Big Day at Big Harbour

Saturday looked to be a guaranteed red-letter day. When Alan MacNeil called to suggest we meet up at the Englishtown Mussel Festival to ingest buckets of choice locally-produced bivalves I said, great, I’m in. Apart from the happy prospect of overindulging in one of my favourite fruits-de-mer, I thought, jee, while I’m at it I’ll head out early for a reconnoitre with another favourite of mine, the gypsum-rich wild lands at some distance from Big Harbour where, long ago, the little car ferry plied back and forth between there and Ross Ferry on Boularderie Island. In 1960 or thereabouts a new highway, the 105, put the ferry out of commission, instantly turning Big Harbour into a backwater. I drove Leo, the trusty Ram pickup, to the end of the traveled section of a gravel road, applied a heavy layer of Deep Woods fly dope, got into the gumboots and headed off with two cameras strapped on board.

Some folks cherish a day with the one-arm bandits at the casino or a meander among the madding crowd at the local mall. For me there is nothing better than a slow ramble in natural surroundings, either in the company of a carefully chosen companion or, as was the case Saturday, all by lonesome. All-by-lonesome is just fine if the weather is blithe, quietude abundant, and Mother Nature generous in her offerings. I set out early enough that I could be guaranteed at least two hours before it was time to head off to the appointed mussel feast with Alan.

In my eyes the Big Harbour back country is beautiful. At the head of the harbour the passerby comes upon a grassy saltwater marsh ringed by eye-catching gypsum bluffs. At a decrepit old bridge now signed “Bridge Closed”—safe for passage on foot if not in heavy pickup—my arrival aroused loud objections from red-winged blackbird, song sparrow and belted kingfisher, all fretting about my proximity to their nests. They couldn’t know it of course, because the hazards posed by H. sapiens are well established, but the gumbooted old fellow passing through posed no threat whatsoever.

On my first visit to Big Harbour, a few years ago, I was pleased to find a fair abundance of the spectacular yellow lady’s-slipper. On Saturday I hoped I might be in time for the peak of the 2019 season. After a while I turned on a trail, likely the bed of an old spur road, and found a mother lode: literally hundreds crowding both sides of the old trail. I could not have been better pleased had it been gold coins rather than yellow orchids I’d stumbled upon.

About an hour into the ramble a cricket sounded in my pocket, my chosen ring tone for the hand-me-down cell phone by which I stay in touch with the world at large. It was Alan, calling with bad news: ‘turns out our musselfest was a cruel hoax. There was no bivalve bonanza last year, nor would there be one this year either. Well, sure, it was disappointing to learn that mussels dripping with melted butter were not on my near horizon after all but there was consolation: I needn’t rush the interlude at Big Harbour, I could hang out as long as I pleased. Terrific.

I walked a piece of the old road to MacAulays Hill and Plaister Mines, sharing the route with frogs—both leopard and wood—big swallowtail butterflies, mating blue damselflies, wolf spiders et al. There were birds too: ovenbird, mourning warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker and yellow-bellied sapsucker. I heard an unfamiliar call, looked up to find a hawk, voicing anxiety about my presence. The bird allowed enough of a look to get me thinking it might be broad-winged, an uncommon breeder in Cape Breton.

The old road passes by several pothole ponds that have the look of Karst holes, watery sinkholes found in limestone regions such as Big Harbour. In one of them, less than a hundred yards across, I was pleased to find both ring-necked and wood duck, apparently willing to share the advantage of raising families in surroundings suited to their needs.  

After four hours or so the hunger pangs that would have been eased at Englishtown were growing clamorous, so I decided it might be time to bid farewell to Big Harbour, generous as it had been in supplying entertainment and edification.

Among all the living things encountered in four hours at Big Harbour I saw no others of my own kind. I had the lady’s-slippers and all the rest entirely to myself. It was not a disappointment.