Birthday on the Rocks

Our mantra about moving to Bear River reads something like this:  

We love living here and we feel thankful each and every day to have had landed here…except for one important aspect.

Our adult kids live thousands of miles away and inspite of Skype and email and the telephone, we miss spending ordinary (but really extraordinary)  time with them. You know what I mean. It is lovely to just sit in the same room together and talk about politics, the cat, working life, twitter vs facebook, American vs. Canadian belief systems, Battlestar Galactica, Naomi Klein, childhood memories, house renovations, artists, musicians and more.

Explanations are so much easier face-to-face

But it’s also nice to walk through a room and see Emily sketching the cat or Jesse strumming his guitar–both of them expressing their creativity. What a pleasure for a parent to see.

They have surprised us with a trip to Bear River and we’ve been having a great catching-up time with them. It is so nice to swap stories and it’s wonderful to cook for them AND to be able to sit down together and share a meal with them! Their lives are so fast paced and busy that they mostly eat take-out food, restaurant food so it’s a great opportunity for me to spoil them with home cooking.

Homemade bread and lasagna.

This visit coincides with my 58th birthday, with our daughter’s birthday and with Mother’s Day too! It’s quite amazing for me to share my birthday with them both. Last year’s birthday was pretty special too as we were gallery hopping with our daughter and son-in-law in Los Angeles on my birthday and I saw some amazing work by Matisse as well as German Expressionist painters too. We even got to see a bubbling tar pit in action.

This birthday we drove a short distance from Digby to Point Prim, a beautiful spot that we never tire of visiting and that we wanted so much to share with the kids.

Tidal pools form in the basins left behind by cooling lava.

Except for a couple of sites in Nova Scotia, like Peggy’s Cove, there are many, many beautiful, geological and geographical sites to see in this province that are not really promoted or known about except to the locals. Point Prim is one of those spots.

Our daughter took most of the photos in this post.

The geological formations are so varied and so interesting and tell an ancient tale about molten lava forming millions of years ago.

The body of water is part of the Bay of Fundy and the wind was still quite cold for a warm day in May. The water was a deep blue and it felt exhilarating to be there.

Just us and the ocean waves.

We stayed for an hour and only saw one other couple as we were leaving so we really had the whole ocean to ourselves. It’s hard to describe how wonderful it was to spend time together, on my birthday, in this magical place, with the people who mean the most to me in the world.

The textures in the rock formations make interesting patterns.

I watched our offspring climb over these rocks that will still be here in another million years. I thought about how fortunate we are to be right here, right now. If you are coming to Nova Scotia, anyone in Digby can tell you where Point Prim is.

Lunch in Digby.

The rocks are eternal and so is the interconnectedness and the love that so many parents and children and siblings share. What a perfect birthday!

Cape Breton – on top of Old Smokey

There is not a part of Nova Scotia that isn’t beautiful and one of the prettiest places is Cape Breton. Most destinations in the province are only about 3 hours away, but Cape Breton is a 6 hour drive from Bear River. Because this province of less than one million people is so underpopulated, there is very little traffic on the highway so the drive is always scenic and not at all stressful.

Near Ottawa Brook, Cape Breton

Dianne’s friend Wilma, who would soon become our friend too, was a back-to-the-lander who moved here from Manitoba back in the 70’s. She raised her children on a small farm where she had ducks and hens and a few pigs and lots and lots of gardens. About 18 years ago Wilma and 2 girlfriends who were also part of that 70’s wave, sat around a pot of tea and talked about their shared dream of having a commercial greenhouse. After many discussions and research, they opened the Harbour Greenhouse.

Dianne and Larry watch Wilma checking out the coldframe.

Wilma was able to take the skills she’d learned as a 20-something farmer and turn it into a business. The greenhouse was closed for the season, but I was still able to come home with a climbing hydrangea for our new house, which will always remind me of Cape Breton and Wilma’s entrepreneurial spirit!

We explored Wilmas island-within-an-island and it was quite visually stunning. (CapeBreton is connected to the rest of Nova Scotia by a causeway so its inhabitants consider it to be an island.)

Cape Breton looks like a fairy-tale

Unlike South-West Nova Scotia, Cape Breton had way too much rain this summer and the ground was spongey everywhere we walked!

On our second day we took a drive around the famously scenic Cabot Trail. 

Margaree Valley

Once in the National Park, we stopped for a picnic lunch and enjoyed our food at the best table in the house while listening to crashing waves on this rugged shoreline.

One of the places we stopped at was my namesake store. It is so rare to ever come across my name so it was fun to get a photo.

Flora's craft store

An even bigger surprise was when THE Flora’s daughter presented me with a bag bearing my name..a lovely gesture which they do with anyone who bears the name

On top of Cape Smokey

Cape Breton is so reminiscent of Scotland and geological theories hold that the two places were once physically joined together. It certainly looks like a believable theory!

The farther up the trail we got, the chillier it became and we kept adding another layer of clothing!

Dianne and I saw moose, fox and eagles.

Three days flew by and it was time for us to make the 6 hour drive home…all with visions of celtic mountains and end-of-season plants in our heads.

A Whale of a time in the Bay of Fundy

A few days ago, we travelled out to Brier Island again with some fellow artists from the Bear River Working Studios Tour. It is such a beautiful place. (Note to self: return in the fall with huge canvasses and try and capture the scenes.)

Brier Island

This time our destination was the middle of the Bay of Fundy to spot some whales. I’m a very terra firma kind of person so I wasn’t sure how I would feel about bobbing up and down in a boat surrounded by an enormous amount of water.  I had occassionally fretted about it in the weeks leading up to the event as I imagined the worst kind of weather. (What’s the use of worrying unless you bring on the extras!)  As it turned out, the day was clear and calm and the waves were minimal. So that part was way better than I thought it would be.

In many ways coming to Nova Scotia is turning out to be my chance to experience and challenge my imagined and real physical limitations. It’s amazing how much of one’s interior realities are self-imposed.

Cruising the Bay of Fundy

So here I was inventing disastrous scenerios in my head when I was introduced to an inspiring group on the boat from the Mersey River Chalets. This lakeside chalet is a paradise in the woods and was the dream and brainchild of several Germans who are nature lovers and also happen to be Paraplegic / Quadriplegic. They envisioned a place where common physical barriers are minimized and where every one can experience the serenity and beauty of nature regardless of physical ability. They have a top-notch chef too. I had heard of the Mersey Chalet because our yoga teacher gives occasional weekend workshops there. Able bodied people are more than welcome there – the chalet doesn’t discriminate! 

Meanwhile, back on the boat, we saw some humpback whales and at the first sighting, I gasped and felt quite moved to see such a large mammal out there in the water.  As you will see from my video, we only saw a small part of the animal, but it was exciting nonetheless.

We went out with  Mariner Cruises and I would definitely recommend them. They are a husband and wife team. Roy operates the boat and Penny gives the talks. She was very informative about ocean life and available at all times for questions. A special treat was when Penny served tea, coffee and muffins! 

Humpback

And you know what, whales are way bigger in real life than in the movies- even when you just see parts of them.

Brier Island – camping on the Atlantic Ocean

Larry and I used to spend every August long weekend camping with our kids and relatives and friends in Renfrew County, Ontario where we owned a couple of acres of new-growth forest on a small lake.

Cameron Lake, Ontario (watercolour)

Some of my favorite summer memories are of that time and place, of sitting around a campfire at night watching the burning embers;

Camp Fire on Brier Island

or listening to the kids daytime squeals of pleasure as they jumped into the cool lake. We thought we were roughing it because we had no electricity or running water– just an outhouse and pails of fresh water for washing, dragged up from the lake.

During those years, a thousand kilometers to the east, people who we didn’t yet know in Bear River were camping on Brier Island every August long weekend. This August we were invited to join their annual trek.

Brier Island is on the tip of the Digby Neck

Brier Island is down the Digby neck, the last island before it descends into the ocean. It takes 2 hours to get there from here, including 2 ferry rides. The trip there is pretty scenic and relaxing due to the light traffic, the little villages and coastline.

Fishing huts at Westport, Brier Island

I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned to you how laissez faire Nova Scotian’s seem to be about the ‘private’ in private property….at least the ones who are accessing it! You see, Brier Island doesn’t have an official campsite and people were pretty vague about the land where we put up our tents. “Doesn’t Harry so-and-so own this land?” “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind…..especially as we will leave the site in better shape than when we got here”. Meaning, we’ll take with us all of our garbage and any extras that we come across. I ask “well what if the owner(s) show up and don’t want us here?” People looked at me like I was speaking an incomprehensible language. “But we’ve always come here.”…..and then finally: “well, we’ll just move our tents.” I mean, come on, tradition is tradition!

Brier Island - Bay of Fundy side

So with that said, about a dozen tents went up, well spaced from each other, but within a short distance to a communal kitchen. A few people pitched their tents on the edge of the ocean, and listened to crashing waves all night.

Tenting on St. Mary's Bay side of Brier Island

 

Our tent was in a more sheltered spot where we could hear the sounds of distant waves and seagulls all day and all night long.

Our tent's fly kept us dry in the downpour.

We played horseshoes and explored the island, gathered driftwood for the fire and drank wine with supper.

Horseshoes is supposed to be fun, right?

The forcast had called for non-stop rain, but we only had one big downpour. The reward the following morning was hundreds of delicate spiders’ webs which appeared in the bushes.

Spider's web after the rain.

The fog rolled in and rolled out and watching it blow and move around us created the illusion of living in the clouds. In fact the whole island felt like out of the pages of a 19th century novel what with the soaring birds, blowing wild flowers of purple and yellow and white, and the sounds of crashing waves.

I had stessed before the trip about what it would be like for me to stay where there are zero bathroom facilities. Like, how does that work? I’ll tell you how. You bring a trowel. You bring a roll of toilet paper in a plastic bag (so it doesn’t get wet from rain or dew). You find a place in the bushes where things are growing (ie. not sand, but earth). You dig a hole. You squat and do your thing. You deposit the toilet paper into the hole and cover everything up with the earth. This way it all decomposes. Don’t use kleenex because it doesn’t break down as well. Then you go back to your tent where you have a basin of water, brought from home and you wash your hands with soap. It made our former camping adventures in Ontario seem like 3 star experiences, but at the same time I was surprised at how easy it is to adapt.

Wld flowers bloom everywhere.

Briar Island is a favorite migratory spot for birds and I recorded some of their sounds which you can hear in this photo montage of flowers on the Island. We heard the birds all the time and I wished I had an interpreter with me!

It was yet another great weekend spent with over a dozen Bear Riverites of all ages, along with several of their dogs. Watching tides, looking at rocks and camping on the edge of the world.

Pat and Reggie walk the beach facing the Bay of Fundy