Somebody Else Loves Canada and Digby Neck

This is by somebody who lives in Louisiana, who has a website at: butterbeansblues.com

Canadian at Heart


The far away softness of a morning train whistle intruded into my dream, faint but persistent, like a memory just out of reach and still out of focus. The curtains fluttered in the early ocean breeze and I could hear seagulls arguing over scraps, the throaty hum of a boat engine leaving the breakwater, and the steady rhythm of an axe splitting firewood. These were the sounds of summer, of home and growing up, of comfort in knowing where I was and belonging.

Outside the small motel cabin, the sun was breaking through and burning off the fog, revealing a bright blue sky littered with hazy clouds. I imagined I could feel the day beginning to warm, nearly sense the dew evaporating on the grass and the chilly ground heating up. The train whistle sounded again, closer this time, and from the other side of the trees I could just make out the silhouette of a locomotive as it slowly wound its way from The Valley, keeping to its schedule as it always had. You could plan a life around the Canadian Pacific, my grandmother had often told me, And you'd never be late.

It was late August and there hadn't been much traffic on the road from Yarmouth. The familiar villages were now behind me - Church Point, Bear River, Weymouth - I had taken my time driving, having no particular timetable to keep to and suspecting that it might be years if not a lifetime before I would find myself on these roads again. I had breakfast in Digby, watching the scallop boats come and go with the tides, then slowly headed down Highway 217, "The Digby Neck" as it was commonly known. I was thinking of how many times I had made this trip, through Gulliver's Cove and Little River, and Sandy Cove and finally to the extraordinary hairpin turn at East Ferry, where the road unexpectedly ended at the very edge of the ocean and more than one carelessly overconfident driver had plunged over the guard rail and been taken by an unforgiving tide. After one particularly spectacular night time crash, I remembered Uncle Shad telling Nana that it was a miracle anyone ever survived - Them whats lived to tell the tale, don't, he said grimly, It'd be temptin' fate to brag and it don't make no sense to try and outrun your own timetable.

Across the passage, Tiverton sat in the afternoon sun, a picture postcard of a tiny fishing village. Bait shacks lined the coastline and a dozen or so dories rocked on the whitecaps. A Nova Scotian flag waved from the old post office building and a small circle of old men mended nets on the end of the wharf. After Tiverton, there would be Central Grove at the halfway mark, two or three houses and a lily pond and you were past it, and then I would be on the top of the hill that overlooked Freeport - green and blue and sparkling from the square to The Point - a picture I can still see if I close my eyes and wish hard enough. The small white church on the left, just below the cemetery, the cove at high tide, Curt's candy store by the schoolhouse, the baseball field. The road stretched out like a shimmering ribbon, down for a ways, then flat for a ways - past McIntyre's and the dance hall, past where the post office used to be, then gradually rising up toward the sun and around a gentle, downward curve to where I could see the Sullivan's house and the remains of Willie Foot's, Uncle Len's pale green gingerbreaded one, and at the very foot of the hill, down a steep gravel driveway with a strawberry field on one side, what was once Nana's beloved summer house. It sat, almost untouched by time, just as I remembered, overgrown with high grass except for the shortcut path which led from the top of the driveway to the front road. Knowing that a new generation of villagers still cut through to save the long hike around the curve made me glad - Nana had always fussed about this minor trespassing but never with much conviction or heart. John Sullivan's boat was gone, replaced with a shiny aluminum storage shed, strangely out of place in the weeds and debris. There was not a remnant of the canteen and the ferry slip looked to be new. Sparrow's old house still stood but appeared empty and badly neglected while wildflowers grew in place of Old Hat's chicken wired garden.

Despite my citizenship, I will always be a Canadian in my heart.

Digby County Nature in November 08 copyright23.11.08

As I sit here, drowsy and muscle-weak after shovelling the first thick down of fluffy virgin snow from the doorstep, my eyes want to close. The lids drop, the pen stops, and my other senses engage: the crackling and pop of shards of cedar lath igniting maple logs, the warmth stealing over my back like the slide of a warm towel wrap. I'm enveloped in a patchwork quilt of memories of today, yesterday and the month gone by.
I linger in the delight of the early morning: four deer browsing in my yard for the remains of this year's apple "drops" under snowy caps. The flicker of white tails drew my attention away from the computer screen, to my office window. Something in the woods startled them, and with spring loaded legs they bounced away; lithe brown shapes and a flick of white, the acre of orchard now lonely without them.
The hoofprints were so close to the house the other morning; the morning after the burgeoning full moon. As I watched, that night, its stark brightness rising over shadows of white pine, fir and spruce, a howl rose from the dark edges of the meadow, its keening siren followed by a duo of sharp barks. I would never, could never, shield these beautiful creatures from a natural predator such as a night-time, human-shy coyote, but I would do whatever possible, within the bounds of our laws, to protect them from human predators on my property.
It is coming back to nature, for me here. The ghostly grey heron stalks my brook (and other Digby County waterways) for trout lulled to oblivion by the statue of the great bird which suddenly comes to life too quickly for the rest of the life of the "brookie" on idle: one snatch and the long spindly legs bend and lift the ghostly great figure up into the air, absolutely soundless with its prey.
A pair of great horned owls haunted the evergreens till of late, the "hoo-hoo" and "who knew, you?" prickling my ears on ebon nights, to my delight, while they scanned the night's floor for mouse and shrew.
These are the predators and prey that inhabit my world on Digby Neck, in Digby County. They are not to be feared but are our marvels. Together they create Balance in our natural world. The rufous hummingbird which sips the colourful feeders for sweetness and calories with which to create its incredible wing-beat, and the coyote and the owl are equally part of the amazing assortment of living creatures around this area.
I've mentioned just a few of them. This is a birder's paradise. Digby Neck and Islands in on the migratory bird flyway! You'll be amazed at the numbers and species of birds you will find here! Even researchers flock to this place. They fly (in small planes) to this area. Or they fly down Hwy. 217 in their cars. They nest for a while in our accommodations spots. An excited gaggle can be heard when they gather to share what they've seen watching them! And, not to belabour the point, they do enjoy the finest in seafood that is available here.
I am reminded, now to rouse myself and fill the bird-feeder with the energy that birds need now that the snow fall has covered a lot of their food sources. This act helps them, but it is also so I can be graced by their visits- blue jays, juncos and others. The cylinder of the bird feeder is like a battery-they draw from it the energy they need to sustain their living systems, their mobility, and their high body temperatures (40 C.). I will re-charge the battery whenever it is needed for these ends, and to sustain the living creatures and amazing bio-diversity of Digby county.
One day soon, you will come to Digby County, and let me show you....

Of History and Mailboxes copyright 6.11.08

We are very close to our beginnings, here, in this part of Nova Scotia. The village names along Digby Neck could just as well be stamped with the family name of those who opened the earth and piled the stones to create the first permanent dwelling on that particular spot. I drive down this narrow and lush peninsula and know that there are still Tidds who live in Tiddville; Mink Cove could just as well be called Gidney Hollow, for tho' many descendants moved away and sold the original land grants from the British government of the time, many have also returned to reclaim their heritage and place of prominence in this community.

All the old names are here: Denton, Raymond, Titus and more. Perhaps you would see your ancestral (or present) surname here- on a modest rural mailbox that could tell you a thousand stories. If you travelled with the rural postie who drives -still- from mailbox to mailbox everyday, opening its maw and filling it with the concerns of today, perhaps if you listened very closely you would hear on the outrush of breath from that opening the concerns yesterday, of yesteryear, of each dwelling occupant before: the bills for purchases, the taxes, obits and marriage notices, government prescriptions and proscriptions, and invitations to attend one event or another.

The rural mailbox is not just an "incoming" receptacle. The responses to each life's trudge and each person's grudge were placed in the same embracing space to go *out*, along with the joys, remembrances and the social "touch" needed then and needed now, with friends, relatives, lovers and acquaintances who lived and live down the road, up the Neck, or simply "away".
Both in and out communications are announced with an upright crimson flag attached to the side of the mailbox, which remained prone, as many of us do, when silent.

Our rural mailboxes will likely become quaint technology of the past, despite their dressings up and dressings down, the ingenious shapes and colourful drapes and safer (according to Canada Post) placements roadside.

Come see them soon! We're not yet just numbers on a highway. Our mailboxes have names that go back sometimes 200 years. My mailbox says so.



Kathleen Gidney