All This and the Solstice Too!

Jan's Two Cents:
December 21 is a special day in our family. Dear momma-in-law Doris, my late grandfather, my cousin Marissa and my daughter-in-law’s mom Sandra all share “little Christmas” as their birthday, too. It is a great day to have a birthday: the start of a new year and each day thereafter lets in a little more light.

I continue to keep busy with two quilting groups, two bridge groups and classical guitar -– though I learned only one new piece this year. We also have a step counter and most days get in our 10,000 steps -- before breakfast.

My picks for highlights of the year are the visit from Bob Nagel in March, the Via Rail train trip to Winnipeg in May but most important, Allison and Doug presented us with grandchild number two -– Benjamin Douglas, in late July. I am thrilled to have the matched pair, and those of you who have known Alan forever are probably amazed to see how well he has taken to being a grandparent –- as long as he doesn’t have to change diapers. I love watching him with his pal Lexi, and marveling at him interacting with other young children. All that stuff about how wonderful it is to be a grandparent is actually true!

We have been getting out for hikes in the Sooke Hills with our pals and each time Alan takes the iconic picture at the top of the hill. This gave him the idea to look through our past albums and resulted in a new photo set, The Way We Were:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/sets/72157628426075667/with/6517410881/
Wow, have we ever changed. Still, we are grateful to get to the top of the mountain and anticipate many more wonderful outings next year.

Alan's Two:
It's not endless repetitions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer I like best about the holiday season currently underway. No, my best-of-season choices are a] the excuse the calendar provides to go out on Christmas bird counts, and b] at long last the days start getting longer again.

Jan marvels at me interacting with young children as if this were a revelation, a first-ever phenomenon. It ain't so: Lexi and Ben are capitalizing on a long-established talent of mine. Though I never aspired to be a father, I like to imagine that I was a minor star in the uncle role: a master at entertaining kids through the simple device of turning over rocks to discover what creepy crawlies we might find under them, a sure bet at clowning a laugh or ten out of the most case-hardened two-year-old.

Jan correctly mentions how important our outdoor adventures are, particularly the frequent all-day rambles we relish with four-star pals Mary and Mike. But sometimes we take a break from fresh air and look for indoor entertainment. While Jan quilts I indulge my archival proclivities, wallowing in projects related to the First World War. Jan's list of highlights omits one that I would flag: our latest cross-Canada trip by truck-and-camper. When all was said and done we visited ninety communities across the country, mostly to see war memorials featuring soldier statues. Yeah, I know, most folks would rate such a trial somewhere between a triple root canal and a bad case of gout, but no, even Jan -- bless her heart -- decided it was a brilliant game plan, albeit more for the ancillaries it delivered than for the monuments themselves.

It was my aforementioned Dear Old Momma who learnt me the benefits of counting my blessings. How grateful I am that I can still bushwhack with pals a decade and a half younger, still remember what happened an hour ago without consulting a pocket notebook, still conduct myself such that cherished pals continue to put up with me.

For a taste of why I might like to hang out with them, consult the following seasonal confection:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/6552707233/in/photostream

We both hope the holiday season delivers all the eggnog and turkey you can stand and we wish you all the best for 2012.

Of Whales, War and Waxing the Hated Yankees

Early fall on south Vancouver Island impersonates not just a bowl of cherries but an entire hamper of Cortland apples.

Late September-early October features the annual hawk migration, a celebrated event among local birdoes that I have missed since the last century since Jan and I are normally in Cape Breton at this time, or on the road somewhere between there and here.

Some of the best vantage points for watching the phenomenon -- which can sometimes deliver sightings of hundreds of soaring raptors in eight or ten species at a time -- are found in East Sooke Park. We went out on successive days with best pal Mary, first to the Beechey Head lookout, then to Babbington Hill. Apart from a hundred or so turkey vultures and much smaller numbers of red-tailed hawks, Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks and a peregrine falcon, we had gratifying numbers of band-tailed pigeons and Vaux's swifts.

Perhaps even better than the flying creatures were the swimming ones. Fortune blessed us both days with whale sightings -- lots of whales. A pair of humpbacks was special enough but how do you surpass seeing twenty or more orcas all at once. The orca show on the second day lasted an hour and -- we learned later from people among the whales on the water -- may have included 90 orcas in all.

Greedy for more we waited a week and went back to Babbington on Saturday with Cousin Rob MacDonald, an expatriate Big Bras'Orean now based in Victoria. Alas, overcast skies failed to deliver the warm thermals soaring raptors love to ride so Mary will be pleased to learn she didn't miss out on the golden eagle we hoped to see.

The week featured peregrination of another sort. I time-traveled to 1916-20, to Egypt, Scotland, Iceland and the battlefields of the First World War. And with a notable companion at that: hockey hall-of-famer and WWI flier Frank Fredrickson. Back in May Fredrickson's son and daughter-in-law bestowed on me a mother lode of photos, negatives, war diaries and other documents. Back in Victoria, skookum scanner at my side, I have had five-star fun scanning, sleuthing, researching, writing. And putting together a new photo set on Flickr. The time spent illustrates again that by nature my true calling is archivist. I have had at least as much fun as folks of a different bent might have at a monster truck show, a tango marathon or a first trip to Disneyworld. You can see the proceeds if you like at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/sets/72157625682783721/

Elsewhere in the shiny-apple, good-news department it pleases me to report that Jan's dad -- whose health issue was the reason for our early departure from Cape Breton -- is out of hospital and back in the pink. Now that playoff baseball is underway there is no Sunday entertainment my father-in-law and I like better than to sit and watch, in high definition, as the Tigers of Detroit (or anyone for that matter) put the boots to the despised New York Yankees.

Victoria Delivers Royal Welcome

Victoria embraced us like long lost pals, with relentlessly warm, sunny weather. We returned on Labour Day, our first stop the Saanich Fair, to admire nephew Cai's latest triumph, his restored 1947 Ford tractor, the grill decked out with the latest additions to the lad's blue ribbon collection.

Two days later Mary and Mike returned from four months in Scotland; we pedaled out to meet them and returned in the dark, stopping at a downtown pub to celebrate the reunion with perhaps one pitcher of beer too many.

On Friday I produced a five-part Indian feast to mark Jan's birthday; we shared the proceeds with the Scotland returnees and with Sakamoto, Jane and Von. The latter two allowed the rest of us to spend Saturday night at their summer cabin at Cameron Lake. Sunday morning delivered yet another clear blue day.

Five of us swam in our birthday suits and agreed that a skinny dip with good friends is far, far better than a day at the office. Barricaded access roads foiled our attempt to climb Mount Arrowsmith. To make up for it we took a dusty, winding logging-road route back to Victoria and washed the dust off twice more, at Francis Lake and Cowichan Lake.

A dozen years have passed since my last acquaintance with Victoria in early September. All is green and lush; we are back in time to pay attention to the fall bird migration. Look up, and chances are we'll spot a few turkey vultures here, a sharp-shinned hawk there. We walk the shore looking for jaegers, phalaropes, perhaps a Cassin's auklet.

I'm happy to report that Jan's dad is improving -- his medical problems being the reason for our early return from Cape Breton -- and his prospects look bright.

The truck-and-camper stand by, still licensed, awaiting an impulse for local adventure. I look for a few open days to avail themselves so we can saddle up and head out to new territory.

Of Marble, Granite and Bronze

We have the smell of the Pacific in our noses; the journey is nearly done. Eight thousand kilometres added to the truck odometer, Victoria just a ferry ride away.

Over the past three weeks we steered truck and camper into the heart of 69 Canadian cities, towns and villages to see the community war memorial. Most of them are easily found, in the centre of town by the town hall, post office or memorial park. We went to Sherbrooke QC, population about 186,000, and down a gravel road to tiny Margaret MB, whose population is so small I can find no mention of it anywhere.

Mostly it was monuments graced by a statue of a soldier that drew me to these communities. I learned a good deal more about Canadian war memorials from going to see them in the flesh – or the bronze, granite and marble – than I would ever have known from books. I learned that Canadian war remembrance is a Jacob’s coat. Clearly in some communities remembrance is still a cherished trust: cenotaphs are carefully preserved and maintained. In other places – sadly quite a few – the town memorial is neglected, fading away, even abused. Vandalism is commonplace: evidently vandals find nothing too sacred to spare.

Some memorial statuary is grand and glorious, one-of-a-kind works of art by esteemed sculptors. Others, just as earnest and heartfelt, reflect the simple talent of a local artisan, some of them clearly untrained. Other memorial statues – perhaps the majority – are cookie-cutter variations on a theme, knocked off in American foundries or Italian marble mills.

The passage of nine decades demonstrates in spades that if permanence was a goal some communities chose far better than others: granite lasts better than Italian marble, bronze endures best.

Of course the journey was not just about cenotaphs. That might have driven Jan around the bend. The quest drew us down back roads, into charming communities and delivered us to people we would never otherwise have known. At St. Claude MB (population just 800) we found a remarkable, unique memorial but we also met His Worship Denis Danais, as friendly, accommodating and helpful a deputy mayor as you’ll find anywhere. Pincher Creek AB delivered disappointment and reward: the town’s original memorial statue was gone, replaced by a simple modern stele, but at the Legion we met Brad Anderson, Bob Neish and Dick Hardy and were entertained like visiting celebrities.

We paused at the summit of Kootenay Pass and hiked among a riot of late-summer wildflowers. We went into Grand Forks BC to look at the cenotaph but stayed – most happily – for a five-star Russian lunch at Cecil’s. At Keremeos BC we visited a couple of wineries and came away with a boxload of choice Similkameen Valley product. Fortune delivered us to Aggazis BC and the biggest organic hazelnut orchard in all Canada. Given all that, how could Jan do anything but call the game plan brilliant.

The last stop before we return to Ye Olde Victoria is Lexiville here in Coquitlam. The plan is to spend the weekend with Lexi and the newest Johnson, five-week-old Benjamin – and of course the other household members, Allison and Doug. For all the fun and edification delivered by our latest transcontinental journey Jan is unregretful that no visit to a war memorial is contemplated in the weekend plan.

A Surface Well Scratched

Before departing on our present venture I took a red highlighter to my provincial maps, marking all the places having a war memorial featuring a soldier statue. The contrast in the marked maps is striking: at the extremes, Quebec and British Columbia have a paucity of marks, Ontario looks like a bad case of the measles. It might take a long while and many miles to see all of Ontario’s; on this trip we could only scratch the surface. We picked a route that yielded a fair sample, and a diverse one.

To date we have visited 44 cities, towns and villages to contemplate and photograph cenotaphs. That is just the tip of the iceberg – a couple of hundred ‘statued’ memorials dot the country – but enough to understand and appreciate some of the variety. If you ask Jan the best part of the quest is the ancillaries that accrue as we wend our focused way across the landscape. At tiny Eugenia ON Jan pronounced the game plan brilliant. Not of course because she’s suddenly become as enthused a student of Great War remembrance as I am, but due to the pleasant surprises arising from going to places we would otherwise never have seen in our lives.

The Eugenia epiphany occurred in the lively Beaver River Cafe where we tucked into troutburgers and scored a boxful of pickled asparagus and other locally produced specialties. We went to Lindsay to admire the Emanuel Hahn sculpture topping the cenotaph but our memories of Lindsay will probably be commandeered by the ‘ribfest’ we joined across the street. Ribfest purveyors from far and wide compete loudly and colourfully to provide a quarter, half or full rack for a few or perhaps more than a few dollars. Local intel led us to the Camp 31 stand. We were entirely content with our proceeds.

We chat up people along the way. At diminutive Kenora ON – where the Thistles won the Stanley Cup in 1907 – we conversed with a small gang of people gathered on the steps of the cenotaph. One woman pointed out a name – M. Land – on the bronze tablet listing Kenora’s war dead. The M is for Moses, her grandfather; Moses, an Objibway hunter-trapper, enlisted barely out of his teens in 1916 and died a year later in the mud of Passchendaele. Our memorial guidebook – and essential companion on this trip – led us to Grunthal MB. It turns out that Grunthal is populated by the descendants of Mennonites – German pacifists. If there is a war memorial statue at Grunthal no one knows about it. We reaped rewards anyway – an excellent lunch of boiled perogies and farmer sausages, and the acquaintanceship of Ron Robbins who spends his retirement worthily: making low-power FM radio transmitters for African villages.

A sad moment interrupted an otherwise sunny morning as we made our way across Manitoulin Island ON, past groups of migrating sandhill cranes and turkey vultures. Jan’s CBC Radio app informed us that NDP leader Jack Layton had succumbed to cancer. After Jack’s shocking press conference of July 25 I had expected this outcome but the news nonetheless packed a wallop, and the wallop lingers. I am one of millions who grieve the loss of a great, big-hearted Canadian.

Now we are in Winnipeg, 5,000 km behind us, paused to visit Steve and Elizabeth. I spent most of Friday on familiar ground, helping with a construction project. On Friday evening we all went to watch minor league baseball. On a perfectly blithe summer evening, in a jewel of a ballpark, we saw the last home game of the Goldeyes' regular season. The hometown boys won handily over the Fargo-Moorehead Redhawks. I got peanut shells all over my new Goldeye tee-shirt. Regular season champions, the Goldeyes celebrated as though they’d just won the World Series. Players spilled Gatorade tubs on manager and GM, just like they do in The Show. The team owner thanked loyal and supportive fans by way of an impressive fireworks show.

Today being Saturday we’ll look to get into some suitable trouble with the kids. Tomorrow we’ll saddle up and follow unfamiliar back roads toward more memorials – and maybe a few more happy surprises.

Like a Dog with a Bone

Early morning near Sandbanks ON in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Our seventh day on the road, only a fifth of the way across This Great Land of Ours. I was once accused of travelling with ‘too much focus’. So be it. The focus this time is Great War memorials. The quest for interesting cenotaphs is real enough but l admit that it’s also an excuse to see new territory.

After stopping at Pugwash NS to gawk at the war memorial statue we dropped in on Amherst Shore friends Garth and Carol and were received just about a warmly as Steve Nash would be if he showed up at my door. On the Northumberland Strait folks boast that the waters are warmer than anywhere else north of the Carolinas. We finally took our first dip of the summer and were inclined to endorse the claim.

At Dorchester NB I communed with great-uncle Wild Bill Livingstone, MC & Bar, who morphed from war hero and youngest member of the Nova Scotia judiciary to a two-year resident in the federal penitentiary. It is a long story, and a sad one.

Woodstock NB is a charming old town on a bank of the Saint John River. We stopped to look at the town’s fine war memorial then went to the library where archivist librarian Greg Campbell went above and beyond to find answers to my question, ‘Who designed the memorial statue?’

Quebec has relatively few war memorial statues but the Eastern Townships boast a small concentration. We found splendid, sometimes over-the-top, specimens at Richmond, Sherbrooke, Magog, all by the same man, skilled Montreal sculptor George W. Hill.

Before setting out on the present adventure I used a red highlighter to mark provincial maps with the locations of every war memorial featuring a statue. My Ontario map looks like a bad case of measles. We can only scratch the surface but we’re already impressed with Ontario’s dedication to remembrance. Morriceburg, Brockton, Gananoque, Kingston, Picton: all attractive towns with fine monuments in the heart of town.

We do other stuff too. We went to Sutton, a beautiful area of southern Quebec, to see Jan’s Aunt Ruth, our first stopover in twelve years. Ruth has a new pal, Pepe, a year-and-a-half Pekinese dustmop who provided a highly entertaining floorshow. At Kingston we found Aunt Evelyn, still ramrod-straight, enjoying better health than most folks in the 92nd year.

I plead guilty to the charge once laid against me: that I am a heatbag, a high-strung and volatile hothead. At Johnstown ON another minor explosion elicited something choice from Jannie: ‘You debase the anger coinage.’ Hmm, perhaps it’s time I learned to count to ten. Satchel Paige, a wise, wise man, counseled that cooling the blood is good policy.

This morning we are off to visit Coburg and Port Hope, both important scenes in the later life and times of Canada’s greatest soldier, Sir Arthur Currie. Yeah, I know, there’s the focus thing again, but the old dog is locked on to a choice bone.

Black Rock Bliss

The Cape Breton sojourn is over. We departed Boularderie Thursday, kissed off by the usual fog and drizzle. Jan’s dad has serious medical issues back in Victoria; she of course wants to do what she can to help him back to normal.

A year ago my mother was in hospital, down to 85 lbs, looking no better than an even-money bet for survival. Mom looked terrific two months ago; she shines even brighter now, enjoying new friends at Edinburgh Hall in Truro, admitting she no longer misses her former digs in Halifax. Of all the elders I care about, Doris is now the least of my worries. Long may it be so.

Now we are with Don and Nancy at their Black Rock Shangri-la at the mouth of the Shubenacadie on Cobequid Bay, as fine a spot for watching the world pass by as you are likely to stumble upon. A kestrel and harrier patrol the marsh across the road, warming my birder heart. Since it is high summer Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrows still sing from their grassy domain.

The first night I left the camper about 0300 hrs and went for a walk about the neighbourhood. The night was cloudy and perfectly still. In forty-five minutes I heard not a single man-made sound, but plenty from other creatures, most unidentifiable. I got nose to nose with a porcupine, heard a raccoon or two, a night-calling bird or three. A sudden break in the cloud cover delivered two full moons, one in the sky, a second mirrored in a puddle in front of my boots. Why hadn’t I brought camera and tripod?

Friday morning delivered something strange and remarkable: sunshine. Nephew Michael, just in from Toronto, materialized for a few hours, supplying me with something valued: good conversation about the state of the world beyond the immediate neighbourhood.

The Mahone Baysians – John, Naomi, Hannah, Sara – joined the fray yesterday afternoon. Six-year-old Sara press-ganged us into a game of Memory then whacked us at it, showing me in spades how superior a young brain is to one as antiquated as mine.

August 12 is shower night, as in the Perseid meteor shower. Moonshine obliterated prospects for a great night of dark sky viewing but never mind, the night was balmy, dry and windless. I felt like a lottery winner.

Now it is early Saturday morning. Still not a cloud in sight. Shortly we shall water up the camper and get the roadshow rolling. We have miles to go before we sleep; adventures beckon.

Dogless Days of August

Monday delivered that rarest of events in 2011, a sunny day. Big Jim Troke persuaded a few pals to spend the day sheathing the walls and roof of his 24x16 personal warehouse. Some might imagine that a stretch in the swimming hole might have been a preferable option on a semi-hot day but, truth to tell, I still get a kick out of productivity and I was just about as happy seeing the results of the day’s labours as Jim himself.

Jim’s project delivered a jump start. The next two days I fired up the generator and put the saws into action for the first time this summer. As a consequence the sunroom has a few additional bookshelves including some face-on units providing improved easier access to the cabin’s atlases and a few oversized books.

On Monday evening Lynn and Louise invited us to join them and Dad George for a musical event at the Highland Village in Iona. The Musique Royale Festival presented the Best of Boxwood 2011 at the 137-year-old Malagawatch church. The old church pews offer the last word in discomfort: a hard wooden seat barely a foot wide, and an unforgiving hard straight back. The music made up for the spartan seating. Boxwood features traditional Scottish and Irish music – some of it 250 years old – delivered by flute, harp, small Scottish pipes et al. In Cape Breton ‘Traditional Scottish music’ typically brings the fiddle to mind but, no, on this occasion there wasn’t a fiddle in sight.

Superb though the music was, the most memorable moment occurred just as intermission got underway when Boxwood director Chris Norman dropped his flute and made a beeline for the twins. Like a hummingbird swarming a pair of fresh fuchsia blooms, he made no bones about finding Lynn and Louise more fetching than anyone else in the building. The maestro declared his ardour for a hug – and got what he wanted. What must it be like to be so irresistible?

Wednesday was highlighted by a typically protracted breakfast with pal Donald Dunbar. Even in his 91st year Don is a wunderkind of engagement and ideas. Once a month in Victoria a gang of Victoria pals assembles at Swans Pub to discuss and debate the big issues of our time. I miss the Swans lads when I’m in Cape Breton but Donald provides a worthy substitute.

And finally, for those dead keen to know about such things: yes, Cape Breton’s weather continues to set new standards for unseasonable cold and wet. No, I have yet to screw up the courage to take a dip in the old swimming hole. No, Old Man Nagel still declines to cut his hair. Over and out.

Rolling Cameras, Rolling Wheels, Rolling Time

I spent an afternoon this week at St. James cemetery taking instructions from a film producer and following the orders of a cameraman. Months ago a documentary film company, Clerisy Entertainment, found my Boularderie Soldiers materials on the Internet. Intrigued that seven of my kinsmen were killed in the Great War, they invited me to take a turn in a project focused on Nova Scotia’s Fallen Soldiers. I leapt at the chance. The much anticipated event at last came to pass Thursday afternoon. Producer Dale and cameraman Bud wired me for sound, delivered my marching orders, then let me loose.

I spoke about all seven of the lost uncles and cousins including three Livingstone brothers killed at famous Canadian battlefields: Ypres and Courcelette in 1916, Cambrai in 1918. It was bad enough for the brothers’ father to have lost two sons, Hugh and Charles, in 1916, but when his favourite son, David, was killed just a month before the Armistice it was too much for the lads’ father. He died – of a broken heart the family had no doubt – within a few days of learning David’s fate. I’m told to expect a DVD of the finished product early in 2012. In the meantime I’ll keep fingers crossed, hoping not to wind up on the cutting room floor.

The week was not all work. Yesterday Cape Breton afforded a relative rarity in the summer of 2011, a brilliant sunny day. Rather than scrub floors or go to town to resupply the larder, we dusted off the bikes and enjoyed a good ride with Bob on a backroad route to Hank’s Farm via decommissioned Mill Pond Road. In his 82nd year Bob sets an intimidating standard: he rides as well as we do and provides a floor show while he’s at it, belting out show tunes all the while he’s turning the bicycle crank. It was mildly encouraging to discover that Bob may be mortal after all: the last couple of big hills took enough starch out of the old guy that he focused strictly on the pedaling and gave the show tunes a rest – but only for a while.

August is just around the corner but the swimless streak continues: I have yet to fall prey either to the freshwater charms of Dalem Lake or the saltwater allure of the swimming hole below the cabin. Ordinarily by this point of summer the thermometer on the sunny side of the cabin would have hit a hundred on several occasions, and dips would be a daily delight. This year even eighty is a rarity. Surely August will be better.

A Departure, An Arrival

The curtain fell this week on the life and times of my cousin Mike Livingston. Mike’s passage packed a bigger punch than many. Only a little older than myself, Mike played a key role in an important event: my first visit to Big Bras d’Or way back in the summer of 1958. We stayed in the old Livingstone homestead – now long gone – with his grandfather, my great-uncle Alex Livingstone. My memories are vivid. In my recollection the sun shone every day. Mike and I spent most of those days outdoors. Below the house, a field (now overwhelmed by fir and spruce) stretched all the way to the fish-house on the shore). One of the strongest memories is olfactory: my great-uncle’s peach-scented pipe tobacco. That week looks flawless in my rearview mirror – not a blemish – and it doubtless played a significant role in launching my lifelong attachment to Big Bras d’Or. I of course didn’t know it at the time but that summer week in ’58 would turn out to be the only time I would spend with Cousin Mike. He died in San Francisco, a great loss to those who loved him, particularly his siblings Bill, Terri, Alex and Sarah.

The week ended with an arrival. Benjamin Douglas Johnson, overdue a week, had to be given the boot from the comfortable station he’s enjoyed these past nine months or so. He belted out his first holler yesterday at 1230 hrs PDT. A new brother for Lexi, son for Doug and Allison, grandson for Jan. At the earliest opportunity I look forward to teaching the lad the rudiments of baseball.

A Wave Big But Not Hot

The days of July march relentlessly away. We busy ourselves with motley diversions: trail-improving, road-widening, roof-raising (on Jim Troke’s behalf) et al. Old age brings a measure of mellow: I no longer have to complete a long list of ‘projects’ before earning the right to read a book. In this my last pre-OAP year I read more greedily than ever. Lately I’m on a John Irving bender: A Widow for One Year, Until I Find You, The Fourth Hand, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Once I was a big fan but fell by the wayside years ago. Now I’m catching up, impressed as ever by Irving’s originality, quirkiness, humanity and humour.

Jan reads too but has talents needing exercise. Twice – during last year’s Celtic Colours, then again in June during PEI’s Festival of Small Halls – I was left spellbound by Tony McManus`s rendition of Satie`s Gnossiennes 1. I demanded that Jan add it to her guitar repertoire. She is coming along very nicely. One day I threaten to surreptitiously video her at it and load the proceeds on YouTube.

On Sunday we got off our butts and rode the bikes to Ross Ferry with Old Man Nagel. Though a tad windy the day was sunny and blithe. Pedaling along, while Bob belted out show tunes, I counted flowers, the wild ones and the ferals, growing at roadside. At the Ross Ferry wharf I studied a vivid tableau. A gang of teenagers in swim togs took turns jumping into the littoral. One of them, a well-contoured young thing in yellow bikini was set upon by the young males. The scene brought to mind pigeons in the park – you know what I mean, a poor hen pigeon harassed to distraction by a gang of cocks all with just one thing on their mind.

On the way back we stopped at Diane’s Den of Antiquity where a yard sale was underway. I ordinarily avoid yard sales as assiduously as I do Stephen Harper fundraisers but this time, for a lousy five bucks, we came away with a bagful of worthy books and bits of glassware Jan found charming and gay.

The bird feeders attract steady trade from finches, jays and hummingbirds. The usual contest of wills and wits goes on with squirrels. I concoct new and ingenious plans for confounding their ambition only to have my latest solution undone by sunset. One of the best among our latest bargain book acquisitions is the National Museums’ Mammals of Canada. We are learning more than we ever imagined about our fellow citizens at ‘Bigadore’. That the squirrels love mushrooms, relish the kinds that kill humans stone dead, and build underground storehouses loaded with their favourites. That the little deer mice inclined to move in with us come September breed four times a year and could theoretically produce ten thousand descendants in a single year. That our little brown bats can live to age 24, don’t eat mosquitoes after all, and don’t migrate to Latin America for the winter (no, they hibernate in local caves that stay above 40 degrees F even in the coldest January).

CBC tells us that much of Canada is roasting these days. Not so Cape Breton. Ordinarily we’d have a month of Dalem dips behind us by now but this year subpar weather has held us back. Until Friday. Jan took the plunge. I chickened out. Too cold. Too grey. Too unappetizing. Might August finally change things for the better?

This is Big Wave week in Big Bras d’Or. On Tuesday we joined an audience of a few dozen to watch the variety concert in the St. James basement – a few skits here, quite a bit of song there, all performed by local talent based right here in Big Bras d’Or, or very nearby. It got me contemplating notions of community and the way things used to be ‘out in the country’. On Wednesday we went to the United church, laid waste to whole plateloads of the nice ladies’ sandwiches before dispatching a large bowl of local strawberries and cream. Today brings the headline all-day event at the Big Bras d’Or wharf: food, poker runs, a musical jamboree. As usual Jan and I will take our turn selling beer tickets at the evening dance. We always seize the first shift, from ten to eleven, so that we can be tucked in bed by the time the jigging really gets going. Wild-and-crazy we are not.

Lobster Pigout with Side of Poe

Saturday delivered us to the annual Millville eggfest, in the company of the Great Nagel and pals Joshua and Danielle Shelley. We are odd couples, the Shelleys and ourselves: they are young and we are not; we are heathens, they are not; they are teetotallers, we are anything but. Strangely though, we feel great affinity with the youngsters: they like books, ideas, good conversation. I feel particular kinship with Joshua. Rather like myself, he has a wide misanthropic streak and though of tender years, is definitely already a curmudgeon. I like that about the lad.

At the eggfest I grabbed Josh’s sleeve and introduced him to local Member of Parliament Mark Eyking. Here is one of your constituents, I told Mark, but he didn’t vote for you. I was hoping to cause a squirm or two but no one batted an eye.

Bob was the star of the eggy occasion. He was warmly swarmed by any number of people, including the MP. You’d have thought Kate and Will had just wandered into the room. If only Bob could bottle that charm and retail it – think of what he could make at Wal-Mart.

Back at Bigadore we had a fire on the beach at the new swimming hole, cooked wieners and marshmallows and refrained from singing Kumbaya.

Sunday availed another opportunity for lively social intercourse. We procured ten lobsters from Kevin at the wharf and proceeded immediately to a pigout at the cabin. I am tenderly gratified by the prevalent opinion (in some local parts) that I am sine qua non when it comes to cooking and preparing lobsters. After dark, to offset all the frivolity, I read aloud all of Poe’s ‘Premature Burial’. Some might think that an odd way to entertain kith and kin; well, you just had to be there, even Jan stayed awake for most of it.

We enhanced the heritage flowers about the place. Now, in addition to John F`s Solomon-seal, day lilies and Wally`s bleeding-heart we have a scion or two another historical flower. The bloom at issue is Dianthus barbatus. Some say – the facts are in dispute – that its English name, Sweet William, honours William, Duke of Cumberland who led the British army to its smashing victory at Culloden 265 years ago. One of my ancestors, a Livingstone, is claimed as one of Bonnie Prince Charlie`s Highlanders slaughtered that grim day. Cumberland enjoys a halcyon reputation in England, a rather different one in Scotland and Scots-settled places around the world: it is long-standing fact among my Cape Breton kin that the right and proper name for D. barbatus is Stinking Billy.

July’s weather has soured a tad after a fine start, but I don’t dare complain about that – Mary will have the jewels for bookends. Besides, friend Peter—Costa Rica Peter that is – asserts I was once virulently antagonistic toward people who complain about the weather. Is this just false memory on his part or am I already well embarked on the good ship Dementia, entirely vacant of the person I once was.

Big Jim’s Erection

I gave big Jim Troke a hand with his erection this week. Jim goes a long way back in my history. Once upon a time we were boys in the same circle at Coxheath: pond hockey in winter, pasture baseball in summer, various boyish shenanigans in between. Briefly we shared a life of crime. The alpha male in the circle was John Phillips. One day John decided it would be a good idea to perpetrate a B&E in the neighbour’s house and borrow the man’s rifle for awhile. It was only a few days later when I came home from school to find an RCMP squad car in front of the house. For a very long moment I pondered whether flight was a better option than facing the music. It was my father’s reaction I feared more than the Mounties’. But HJ read the look on my face and let the constable do his work: sure enough, it was my first and last dalliance with being ‘known to the police.’

In those days I spend dozens, no, hundreds of hours with Jim and the others. But here’s the rub, he doesn’t remember me. Not in the faintest. Sure, I was a dweeblet back then – only five-two and 110 lbs as late as Grade 11 – but come on, we did a lot of stuff together, even became an ink stain on an RCMP blotter. But Jim has no memory whatsoever of the small nerd Alan. Jim was quite a bit younger at the time but already much bigger than his invisible four-eyed friend. Eventually he got bigger still: 535 lbs worth of big at one point (now a trim 300). We crossed paths again about ten years ago, which is how I – and Jan and Bob too – gave Jim a hand with his erection this week. A big 24’x20’ storage shed is Jim’s current project. On Wednesday we helped put up the walls.

Yesterday a small high school reunion took place in the Bigadore porch. I am a member of the 1964 class of Riverview Rural High School at Coxheath. Peter Goodale and Jim are both ’68. Like myself Peter emigrated to Victoria a long time ago – and sold me a lot of camera stuff over the years – but now he has returned to Nova Scotia. We drank beer on the porch while the womenfolk – Jan and Jim’s Cindy – indulged the recollections of classmates from long ago and listened as we debated whether Bernadette Francis was a role-model teacher or hard-hearted harridan.

Adventures with wildlife continue. The fox pups spend little time in their den under Wally’s house but we still see them, just about full-grown now, going about the business of learning the ropes. At Dalem Lake the calling loons evoke The Great Green North, a mama spotted sandpiper attends to her demanding young, a kingfisher rattles his objection to our passage.

An invitation to dinner at Bob’s had to be postponed after a strange smell resulted from turning on the stove: over the winter a family of deer mice – perhaps the entire neighbourhood – had built a colossal nest in the oven. We went to the Cedar House instead and took our chances with the ovens there.

For the second time this season a bat followed us into the cabin and had to be evicted. We’d turned off the headlamps, ready for sleep, when Jan noticed the little fellow flying amongst our earlobes. Several Little Brown Bats share the domicile with us every summer. Ordinarily they content themselves to remain outside, roosting by day under the porch shutters. We are completely happy to have them there. They feed happily on the mosquitoes and black flies drawn to the screens by the meaty humans snoring inside. But we’re not so fussy about them hanging out with us in the porch; true, they weigh only nine grams but the tiny teeth are sharp. I leapt out of bed and grabbed a T-shirt to capture the bat. The little flier was not nearly as unnerving as Jan’s laughter: it seems she found the bobbing-and-weaving of her floppy old man – draped in nothing but a headlamp – a richly comedic sight.

Meanwhile, weather complaints are long forgotten. July has been relentlessly generous with sunshine and warmth. We are preparing a new, friendlier-access swimming hole down at the shore and are looking forward to our first saltwater dips. The weekend approaches, the end of lobster season draws nigh. Methinks it is time to organize a boil and try one more time to persuade The Monozygotes to go for a skinny dip.

Break Out the Sherry: The Robert Has Landed

Simultaneous events brightened Bigadore days. The first: at long last summer arrived, instantly and fully, on Canada Day. The second: Malcolm Murdoch ‘Moose’ MaKenzie aka The Great Nagel appeared the very next day, just in from Boston. At this, sunshine and warmth became relentless. Shorts emerged from mothballs, the beer fridge went back into action, sunburn made its first appearance of the season.

Like David Crosby, Bob still declines to cut his hair. It’s more than a year since a barber had his way with Robert’s curls. He now strongly resembles Timothy Leary thus it is perhaps no surprise that border crossings are suddenly an adventure. With short hair Bob sailed right through. Now he is detained. Border guards refuse to believe he is a Yankee octogenarian bent on sitting in the shade at his Cape Breton summer hideaway. Now, with hair halfway to his ass, our stalwart and vigilant border people imagine Bob is a threat to national security – a superannuated druglord perhaps, or maybe a long-in-the-tooth Al Qaeda sympathizer. The poor old thing was stiffly cross-examined at St. Stephen NB the other day before being allowed into our home and native land. Clearly it was traumatic for Bob in this his 51st summer season at Big Bras d’Or, but the old guy refuses to say whether or not the indignities included a cavity search.

So of course the partying began at once and in earnest. Yesterday afternoon the monozygotes – Lynn and Louise – guided us on a tour of the Battleman-Aconi fossil fields at Boularderie’s north end. The sandy southern bit of this remarkable stretch of shoreline had attracted a large gathering of sunbathers, sunbather-oglers et al. We headed in the opposite direction and soon had the world to ourselves.

Someone said Battleman-Aconi should be a UNESCO site because Devonian-Carboniferous fossils are legion here. Right on the beach in their thousands where the hoi polloi are free to pick them up and carry them off willy-nilly. Apart from an occasional dragonfly the fossils are all flora. Don’t make a point of coming if it’s dinosaurs you’re after, but the floral varieties are myriad, many of them wonderfully detailed.

Back at the cabin we cooked a big salmon on the smoker and introduced Jan to the recorded charms of Hughie and Allan, a long-gone duet of down-home country comics. I soon recalled what it is we like about Cape Breton when the sun shines and the bugs aren’t bad.

Meanwhile, out in nature, the Clintonias and false lilies-of-the-valley are just about gone but other wildflowers – bunchberry, high-bush cranberry, alternate-leafed dogwood – are at their glorious peak. The foxes have moved on from Wally’s basement and the morning chorus of birdsong has eased noticeably but the feeders at our windows attract a steady trade of rubythroats, goldfinches, purple finches. I’m near to thinking Bigadore is swell enough to hang my hat for awhile.

Small Halls, Small Island, Big History

Having sat idle for two whole years we decided it was high time we put the camper on the road again. Nature abhors a vacuum, the saying goes. So it seems: an array of wild things had taken up residence in various corners – sow bugs, spiders, ants, even a cricket or three. Ignoring the doctrine of squatters’ rights, we gave them all the heave-ho, washed off the grime and discovered that apart from a balky jack, all of the camper’s mechanical bits seemed to work just fine. We decided to go to Prince Edward Island.

Serendipity made a return performance. En route to the Island we learned that a music event, the Festival of Small Halls, was underway – 42 events over 11 days in 34 small halls – and that a particularly fetching one was set for North Rustico that very evening. We arrived at the Caribou ferry dock just in time to roll on to the 2:45 sailing, the last vehicle through the gate. More serendipity: at the PEI visitor at Wood Island we found that there were two tickets left for ‘Night Out in the Crick’. The sellout crowd ate up the event, literally. As if the musical offerings – from Tony McManus, Catherine MacLellan, Troy MacGillivray, et al – weren’t enough (and they were), the organizers provided free food too, headlined by help-yourself Island mussels. Night Out in the Crick was so swell we ate up two more gigs, ‘Belfast Hosts the Grammys’, Gordie Sampson, Liz Carroll at the Belfast Presbyterian church, and ‘Girls Night Out’ (Liz Carroll again, Andrea Beaton, Meaghan Blanchard and pals) at Munns Road near PEI’s eastern tip.

Without really meaning to we went to the Garden of the Gulf at just the right time. There was plenty of room at the one national and several provincial park campgrounds we frequented. Come a week later, we were told – after Will & Kate have taken their turn – we would find the same facilities booked solid.

Even by comparison to its Maritime neighbours PEI is an oddball. The island is settled throughout, much of it apparently by potato farmers. There is hardly any litter at roadside. Do they shoot people who dare to throw a Tim Horton’s cup out the window? The ‘Garden of the Gulf’ moniker suits: there is no wilderness on the Island, the moose, bear and deer are all gone.

Happily there are still wildflowers and birds. Never having been in the western end of the Island we rumbled to North Cape, where an array of big generators contributes significantly to the Island’s power grid – 18 per cent of PEI’s electricity is wind-generated. Who knew? At North Cape we walked the Black Marsh Trail, saw a fine array of bog-barren wildflowers and soon discovered that, fierce as the North Cape winds are, they weren’t up to the task of keeping Cape mosquitoes at bay.

We walked the storied red sand beach at Cavendish national park. At Red Point it is the sandstone cliffs that are red, the beach is of the ‘singing-sand’ variety, and almost white. After North Cape we drove the whole length of the Island (it’s easy enough to do) to East Point and thus earned our very own Tip-to-Tip Certificate.

Our trip was a history quest in large measure. After the bellyful of Rustico mussels we spend a few hours at Green Gables and had a good feed of Lucy Maud Montgomery. We time-travelled at Orwell Village. In the late 60s the Orwellians, such sensible people they were, decided that preserving the old buildings of the village was preferable to tearing them down.

We had the place to ourselves, wandered the village, snooped about the one-room school (which operated as late as 1969), general store, blacksmithery and church. In the community hall a nice lady served her own fare: chicken noodle soup and the best buttermilk tea-biscuits I ever had. In Georgetown we gawked at the splendid houses surviving from the mid-1800s. At Charlottetown we visited Province House and walked the same halls where – in September 1864 – the Fathers of Confederation decided it might be a good idea to invent Canada.

We’d planned to spend three days on the Island but wound up making it five. By and large the weather was fine, the food good, the people friendly, the ambience just right. I was a tad regretful as we rolled on to the Confederation Bridge but comforted myself with the notion it won’t be long before the land of Ann Shirley and Stompin’ Tom lures us back.

PEI Remembrance

Fair warning to readers disinterested in the Great War, and remembrance of it: proceed no further. My next post in Peregrinations addresses other PEI charms, this one deals with the excellent homage Spud Islanders pay to the Island’s Fallen.

We had other reasons to pay a return visit to PEI but my principal grail quest was to see three First World War monuments. One of the blessings I get to count is that Jan indulges this mild obsession of mine. Thanks to my essential memorial bible, Robert Shipley’s To Mark Our Place, I knew that cenotaphs in Charlottetown, Malpeque and Summerside all feature soldier statues. I knew the identity of two of the sculptors, both highly accomplished and justly famed. But Summerside was a mystery.

After landing at Wood Island we made a beeline for Charlottetown. There, right in front of historic Province House, where the nation was seeded in 1864, is George Hill’s impressive and imposing statue of three Canadian infantrymen marching purposefully toward the Front. The Canadian Tommies are a wonder: assured, resolute, dangerous, fearless. A German pickelhaube helmet lies gloriously trampled underfoot.

We drove on to tiny Malpeque, famed for its oysters. Ordinarily a hamlet as small as this would have a simple monument but Malpeque has something grand: Hamilton McCarthy’s rendering of a Canadian soldier brandishing a flag in his right hand, rifle in his left. As with Hill’s Charlottetown figures, McCarthy’s soldier conveys confidence, conviction, certainty, not a shred of doubt or temerity. How did it come to pass that the citizens of Malpeque have such a grand monument? Did a rich Malpequian lose a son at Vimy or Passchendaele? I look forward to fathoming the question.

Apart from the major targets, Jan puts up with me pulling over whenever I see a community memorial: Alberton, Tignish, Miscouche, Souris, Cardigan, Montague, Georgetown... I stop to look at them all. They all have stories to tell and I am keen to know a few.

Summerside proves a revelation. Without knowing, Jan intuits that Queen Elizabeth Park is the place to search. Indeed it is. There I find the highlight of the entire adventure: a figure of a soldier going into action by the finest of Canada’s Great War memorial sculptors, Emanuel Hahn. I am astonished to find it. Nowhere have I seen a reference to a Hahn sculpture at Summerside. To the best of my knowledge there is only one monument of this design in all Canada, at St. Lambert QE. Hahn is unique among memorial sculptors: his figures are invariably contemplative, pensive, vulnerable. Hahn is never one to glorify or strut. He is unafraid to reflect grief, thoughtfulness or empathy in his soldiers’ faces. For my money Hahn’s are the most powerful, most affecting of Great War memorial sculptures. As I admire the Summerside jewel people walk by and pay no attention. How many townspeople know they have a public masterpiece in their midst?

After five days we leave PEI but the quest is not over: in Moncton NB there is another Hahn to see, another masterwork, ‘Tommy in Greatcoat’ in the city’s Queen Victoria Park. Even on a cheerfully brilliant sunny day Hahn’s Tommy evokes a profound sense of loss. Not the glory but the pity of war. It is beautiful, perhaps the most understated of Hahn’s works, but powerful and very moving. Exactly what remembrance of the war to end all wars ought to be about.