ravens rode the thermals and showed off a typically wide repertoire of somersaults, spins and tumbles. Squadrons of bald eagles sailed past. We looked carefully at them all in hopes of finding a golden eagle among them. None materialized but a screaming red-tailed hawk and young hang-gliding goshawk provided consolation. As did a kestrel, smallest of our falcons, bulleting past our noses.

En route back down the mountain with the sun setting behind Northumberland Strait, mushrooms grabbed our attention. Legions of mushrooms, a feast for mycologists, in several varieties. Through the woods were pathways cobbled not with stones but big white mushrooms, hundreds of them, winding their way as far as we could see. What was responsible, or who? Fairies?

We spent all of the daylight, none remaining by the time the circuit was done. With that eight hours worth of fun behind us, we demanded more. The Acadian village of Cheticamp, just south of the national park, is a fishing port. At the Hometown Kitchen we all opted for fresh haddock; none of us was disappointed.

We returned in the dark, pausing at the Margaree to admire the reflected glory of the moon and Jupiter in still river pools. Back at Bigador it seemed too early to call a halt to fun. We fired up the Drolet, moved the table in front of the stove and played Bananagrams, a word game we’ve taken to with a passion since Kevin Squires introduced us to it a few weeks back. The twins are hooked now too. We’ve felt spoiled rotten many days these past three months or so. This day just might have taken the cake.

Alan

Allure of Early Fall

Fall is canning season at the cabin. One of Jan’s specialties is chow, an eastern specialty she had never heard of till venturing to Nova Scotia a dozen years ago. Now she is a master chow-maker herself, and you don’t have to take my word for it. My mother, herself an artisan, will attest that Jan’s brand is second to none. A batch starts with ten pounds of green tomatoes, five of onions. I help to chop; otherwise I just stand back and watch the show unfold.

Now is also prime time for unhurried forest rambles. We wandered the Big Hill Road on a sublimely quiet sunny day. It may have been a real road long ago but nowadays it is a barely discernible track flanked by a pioneer’s old moss-covered stone wall. In spring these woods are alive with birdsong. The woods are far quieter in early October but not silent. Kinglets chittered occasionally. A soft chuck alerted us to a small group of migrant hermit thrushes pausing to refuel on their passage to Guatemala. A ruffed grouse flushed when we approached too close. In Victoria a gang of Canada geese wouldn’t get a glance; here they are a little more unusual so the flotilla on Dalem Lake warranted a look.

We stopped for a little lunch hoping to reencounter the barred owl we chanced upon a year ago. No luck this time so we amused ourselves identifying the hardwoods visible from where we sat: American beech, paper birch, red maple, trembling aspen. The trees are turning colour, none more splendidly than the maples, some already as red as a Mountie’s dress tunic. Dragonflies went about their business around the lake edges – big blue brutes and exquisite carmine damselflies. Two kinds of caterpillars – the lime-green variety and the orange-and-black one – of the sort we call ‘woolly bears’ regularly crossed our path. Each of them looked intent on getting who-knows-where. A real bear has been seen in the neighbourhood of late – just across the road two days ago – but we didn't encounter Bruno.

Mushrooms are abounding in the woods, most of them beautiful to look at. Some are as tasty to the palate as to the eye but we gather only those we are sure of, so we can live to tell about it. There is more. We disclose to no one the whereabouts of a choice patch of cranberries near the lake. It is already plain we shall have a bumper crop this year, ready for gathering in a fortnight. They will wind up across the country, in Victoria, garnishing our winter porridge.

Alan