Not to Mention Sandra Bullock Too

Any time I manage to organize a ramble with pal Peter Goodale I can expect that in addition to all the predictable rewards there will be payoffs of the offbeat, unpredictable variety. Such was the case on Tuesday. Motivated by the disclosure that Peter had never been there, I proposed we do the hike from storied Gabarus—a short gull flight across Gabarus Bay from historic Louisbourg—to the ghost village of Gull Cove, then on to Gabarus Cape and its commanding views over Cape Breton’s east coast and the open Atlantic. Take my word for it: Gull Cove and Gabarus Cape are worthy destinations, particularly on a day like the one we savoured yesterday--sunny, not-too-cool, entirely blithe. Best of all, we had it to ourselves; no other humans crossed our path.

One of the rewards of any outing with Peter—what should I call it, the sidebar attraction—is an almost guaranteed bonus. In Gabarus we took a short road to a construction site where Bud, the sibling of someone married into the Goodale clan, has been busily engaged in moving and underpinning a 150-year house with a fancy new foundation. Peter and I enjoyed excellent conversation with Bud and also had a tour of the old house interior. In the kitchen I tried but was unable to count all the layers of wallpaper that had their years in the sun over the past fifteen decades and are now exposed by Bud’s renovations.

For me the highlight of this particular sidebar was having Bud tell us that Sandra Bullock once sat here in conversation with the elderly matriarch who ruled the roost at the time. Now as it happens I am one among the millions of men who have taken quite the shine to Ms. Bullock and her movie appearances over the years. It seems that a few years back Miss Congeniality was in the midst of a film shoot in Cape Breton when someone told her about the charms of Gabarus. She went there and in the course of events found herself in the old lady’s kitchen. What must have been especially delightful for Ms. B was discovering that the senior citizen seated across the kitchen table had no idea who she was—didn’t recognize her, didn’t know her name, didn’t have the foggiest clue that she was in the presence of a beloved, world-famous actress. What a relief it must have been for someone who hardly ever gets to be anonymous.

We tore ourselves away from the scene of Sandra Bullock’s Gabarus kitchen moment to our trailhead. There, an old cemetery affords a final resting place for some of the folks who lived at Gull Cove a century and more ago. Nowadays no one at all lives at Gull Cove, no one, that is, of our own species. All that remains of the once thriving village are old house foundations. Whenever I see such a place I default to contemplating the transience of human affairs, the ephemerality of life. Such was the case yesterday.

Gull Cove is evocative but to put no fine point on it, the place is also beautiful, a landscape of open fields, sea cliffs and rocky headlands. Even without a binocular you can make out the buildings of the national historic site at Louisbourg. We crossed an expanse of cranberry barrens to Cape Gabarus, an excellent place to stop for a picnic of sardines, cheese and crackers. I felt septuagenarian gratitude that I am still able to walk that far under my own steam without having to rely on supplemental oxygen or require air ambulance evacuation.

While taking on replenishment at the Cape one can contemplate lovely little Green Island where a gull my gentle reader may never have heard of—the black-legged kittiwake—nests in greater numbers than anywhere else in the Maritime Provinces. If that is insufficiently alluring there is intriguing geology to contemplate and something else: the power of nature. Yesterday was quiet and calm but the beached lobster traps pitched inland far from shore and the occasional skeleton of a seabird wrecked by Atlantic storm demonstrate that some days at Cape Gabarus are anything but quiet and calm.

I can make no promise that an expedition to Gabarus and the trail to its eponymous cape will deliver the opportunity to hang out in a place redolent of Sandra Bullock but I can promise that the hike to Gull Cove and splendid Cape Gabarus is plenty enough reward all by itself.