After the glories of our bike ride to PEI we iced the cake with a two-day visit to Chez Christie at Amherst Shore. Garth and Carole could give lessons in the fine art of being good hosts. Our friends are the clan chiefs of a remarkable family of 15 children and grandchildren. We hung out with a good percentage of them and came away with the impression that the Christies in their summer compound at Amherst Shore make Beaver Cleaver’s family look dysfunctional.
Our friends led us on a backroad tour of Cumberland County. At Springhill we exchanged favours: I showed off the town’s fine Emanuel Hahn-designed war memorial; Garth showed us the scene of the Springhill mine disasters of the 1950s. We went to Joggins to see some of the wonders of the UNESCO-recognized fossil cliffs.
At Parrsboro we indulged in strawberries-and-shortcake and a big dollop of history at Ottawa House, which goes back all the way to 1775 and a century after that was home to Sir Charles Tupper, Father of Confederation and one-time prime minister of Canada.
Garth is a believer in the value of local intel. He sought advice on Parrsboro’s best eatery from a gang of tattooed kids hanging around a doorway. The kids knew their stuff: we dined well at the Portside, then capped our day with worthwhile local culture: The Ship’s Company Theatre production of
The Girl from Diligent River.
Our hosts even provided good birding. They have a family of merlins – marvelous little falcons – nesting beside the cottage. Filling the niche served elsewhere by randy roosters, the merlins greeted each day with a cacophony of sound: mom and pop hollering instructions to the kids on the fine arts of flying and feeding. No alarm clock was necessary.
We aim to reciprocate our Amherst Shore revel with a good time in Cape Breton during October’s Celtic Colours music festival. Given the standards set at Amherst Shore, the pressure is on.
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