All That and Nouveaux Amis Too

My friend Peter Goodale offered a feast of many parts: let’s meander our way to Lighthouse Point, he suggested, and partake of the menu on offer along the Cape Breton headlands from Lighthouse Cove to Gun Landing Cove, Hammer Head and Lorraine Head. The current lighthouse here is not the original; that, Canada’s first ever, was built in 1734 but the current edition, hardly a century old, is a beauty in its own right; it sits on the same site and commands the same view over Louisbourg Harbour to the west and Green Island to the south that General Wolfe beheld as he undertook closing arrangements for the final capture and demolition of Fortress Louisbourg in 1758.

For those inclined to believe in ghosts who are keen to commune with them the five- to six-kilometre hike to Lorraine Head offers séance possibilities I imagine must be second to none in Cape Breton. If perchance the opportunity to walk with ghosts is an insufficient draw there are many other attractions to lure the rambler to the headlands east of Louisbourg: history, inspiring landscape, fetching flora and fauna and possibly – if one is lucky – even a cross-cultural experience to prize.

I typically occupy the driver’s seat when I am in a horseless carriage but on the way to the Louisbourg light I was in the right-hand seat. Lucky me. Peter took me into unfamiliar territory, a right-by-the-water approach from Mira Gut, through Catalone Gut, Bateston, Main-à-Dieu and Little Lorraine. Photo opportunities abound along this part of the rugged Cape Breton coast. We made a few stops, savoured the vistas, felt fresh gratitude for the invention of the digital camera. Main-à-Dieu offers history and viewpoints galore. People have fished and lived there for four centuries, perhaps more. By the current look of lobstermen’s houses times are good at Main-à-Dieu.

By the side of the road at the snug harbour in Little Lorraine we made a new friend: Marius is from Gaspe by way of Quebec City. We struck up friendly, animated, wide-ranging conversation. I briefed Marius on my enduring admiration for the sculptural works of the great Emanuel Hahn and reported that I will be headed to Gaspe later this year to see the only Hahn masterwork that has to date eluded me: the granite soldier gracing the Gaspe war memorial. Marius promised to beat me to the punch: to send me a picture at his first opportunity. You know how it is to meet a person and to like him or her instantly and without qualification. Marius is just such a person. If an actor were called upon to play him in a movie it would have to be Gérard Depardieu.

We carried on to Lighthouse Point and set out for our ramble in that rarest of Louisbourg circumstances: a perfectly sunny, windless day. We saw no ghosts but it was easy to imagine the scene near 260 years ago as Wolfe’s artillerymen wrestled with their heavy firepower at Gun Landing Cove.

The last week of July turned out to be a fine time to see some of the more spectacular coastal wildflowers of summer; orchids – ragged fringed white, grass pink – pitcher plants; twinflower; blue-eyed grass; shinleaf et al. Among the things I am grateful for: the old knees are still bendable enough that I can I get nose to stamens with wildflowers and take worthy images of their smallest, most private parts.

I do not get bored these days with what is on view at ground level but if I did at this place there is much to see and appreciate at eye-level and higher. The rugged headlands are irresistible to a man with a camera even if he never feels his camera work measures up to what his eye sees. Birds offer themselves for inspection: a bulleting merlin here, marauding herring and black-backed gull there, even a close-to-shore northern gannet, a fisher every bit the equal of the men of Main-à-Dieu.

On a day such as yesterday we did not and could not have the world to ourselves but the numbers of fellow ramblers thinned out as we put the kilometres behind us. We met a cadre of friends from Glace Bay and learned who we might know in common. As I am wont to do, I explained what the Gaelic name MacLeod means in English – Son of Ugly – and thereby felt confident that they would never need be told again.

Best of all we crossed paths again with Marius, this time accompanied by his just-as-gregarious mate Celine. Chapter Two proved just as entertaining as the first installment – another round of lively conversation, laughter, gusto, shared enthusiasm. I regularly feel ashamed of my miserably eroded high school French but not enough on this occasion to deter me from trying out a little of what is left of it.

On a day filled with much to celebrate I put the encounter with Marius and Celine at the head of the list. I hope my instructions were clear enough that they will find their image in my Flickr photostream and I hope I might be lucky enough to cross their paths again when I am in their back yard admiring their Emanuel Hahn at Gaspe. Au revoir, mes amis.  Until we meet again.