Wally’s Place Comes Back from the Dead

Wally would be ever so pleased. Just a couple of years ago Wally’s old house atop MacKenzie Hill was slowly melting back into mother earth. None of Wally’s own daughters had much interest in the home of their tender years. Passing it en route to Dalem Lake I often thought in a year or two the old place would be a collapsing ruin. Then, two summers ago, a wondrous thing occurred: people from away acquired the old house and since that time, over a period of three summers, breathed life back into it, investing long hours in patching, painting and preserving.

I care about Wally’s old house because the house and I go back a long way – fifty-four years if you must know. Back in 1959 when I was 12 a new job took my father, HJ, back to Cape Breton, his ancestral home. On Sunday afternoons throughout the year the whole family would travel out to Boularderie Island and Big Bras d’Or to visit relatives: old Jack Campbell, his son Donnie and family, Sandy and Jimmy MacKenzie at New Dominion, and most faithfully, Wally and Edith on MacKenzie Hill. So you know who’s who, Wally was Wally MacKenzie, who just happens to have been Bob Nagel’s favourite uncle; his wife Edith was my father’s first cousin, descended like him from a great-great grandfather, Angus Livingstone, the first Scots settler in this part of Cape Breton.

Wally and Edith had four daughters and some of them were particularly easy on the eyes. In winter there was snow to play in, in summer wide-open fields, excellent places to gambol with girl cousins. Nearby, Dalem Lake provided opportunities for cooling off on a hot summer afternoon.

Wally had a terrific big garden and the margins of his fields had hosts of berries: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. No kids had smart-phones back then, you couldn’t while away the hours sexting your pals but there were woods to explore, fields excellent for kite-flying, a barn to nose about in. None of us considered ourselves deprived.

Maybe I was a strange kid but I was interested in the older folks too. In Wally’s living room I liked to listen to the adults talk of the characters and mischief of their youth in the 1920s and 30s. Of the time they painted grumpy Jack Morrison’s pig, or when they moved Jack’s outhouse on a moonless night for the good clean fun of seeing him step into the muck. Of pretty Florence Livingstone and ugly Bella MacLeod, and Bella’s scandalous claim that the mark of Florence’s arse was imprinted on every cradle hill from the Slios a Brochan to Fife’s brook.

Of Edith-and-HJ’s fiercely Presbyterian grandmother, ‘Widow Bill’ Livingstone, who, when HJ was just 5, told him she saw the mark of the rope around his neck. Who could resist such characters and such stories? Not I.

The years, the decades, and a whole half-century passed away. Eventually, though he lived well past 90, even good old Wally had to go. After a few years Wally’s old place appeared exactly what it was: a vacant house. The old garden disappeared entirely. The lawn grew wild. Weeds took over, growing high as the windows. Foxes moved into the crawl-space below the bedroom addition.

Then, two years ago, Derek and Donna bought the old place, and went to work. They live and work in Calgary but are born-and-bred Cape Bretoners glad to have a summer place back on the Island. They put a new roof on this summer, installed a spiffy new kitchen window, applied another coat of paint, painted the shutters too. Best of all, the old house now hums with conversation, laughter, children’s voices. It pleases me no end and if that’s the case you can well imagine how happy Wally would be.

Morien Medley

Off we went with Lynn and Louise for a medley of human and natural history. We saw remnants of the Cape Breton ghost town, Broughton, and the Broughton cemetery, slowly being engulfed by forest. Broughton matters to me particularly because it was the 1916 training ground of the 185^th Battalion, the Cape Breton Highlanders, before they shipped out for the Western Front. One of the Highlanders was my cousin David Livingstone, fated to die in the last month of the Great War.

The twins knew I would want to see one Broughton gravestone in particular, that of the Ferguson brothers, Archie and Frank, both of whom served in a storied Canadian cavalry unit, Lord Strathcona’s Horse, Frank making the ultimate sacrifice, in April 1918.

Plenty of history is displayed in the attractive fishing village of Port Morien, not far from Broughton. In the early 1700s the first coal mine in North America was developed there to feed the blacksmith forges at nearby Louisbourg.  We chanced upon history of more recent vintage by way of a monument and display attesting that the first boy scout troop in North America was established not in New York or Chicago but at little Port Morien.  Who knew? The display features a 1910 photograph of the lads, all of them identified. I noted that some of the names matched those on the nearby village cenotaph. I committed myself to learning which among the 1910 boy scouts ended his days in 1917 on the slopes of Vimy Ridge or in the mud and gore of Passchendaele.

As for the natural history, well, we had plenty to crow about there too. At Broughton a lovely wood frog generously allowed me to get nose-to-nose for a glorious photo op. Nearby, the Port Morien sandbar is one of the premier places in Cape Breton to behold the wonders of the annual late-August shorebird migration. We saw eight kinds – plovers, yellowlegs, diminutive peeps and the lovely and charming sewing-machine-impersonator, short-billed dowitcher – not to mention a relative rarity, Hudsonian godwit, featuring a very long bill, upturned at the tip. Overhead, ring-billed and herring gulls nimbly picked flying insects out of the air as two osprey hovered for fish.

A bit further down the road, at Schooner Pond, we added two more shorebirds to the day list, Wilson’s snipe and whimbrel. The whimbrel reverses the godwit’s pattern: its bill is every bit as long as the godwit but turns down at the tip. Cape Breton is blessed: almost all of the whimbrels that migrate in autumn along the eastern seaboard funnel through the Island.

Circumstance afforded a beware-what-you-see refresher. Looking back from whence we’d come Jan spotted a chunky bird on a wire. I was galvanized. What was it? A night-heron? Strange owl? First-Canada-record common potoo? We retraced our steps far enough to discover that our extraordinary bird lacked feathers, wings and a heartbeat. It was a one-eyed ceramic insulator not in a hurry to fly anywhere. Oh well, of such reverses a birder is made.

Just beyond Schooner Pond Cape Perce provided consolation: good looks at gray seals and northern gannets and a sunset that had us reaching for the cameras and adequate superlatives. The day may have been deprived of a night-heron or potoo but never mind, It was enough to make an old fella grateful he can still get about without cane or supplemental oxygen.

Dalem: Diamond in the Duff

One of the best favours we do ourselves in a Boularderie summer is our before-breakfast 7 km ramble to, around and into Dalem Lake. Once upon a time on CBC Radio we heard a marvelous, very ancient lady reveal the secret of her extraordinary vitality and longevity: take a good long walk every day on uneven ground. I’m confident the old girl would endorse our Dalem route. Starting at the cabin we climb 80 metres up Mackenzie Hill to the local height-of-land, a fine stand of mature beeches, birches and maples. Following the shore trail around the lake we negotiate our way among conifer roots, mud-holes and hidden rocks. Alertness is honed by ardor to avoid a stumble or twisted ankle.

The lake itself is a provincial park boasting a stretch of sand on its near shore. On hot sunny weekend afternoons this spot draws crowds of H. sapiens. They loll like beached elephant seals, enjoy a nice smoke, dine happily on chips and cheezies, swill beer and pop. These park-lovers venture no further than the change rooms; it never occurs to them to follow the trail around the lake. By Monday morning between 7 and 8 all is different: we sometimes encounter Edwin, the good-natured park custodian who makes a few bucks cleaning up the Sunday jetsam.

The mornings are not entirely still at the edges of our little round lake. A month ago the woods were alive with bird song. The premier woodland songsters are the thrushes – Swainson’s and Hermit – whose ethereal, fluting melodies Nature designed to turn even the most distracted urbanite head. In breeding season we count the variety of woodland warblers going about their brood-rearing work: Black-throated Green, Blackburnian, Black-and-White, Magnolia, Myrtle, Ovenbird. 

Nursery duties are mostly done by mid-August and the woods have fallen largely silent but we still have birds. The first autumn migrants are already on the wing – a Pine Grosbeak or wave of warblers here, a Sharp-shinned Hawk or Merlin there. Best to keep eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. 

We reward ourselves with a restorative, cooling swim at Dalem’s far shore, opposite the one preferred by the weekenders. We almost always have the swimming hole to ourselves, people-wise, but do have to share nature’s bounty with feathered folk. Kingfishers and Spotted Sandpipers regularly voice objections at our arrival; the summer-resident loons voice no offence at all, indeed once we’re in the water they seem quite curious, and often permit a closer approach. A passing Osprey or Bald Eagle adds airborne drama to the scene.

Whilst circumnavigating the lake we have to mind our footfalls lest we tromp on garter snake or toad. Wood frogs, pickerel frogs and green frogs regularly show themselves along the route and – once this summer – a prize: a tiny spring peeper, the celebrated singing frog of April. Mammals too: deer mice, voles, an occasional shrew, and ubiquitous scolding squirrels.

Plenty reward enough, you might say, but in the ever-so-blithe days of August there is more. The blueberry crop on Bob’s bank may not be quite as prolific as in some years but there are plenty enough to keep us content and we do have our own bumper crop of sweet blackberries in 2013. On top of all that, when you consider the maturing apple bonanza and the periodic explosion of prized chanterelle and bolete mushrooms we see along the trail, we count ourselves just about as blessed as the mall-goers reveling in the end-of-season clearance sales, or the gambler feverishly operating a one-armed bandit at the neighbourhood casino.

Different strokes for different folks, the cliché runs. And a good thing too: we’re just as happy that if you disregard the birds, frogs and squirrels Dalem remains a pretty-much undiscovered diamond.

Perseid Party Blows the Roof Off

Among the myriad highlights of a Bigadore summer few are more eagerly anticipated or highly cherished than a mid-August astronomical event: the annual Perseid meteor shower. Given that Cape Breton’s climate will never rival that of the Atacama Desert, the Perseid event is frequently and unhappily accompanied by a hand-maiden: Disappointment. Sometimes – more often than we like – August 12 delivers rain, or clouds, or a too-bright moon. Dark sky is essential, and Bigadore can be relied upon to deliver that, but the meteor show also demands a clear, cloudless, moonless, windless night. Which is exactly what we got for this year’s show.

When the circumstance are just right we – Bob, Lynn & Louise, Jan and your faithful correspondent – hump tarp, blankets and camp pads up to the cabin roof ‘round about 9:30 in the evening and wait for the show to begin. Conditions were so perfect this time that we stayed on the pitch for three hours, long enough to see the night sky make a good portion of its counter-clockwise circuit around Polaris, the north star.

We counted 115 meteors during the drama, close to 40 an hour. Many burn so quickly you’d better not blink or you’ll miss the flash. But there are always glories: a flaming arrow blazing across the dark leaving a trail that elicits gasps from all assembled. Just so you know, the three shining stars this time were meteors #40, 87 and 108.

What causes the Perseid show? Well, every year on or about August 12 our little old planet races through the flight path of a long-ago comet. The earth’s atmosphere collides with small – very small – particles of dust left in the comet’s wake. You could hold thousands of these particles in the palm of your hand, but never mind, when the collision occurs the tiny bits burn briefly, brightly and sometimes spectacularly for anyone astute enough to be gathered with pals on the roof of a dark-sky summer cabin.

I asked the others to speculate how many other Boularderie Island roofs might be the scene of a gathering just like the one we reveled in. The twins guessed ours might be the only one of its kind. Can it be so? It wasn’t just meteors performing for our wandering gaze. We watched the international space station – recently and famously the domicile of Canadian astronaut Chris Hatfield – sail grandly past. And many other satellites too. During lulls in the meteor action we could contemplate the three stars of the ‘Summer Triangle’, one of which, Deneb, burns at a hard-to-imagine 300,000 times the power of our puny, ordinary little Sun.

Or we could look toward the constellation Cassiopeia and see with our very own dark-adapted eyes the smudge of light that is Andromeda. Astronomers have counted billions of galaxies in the cosmos. Among all the billions, Andromeda is our closest galactic neighbour. But how close is ‘close’? Consider this, by the time the light of the trillion stars of the next-door neighbour collides with your rods and cones, it has been on the march, traveling at the speed of light, for, oh, about 2.3 million years.

How grand a time was had by all? Over the moon would seriously understate the fun. So grand that a passerby could have seen me out again, in the wee-smalls last night, between 2 and 4, not just looking for Perseid stragglers, but trying to photograph them too. And wonder of wonders, I succeeded at it. Squint attentively enough at these images and you’ll see the telltale streak of a fragment of comet dust that may have flashed – who knows – for me and me alone in this darkened corner of Cape Breton. Makes a fella lucky as all hell.

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All Hail Citizen Allen!

Pal Cindy Allen became a Canadian this week. On a sunny day, at Fortress Louisbourg of all places, along with 32 other brand new Canadians. Jan and Bob and I were invited to join the party and we’re glad we did.

Various dignitaries were on hand and a good-sized passel of Cindy’s many friends. There were members of Parliament – two of them – as well as a council member from the regional municipality and sundry other VIPs. It was a grand affair presided over by George Springate, a Citizenship Judge who also happens to be a Member of the Order of Canada and who wears a ring attesting to the fact he is also a Grey Cup champion. A stentorian and commanding figure with a mighty voice, no one nodded off when Judge Springate orated.

It was observed that many of us take our citizenship for granted. I don’t have to think long or hard to conclude that’s mostly a fair claim, but I am not one of them. Among the things that make me a most prideful Canadian is this: our country is the most multi-ethnic one on the planet. I read the claim once in the Globe and Mail , accept it wholly and cite it as often as opportunity allows.

The Louisbourg ceremony provided further support for the boast: blue-eyed, pale-skinned people were in a distinct minority among the 32 folks swearing allegiance to Elizabeth, Queen of Canada. By their dress and skin colour the new Canadians made it evident that they come from widely scattered parts of the world.

As for Cindy, well, she is American-born, of Canadian and American parents, but she has Cape Breton roots and has lived for decades on the eastern side of the Canso Causeway. She has no need to be told who John A. Macdonald is. Citizen Allen is a fine musician and has gladdened the hearts of myriad music-lovers throughout the Island. All the new Canadians received warm applause when they were congratulated by Judge Springate but the decibel count went through the roof when it was Cindy’s turn to shake Judge Springate’s meaty paw.

Mind you, some things won’t change: though she’s now a certified Canuck Cindy has no intention of substituting one Bruce for another in her musical pantheon. Despite the musical charms of Bruce Cockburn, the Boss is still the Boss: Springsteen rules.

Is Bob Nagel Really Dorian Gray?

The legions of his friends, admirers and worshipers will rejoice to hear that ageless Bob Nagel continues to confound and bemuse the humourless sourpusses who insist that decrepitude and infirmity must come inevitably to us all. Facing his 84^th birthday on the near horizon, Robert continues to entertain and amuse whilst inveigling his way into the heart of everyone he ever meets.  He fells trees, rides bicycle, knows and sings every show tune that ever was. What is the man’s secret?

Some insist that Bob is the living embodiment of an Oscar Wilde novel: a perilous portrait hangs in his attic auguring that the chickens will one day come horribly home to roost. Folks of a less literary, more scientific bent argue that Bob flourishes for the simple reason that his vital organs are pickled in alcohol. They point to prima facie evidence: he never drinks water (fish pee in it, after all) but lives on sherry by day, wine by early evening and Grand Marnier after dark. Still others, all of them disgustingly irreverent souls, cite the use-it-or-lose-it principle of human preservation and assert outrageously that Bob is no more inclined than he was at 14 to kowtow to the dictate of his Presbyterian forbears, namely that onanism leads to blindness and early death.

Whatever the secret behind his ongoing defiance of Father Time, there can be no doubt that Bob seems to have mastered the art. Nephew Dennis came with Nancy for their annual sojourn with Bob on MacKenzie Hill. We all took the bikes for 30-km rides to Cape Dauphin, Kempt Head, Southside Boularderie. While the rest stick strictly to the business of pedalling, steering and gear-grinding, Bob works his way through the entire songlist from South Pacific and Carousel.

He is ramrod straight, charms all the women, loves his root and leafy vegetables, sleeps like a child (‘That’s what you go to bed for’), enjoys perfect regularity, and appears as far from needing a cane or a walker as Justin Bieber. Don’t you just hate a bastard like that?!

The Livin' Is Easy

Boularderie Island delivers its customary, generous share of nature’s pleasures. Blessed by a run of sunny, warm weather, we make good use of the bikes, the Dalem Lake trail, and both freshwater and saltwater swimming holes.

One morning we had a lifer at Dalem, our first look at a spring peeper, the tiny eastern chorus frog that inspires poets and sets nature-loving hearts atwitter. We share the Dalem swimming spot with kingfishers, spotted sandpipers and, once in a while, one of the adult loons raising its brood in the lake margins. Were we in a boat, the loon would flee but it is bemused by a human head lolling in the water and permits a close approach.

Kingfishers and spotted sandpipers also like the saltwater swimming spot below the cabin, but there are others not typically seen at Dalem that provide an airshow as we swim: a bald eagle, an osprey, a great cormorant, sometimes even a wheeling gannet.

Along our road we see and hear birds: an array of warblers, goldfinches, white-throated sparrows singing with nationalist fervor: O Canada, Canada, Canada! Pickerel frogs, novel at Bigadore only two years ago, now flourish in the wet places along the road. Lynn and Louise, ever careful of the frogs’ welfare, leave at dead-slow speed when departing after dark. Not every driver is so mindful: we sometimes find a corpse on the road in morning, and grieve.

My great-nieces, 10-year-old Hannah and 7-year-old Sara, paid us a visit with their auntie and grandparents. A year ago, during the girls’ last visit, we had a capital time finding salamanders and garter snakes, sowbugs and spiders. Since then some misguided soul has taught Sara to fear nature. Now, for no reason she can name, the child is scared to death of snakes and spiders and recoils at the very mention of them. Someone is guilty of a crime and doesn’t know it. I will need more than a single day to undo the damage.

We made a roaring bonfire for the girls and other, adult pyromaniacs. Once the fire was reduced to coals, the marshmallows roasted and the fire dimmed, we regarded the Milky Way, our very own galaxy of perhaps a half billion stars, and the nearest neighbour galaxy, Andromeda. It is cheek-by-jowl by cosmic standards, visible to the naked eye if you know where to look, but still a very long walk: the light meeting our rods and cones tonight departed Andromeda 2.3 million light years ago. Inclines a fella to reconsider his importance in the scheme of things.

Monday offers another glorious night show: the annual Perseid meteor shower. It will be a dark, moonless night, the weatherman promises clear skies. Those among my local dearly-beloveds who value such wonders will gather under blankets on the cabin roof to revel in the show and count their lucky stars.

Sakamoto’s Seventh Sojourn

Sakamoto came for her seventh odd-year sojourn at the Cape Breton shack-ri-la, demonstrating a loyalty to the program unmatched by any other visitor from away. Pals since she was just 20, Judith and I have a good deal in common, not least that we are well and truly animated by Arthur Godfrey’s mortally sound advice: Get it while it’s hot – it’s going to be cold for a long, long time.

With Jan and me Sak shares unfettered affection for nature, wild things, and lots of movement – in rain or shine. We rode the bikes in drizzle across the Calabash, collected mud stripes the whole length of our spines while accentuating the positive: summer showers are a blessing if you want to stay cool.

We hiked the Mabou hills on a sunny hot day. Six kilometres in, I discovered that I had left my water bottles in the truck, providing further evidence for those ardent to seize upon it that the window of my sentient life may be closing faster than I care to know. The Mabou vistas are entirely worthy of comparison to the celebrated Cape Breton Highlands further to the north: grand headlands, riots of wildflowers, plenty of birdlife. I stirred up a crowd of ground-dwelling wasps and earned several stings for my efforts. No problem: it is said that wasp stings alleviate the aches and pains that accrue to ancient knees.

We made our way to MacKinnon Brook Cove in the late afternoon, hoping that we might have it to ourselves. Alas, there was still a party of four lolling on one of the big sandstone blocks common in the cove. Keen not to be deprived of a swim, but without the proper bathing attire decorum requires, Sakamoto and I scrambled along the boulders and dipped in birthday suits at the first available watery nook. Back at main cove Jan stayed cool in a boulder’s shade, eventually hearing one of our fellows say to the others, ‘The old guy’s in.’ How quickly sixty-six years fly past, how quickly a young buck morphs into an old guy.

We dined and ate heartily during Judith’s stay: an Indian feast here, a plateful of scallop-pesto pasta there, and plenty more beyond that. The highlight of the six-day stay arose on the final Friday. I have a fantasy harim of five. I got to hang out with four-fifths of my imaginary concubines: Jan, Judith, Lynn & Louise. I grieved only that Mary was absent, far away in Alberta, conquering yet another mountain. For all the pleasure she extracts from the Rockies, I had no doubt that Mary would have relished the cabin’s Friday bill-of-fare, the cutthroat bananagrams skirmish, the rousing round of Dictionary-Game that capped the evening.

The Sak interlude passed too quickly, as good things tend to do. I console myself with the knowledge that the next odd-year summer is only two years away. If I follow the immortal wisdom of Satchel Paige – keep on moving and don’t look back – perhaps I’ll still be around by then.