Hues of August

A nearly-50-km bike ride from Mabou to Inverness evoked the glories of Scotland in 2007. Back then, riding with pals Mary and Mike, Scottish skies delivered rain on 24 of 28 riding days. On Saturday we had the Coastal Shores Trail from Mabou to Inverness pretty much to ourselves, perhaps because the weatherman knew what he was talking about in calling for showers. 

Precipitation prevailed for much of the outbound ride, encrusting both bike and rider in layers of gritty mud. Still, in contrast to Old Scotland, it didn’t rain all the time on Saturday. Between showers, eyeglasses wiped clear, we savoured views of the Mabou Hills, got up close and personal with late-summer wildflowers, wondered whether the abundant blueberry scat we encountered along the way indicated fox, coyote or bear.

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On Sunday we paid a visit to Cousin Dan Livingstone at Marble Mountain. It was there, five decades ago, that Dan’s father, Harrison, seeded my enduring fascination with what was once called the Great War. Whenever I return to Marble Mountain I see and hear Harrison. Vividly. In 1964 my great-uncle acquired 500 acres of land and five miles of shoreline at the southwestern corner of the Bras d’Or Lakes. His new holdings included an ancient, derelict house.

The following summer I joined Harrison in the initial effort to salvage the 140-year-old dwelling. The stink in the front room signalled the presence of a large wooden barrel containing pickled herring of unknown vintage. The attic was knee-deep in myriad detritus. Some folks might have decided that a jerry-can of gasoline and an Eddy match might have offered the best tools for dealing with the tumbledown old shanty. Not Harrison. By day I helped to deal with the herring and detritus, broke trails with machete and bow-saw, stockpiled red alder firewood for the old Franklin.

Evenings were another story: deprived of any other sort of distraction we only had each other. How fortunate for me. I was 18 at the time, Harrison’s age when he first experienced the horrors of the Western Front. His accounts – the cold and mud, rats and lice, the terror of night raids, the daily toll of comrades erased by enemy shellfire – mesmerised me and remain unforgettable to this day.

The herring barrel is long gone from the Marble Mountain front room but on the wall a portrait of Harrison’s brothers still hangs, 55 years after I first laid eyes on it. One brother is Daniel Archibald, Dan’s namesake, killed in action near Arras in the spring of 1918. The other is William Angus, still ‘Wild Bill’ to present-day followers of Nova Scotia’s 25^th Battalion. Bill was wounded six times but arranged matters not just to survive the war but to be awarded, twice, the Military Cross for gallantry.

As the years have passed Dan’s resemblance to his father has increased strikingly. Jan managed to take a worthy picture of Dan and me holding the soldier-uncles’ portrait; it evokes unforgettable days and evenings spent with Harrison a half century ago.

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Long-suffering friends Stephen and Sheila honoured us with a visit to the Big Bras d’Or cabin. We relished a day not to every taste, traveling from one old cemetery to another in search of 1880s-era relics – zinc grave markers and renderings of Scottish thistles on sandstone and marble tombstones.

At Glace Bay we succeeded in navigating our way to an important heritage site. Back in 1946 – I’m not inventing this – General Motors manufactured a small number, about twenty, of a specialty vehicle, the chip wagon. One of these initially went about its business in Montreal but has served the people of Glace Bay faithfully and tastefully for the past 64 summers. We ordered up a passel of the chip wagon’s finest then treated ourselves to four of the 32 varieties on offer at the nearby ice cream parlour. Some folks are aces at knowing how to have fun.

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Earlier this summer we were favoured with visits from four of the six great-nieces and great-nephews. The remaining two will complete the circle over the Labour Day weekend. I have every expectation that the 11- and 8-year-old perspectives brought by Hannah and Sara will be just as edifying as those delivered earlier by their Nelson and Toronto cousins. Roasting marshmallows down at the shore, looking for salamanders under logs, hauling in the last of the season’s bumper crop of blueberries – what could be better than that?