Happy with the Near Horizon

Cape Breton supplied well-nigh-perfect weather for our final day at Big Bras d'Or. Closeup day is never the favourite of a summer season at Bigadore but whatever melancholy might be afoot is abated by a sunny day. We made our final circuit of Dalem Lake immersed in the full spectrum of autumn colours. Closeup duties complete, we were ready to roll by the time Lynn arrived in mid-afternoon to deliver us to the Sydney airport. Having appreciated Dalem at close range in the early morning, I savoured a different view of the lake, from an elevation of ten thousand feet or so, in the late afternoon. The Air Canada Dash 8 flew close enough to Boularderie that I could study the whole island, from Point Aconi to Kempt Head, and pick out neighbourhood landmarks: St. James Church, Dalem, the Seal Island bridge. I offered a silent farewell.

Weather remained generous in Toronto, affording two blithe Indian-summer days for our country-mouse ramblings in the big city. On Friday we spent a half-day at the Royal Ontario Museum with Alice and the kids gaping at 'Ultimate Dinosaurs', the ambitious ROM exhibition of big and small southern-hemisphere dinosaurs: Giganotosaurus, Austroraptor, Futalognkosaurus et al. We rubbed elbows with the Saturday-morning hordes at the St. Lawrence market and walked Michael's Christie Pits neighbourhood, mildly appalled at the signs barring kids from playing street baseball or hockey.

Our Sunday flight from Toronto to Vancouver was uneventful, just the way I like it. We spent a day and a bit with Lexi and Ben, Doug and Allison. This being the west coast in October, the sun didn't shine but that was no deterrent to walking the woods and indulging Lexi's ardour to search for salamanders in the forest duff.

Rain stopped and sunshine broke through the clouds for our ferry passage through Active Pass and the southern Gulf Islands. The passage is very familiar to me but somehow I managed to appreciate the glory as if seeing it for the first time. By the time we reached the Victoria bus depot the rain was back; we were grateful to have Marc collect us for the last leg to Ontario Street.

For the past five months there have plenty of peregrinations to report: the latest cross-country meander, the adventurous fortnight in Iceland, the 'magical history tour' through the Nova Scotia mainland. Now we're happy -- at least for the time being -- to limit ourselves to the near horizon and to wander only as far as hiking boots or bicycles allow.

Awash in Celtic Colours

Celtic Colours overwhelmed Cape Breton and turned us into music gluttons.

Colours bills itself as an international music festival. The claim is a fair one. Apart from the cast of local musical luminaries we were entertained by tunesmiths from the Shetland Islands, Denmark, Ireland, even Finland and Estonia, and by someone from our own Victoria neighbourhood, fiddler-trumpeter extraordinaire Daniel Lapp.

Apart from familiar fiddles and guitars, performers made music using bouzoukis and banjos, harps and harmonicas, pipes and penny whistles, trumpets and tambourines.

Apart from official concerts – there were 46 of those to choose from over a nine-day period – we frequented CBC Radio tapings at Knox Church in Baddeck and followed that up with another daily freebie at the Alexander Bell national historic site.

Without exception, none of the artists cheated their audience – everybody we saw seemed hell-bent on delivering their musical all. Though there wasn't an act we disliked, our top favourites were Irishman John Doyle, Newfoundland band 'The Once' and the aforementioned Daniel Lapp.

By the time the last bow was drawn over the last fiddle string we had seen thirteen events. Perhaps that strikes the gentle reader as a sufficient number but, no, we were a little sad to see the festival end. On the other hand we console ourselves with the knowledge that it is only a twelve-month wait till Celtic Colours #17 takes flight.

Meanwhile hues of another sort – the forest russets, golds and scarlets of autumn – have transformed the green hills of Cape Breton into a Jacob’s coat of intense colour. The swelter of August is but a memory and we are not tempted to revisit the old swimming hole. The woodshed is restocked – a good thing given the demands we put upon our trusty Drolet woodstove. Ice has yet to make its first appearance in the wash basin but on Saturday morning the outside thermometer registered just three degrees; I screwed up my courage to take a shower as a brief snow flurry underscored that summer is gone. We claim that in summer our screened porch is the freshest, airiest, finest bedroom the world has to offer; even so, the autumn chill drove us indoors three weeks ago.

Our 2012 Cape Breton days are numbered and the number is small – three to be precise. On Thursday we fly to Toronto for a three-day visit with nephew Michael and family, then to Vancouver for a day with Lexi, Ben and company. It is nearly five months since we departed Victoria; on or about October 23 we’re eager to pick up where we left off back in May.