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.

Chez Christie Pulls Out All the Stops

After the glories of our bike ride to PEI we iced the cake with a two-day visit to Chez Christie at Amherst Shore. Garth and Carole could give lessons in the fine art of being good hosts. Our friends are the clan chiefs of a remarkable family of 15 children and grandchildren. We hung out with a good percentage of them and came away with the impression that the Christies in their summer compound at Amherst Shore make Beaver Cleaver’s family look dysfunctional.

Our friends led us on a backroad tour of Cumberland County. At Springhill we exchanged favours: I showed off the town’s fine Emanuel Hahn-designed war memorial; Garth showed us the scene of the Springhill mine disasters of the 1950s. We went to Joggins to see some of the wonders of the UNESCO-recognized fossil cliffs.

At Parrsboro we indulged in strawberries-and-shortcake and a big dollop of history at Ottawa House, which goes back all the way to 1775 and a century after that was home to Sir Charles Tupper, Father of Confederation and one-time prime minister of Canada.

Garth is a believer in the value of local intel. He sought advice on Parrsboro’s best eatery from a gang of tattooed kids hanging around a doorway. The kids knew their stuff: we dined well at the Portside, then capped our day with worthwhile local culture: The Ship’s Company Theatre production of The Girl from Diligent River.

Our hosts even provided good birding. They have a family of merlins – marvelous little falcons – nesting beside the cottage. Filling the niche served elsewhere by randy roosters, the merlins greeted each day with a cacophony of sound: mom and pop hollering instructions to the kids on the fine arts of flying and feeding. No alarm clock was necessary.

We aim to reciprocate our Amherst Shore revel with a good time in Cape Breton during October’s Celtic Colours music festival. Given the standards set at Amherst Shore, the pressure is on.