Archie

About Archie

http://beachroadsacadie.thescrapemagazine.ca

Posts by Archie Nadon:

Jul 9 2011

Baie Verte and the Five Chinese Brothers

What caught my eye, as we were driving about the Baie Verte area, was a single row of colourful cottages by the sea just across a lush field of grain. On a different day, in a different light, the colours of the cottages would have been vibrant, the scene like something out of a children’s storybook with a title like Nancy’s Day by the Sea. Maybe that’s what my obsession with the ocean is all about; maybe I’m trying to relive some storybook that was read to me when I was a kid.

Funny thing is, I don’t remember ever being read to. I mostly remember me doing the reading and what I remember most about a lot of books were the covers. If a book had good artwork on it’s cover then I’d stare at if for a long time, taking it in, not trying to figure out what the story was about, but just enjoying the artwork.

But there is only one book I remember from my childhood and I remember it so vividly that it’s like the story happened: The Five Chinese Brothers. Politically incorrect by today’s standards, to be sure, but I loved that book, and still do. It was written by Claire Huchet Bishop in 1938. Comically cringeworthy, the assumption is that since they’re Chinese you can’t tell them apart. The story doesn’t say they were quintuplets, just that they were brothers.

Five Chinese super beings

Each of the brothers has one unique and extraordinary ability, a superpower, really, and the one that got himself into trouble was the one who could swallow the sea. A little boy nags the brother to swallow the sea so he can run about and pick up the helpless fish off the ocean floor. The brother relents, swallows the sea, but the boy won’t come back when signalled; the brother, unable to hold the sea any longer, lets go and the boy drowns and the brother is arrested and condemned to die.

The townspeople try several ways of executing the brother but fail each time because each time they are unwittingly trying to execute a different brother with a different ability.

When my kids were growing up I made sure I found The Five Chinese Brothers to read to them. I read a significant proportion of the library’s children’s collection to my kids, so I doubt it had the same impact on them as it did on me. But for me, I couldn’t read it often enough and I measured other books by the magic I got from it.

Hoping for a story as good as the Five Chinese Brothers

I would leave the library with huge armloads of books that I would read over the next three weeks and then go back for another load. I spent a lot of time in libraries looking for children’s books, sitting in those little chairs, checking out the covers and the stories and being excited about getting home to read them to my kids, always hoping I would find other stories as great as The Five Chinese Brothers. Now I spend a lot of time with Elaine exploring the Acadian coast ― Acadie― and stopping when we see a great scene and hoping we’ll find a story as delightful and magical as the The Five Chinese Brothers.

By Archie • Baie Vert, First Page, New Brunswick

Sep 20 2010

Baie Vert

I was hoping to be surprised by a trip around Baie Verte to where New Brunswick meets Nova Scotia at Tidnish. I was hoping it might be like rounding the Cape Horn where we might discover some bird found only there, or that the customs were strange and exotic.

The only strange thing we found was a woman sitting in what looked like a toll booth with a Do Not Disturb sign on her door. No doubt she was “eccentric” and “intriguing” but she just looked silly sitting in that re-sided toll booth. And she wasn’t even in New Brunswick.

marsh What we saw was a lot of marsh. Baie Verte is a small, narrow bay which means the shores don’t take the kind of pounding needed for beach so there were only a handful of places where the water was accessible. We were determined to find something so we explored a couple of them.

Mason Beach was a cottage village hidden in the woods much like Treasure Island (Surrette Island) up the coast near Cocagne. What these wooded points of land have in common is that they seem like secret hideouts, like the forts my friends and I would build in the alders near our home when I was a kid.

sign post on beach road

I can see the appeal of these hideaways, though living in such close proximity with your neighbors—the cottages in these places are always packed close toether—is not for us. But we all need something different to keep our lives balanced. Hidden away in the trees with a group of people is probably good for some people.

Hicks Beach up the road, on the other hand, was almost treeless, with dead end roads running every which way. We were pursued by a backhoe the whole time we were there. He was repairing potholes and everywhere we turned he was either in front coming at us or coming up behind. We might have gotten out and explored but I’m sure anywhere we parked would have been in his way. Each time he passed us he had a friendly smile and wave for us.

In between these two beaches is Port Elgin. This village is like so many villages these days. Prosperity, centralization and improved roads have meant anything that holds a community together has been sucked away to places like Moncton. Standing in a parking lot by the bridge we looked around and saw nothing to draw us to explore. If we asked around I’m sure someone would have told us, “That’s where the mayor used to live and that’s where the bank was. That was the pub.” There was a beautiful bed and breakfast, the Veranda, but why would we stay? What would we do? Port Elgin, like so many small communities has been reduced to being a suburb. large old house across a small body of water

By Archie • Baie Vert, First Page, New Brunswick

woman sitting on beach chair at Caissie Cape

Sep 1 2010

A cottage for two

Our cottage has become so Elaine and me that I can hardly get up the energy to go without her. She was out of town this past weekend so there was none of the synergy that creates the momentum during our preparation: “we need the lawn mower this week”; “I’m picking some vegetables from the garden”; “I’ve got the tools for working on that shed”; “I’ve got the laundry…” So it goes on and before we know it we’ve propelled ourselves out the door, into the car and down the road, dog and all. All with the excitement of an annual camping trip. Listening to us on the way there, you’d think it was our first trip to the cottage.

Once there we fly into a well-rehearsed choreography of unfolding as the car is unloaded, things are unpacked, chairs set out on the porch, the dog taken for her first cruise of the ‘hood to check her pee-mail. Within a half hour we’re sitting on the porch with cold drinks on the coffee table between us, looking out at the water, happy to be together, discussing what we hope from the weekend. But what is there to discuss when you’re alone?

Phoning home

On Friday night I phoned my dad. I’ve been calling him a lot more often since my mom died last month. Conversations with my dad have always been lively because he’s so good natured and filled with life but lately there is the added richness that sadness adds to the soul. Conversations get taken to deeper levels. He worries that I’ve lost my mother. I worry that he’s lost his sweetheart, friend and wife. I’ve been at the cottage without Elaine before but this is the first time since my mother passed away which might explain why I felt like some kind of amputee. This weekend I understand a little better what my dad is going through.

The most alone place I know

Without Elaine there on the weekend, the cottage isn’t the cottage. It’s a half-empty little house with a half-empty bed, an extra toothbrush and one lawn chair too many. I’m often alone at the house in Moncton but with our student tenants there has always been so much coming and going there that alone is a relief.

But the cottage is us. It’s us being us alone together. We plan together, drive together, are entertained together. We go to bed together, we get up together. I feel slightly lonely when we do anything that’s not together, even if we’re in the same room. That’s what the cottage is to us. So this past weekend not having Elaine there was like not being at the cottage at all, but like drifting. I slept too much, movied too much, drank too much. I brought way too much stuff that I didn’t touch.

If I ever need to be alone, the cottage would be the best place, because without Elaine there, it’s the most alone place in the world I know.

By Archie • First Page, Florina Beach Cottage, New Brunswick

beach scene with snow fence and beach grass in foreground

Aug 19 2010

Chockpish — Elaine

There is a lobster processing plant here and this time of year lobster canning is in full swing. All of the workers have arrived, their cars crammed into the parking lot. We drive past the red buildings, as red as boiled lobster, and park near some sheds, away from the activity.

A little grey weathered footbridge is the magical passage way to Chockpish beach. It’s open water, big waves, especially since it’s windy, and you can see the wind turbines on Prince Edward Island’s coast off in the distance. I imagine them spinning like crazy.

On our side there are upscale, widely-spaced cottages perched on the shore. Windows face the sea, like eyes looking out toward the pencil-line blue horizon and cottony white clouds. Actually, our favourite cottage of all time is here, and I’ll tell you, we’ve done a lot of exploring and looking at cottages as we’ve travelled the Acadian Coast. We’ve been lusting for it for the past ten years. It’s grey shingle with a stone chimney, two stories, a filigree screen door that lets in the sea breeze. Roses are climbing up the side. Some folks from Ontario own it, we think. Someday, we fantasize, it may have a “For Sale” sign on it. And we’ll have truckloads of cash after we win the Lotto to buy it.

“Chock-full-o-fish”

Chockpish — what does it mean? Sounds native, but we’ve never been able to find any information about it. “Chock full of fish” is what I think about.

The sand on Chockpish beach is fine and warm this day, even though a stiff, cool breeze is blowing, ruffling the grass and churning up whitecaps.

A formidable stone breakwater says “Danger: No Trespassing on Rubble Mound Structure”. I wouldn’t dream of it.

Closer up, the waves are ink blue with undertones of rootbeer brown— sand stirred up as the waves break on the shore. I study some subtle patterns in the sand close up. They’re fine line drawings made by hidden hands in the waves as they advance and recede.

Chockpish is all about motion

A seagull hangs in the air. Three cormorants dart from the other side of the rubble breakwater and fly low, just skimming the water. The gulls like the wind, they play with it, hovering and diving, letting it lift and drop them. The more agile terns use it to change direction like acrobats. One seagull perches on top of a pole, watching for a long time, like he owns the place.

The sea grass twitches like a horse’s flank. Like a horse that has been spooked.

I am praying that the Louisiana oil spill doesn’t make it up here. Chockpish is pristine, virginal and pure, up to this point, anyway. It’s a treasure. One of the nicest beaches around, it seems like not many people know about it. Even at the height of the summer, we never see many visitors here. Today it’s just us.

We walk back over the footbridge to the wharf. There are interesting, colourful boats bobbing next to it. A metal bridge spans the Chockpish River that widens here and empties into the ocean. The cars going over it make a muffled thunk thunk sound.

Today, Chockpish is all about motion. Motion and clarity, everything is in sharp focus.

By Archie • Chockpish, First Page, New Brunswick

Aug 19 2010

Chockpish — Archie

Chockpish. I keep coming back to the photo of the wooden walkway to the beach at Chockpish. It goes up and over the dune before the breakwater and down to a short path through the grass leading to the beach proper. You can’t see the beach from the wharf side but you can from the platform at the top.

We love beach access. That’s what we’re about. So many times we‘re disheartened to see signs reading “Private road” or there are obstacles that make it impossible to get to the beach, or you feel like you’re trespassing once you’re there. This walkway says, “Here’s the beach. It’s yours to enjoy.” Mind you, there are no toilet facilities and not many places to hide if the needs arises which means to truly enjoy it you should do your business at home first. But I like what that walkway says.

Who built the walkway? It was probably the Chockpish Harbour Authority which is made up, like all the other 550-some harbour authorities across Canada, of interested local parties like commercial fishermen and business people. All of them volunteers. They probably made the walkway for their own families and anybody else that visits their little corner of Cote Sainte-Anne, about 20 minutes north of Bouctouche.

I always forget about the walkway, though, probably because you can’t see it until you drive through the one lane bridge (if you’re northbound). Turn right off the road and go between the red buildings of the lobster processing plant, to the end of the long storage shed to where the breakwater begins and you’ll find it. There are other paths to the beach, but we always use the walkway. It’s just more fun. A little more magic.

And it’s all there. The wonderful sand, the beach grass, the weathered snow fences, the driftwood, the shells, the diving terns, the cormorants and ducks, as well as the seagull perched on top of the light on the pole at the end of the breakwater, facing into the wind. It would all be cliché if it weren’t so authentic.

I’m sure Parlée Beach by Shediac is authentic too but it’s crowded. When I was young the beach wasn’t the beach unless it was standing-room only and mostly girls. Now, the only girl I want with me is Elaine and finding a beautiful beach we can have to ourselves is better than any trendy hot spot.

Beach at Chockpish with old timber in the sand and grass

By Archie • Chockpish, First Page, New Brunswick

Aug 10 2010

Cocagne Island — A not so distant shore

We returned to the island last Sunday, Cocagne Island, that is, not Prince Edward Island. This time after rowing the 1.5 or so kilometres across from where our cottage is, we were not chased off by a hoard of mosquitoes because a breeze had come up on the trip across. That breeze, however, grew stiffer and, along with some nasty looking clouds, worried us before the crossing was over and even more on the way back. But when we arrived we were happy to be there.

This was our second trip to the island with the little 14 foot car top Elaine bought from a neighbour so we didn’t consider ourselves seafarers yet; but once we had weaved our way through the maze of oyster cages and landed, we were proud of ourselves as we walked along that distant shore.

We followed the shore for about a kilometre until we got to the marsh at the southeast tip. We might have gone further after a break, but the calm, sunny day we had when we got up that morning had turned grey and windy quicker than you can say “you’re such a landlubber” or “next time check the marine weather forecast.” We were blissfully happy for a while, though.

Islands Are Just Different

Despite the island being in our front porch view for almost ten years, the shore felt strange like only an island can. Everything was vivid — the rocks, the sand, the driftwood, the flotsam washed ashore. We saw deer tracks. And all the time we were aware that we could not just walk home, that there was a large body of water between us and the mainland. But it was beautiful.

Our first reconnaissance

On this first reconnaissance along the shore we saw many wonderful places one could camp. There were many small clearings in the birch and oak woods up on ledges eight feet above the sand. But hoping to cut across country on some future trip we were discouraged to see just how much underbrush there was; maybe there are more accessible patches elsewhere, we thought. The aerial photos from Google Maps didn’t have the resolution to answer that question definitively, but it didn’t look encouraging.

What we do know is that the island is, sadly, not remote. There were empty coffee cups, spent fireworks tubes, the odd lost shoe and other evidence of a nearby civilization that doesn’t value wild spaces as it should. Nevertheless we were happy with the little corner that we had discovered and explored and were already making plans for exploring the whole island.

When we shoved off we were none too glad to be on our way, the weather being what it was; but at the same time we were left wanting more. Perhaps there are other islands we can find and explore, we thought, once we were safely back on our front porch. We might need something bigger and steadier than an aluminum car top boat and a pair of oars, but other islands we’d seen in our travels seemed to be much closer now that we’d had one voyage to our credit. We were explorers now, true adventurers.

By Archie • Cocagne, Cocagne Island, First Page, Florina Beach Cottage, New Brunswick

Jun 6 2010

Finally, cottage season is here

If I came equipped with a pressure gauge you’d see the needle dropping almost immediately upon arrival at the cottage. Being there is like a really good drug. When I had kidney stones a few years ago they gave me Demerol and within seconds the pain was dissipating. That’s what being at the cottage is like. When we leave Moncton we’re wound up from our crazy week and don’t even know it and then we sit on the porch of the cottage and decompress. I’m surprised our eardrums don’t pop. We almost always say, with some surprise, “Wow, was I stressed.” Pressure tends to build imperceptibly.

Briefly we thought about moving to the cottage permanently but the real value of the cottage is in being somewhere else. A place isn’t somewhere else if you’re there all the time. Perspective is gained from seeing things from two slightly different angles — triangulation. Slipping out to the coast always provides that perspective and when we come back to the world we see things more vividly. If we moved there, we’d just have to find another place to help us maintain our sanity. We’d need some other refuge.

woman removing items from trunk of car in front of a cottage

The cottage is now paid off

Besides, this year we have a bonus because the place will be paid off and then even the loan payments won’t be an added stressor.

An even bigger bonus this year is that the long haul of doing an internship at CFB Gagetown is over. I loved it, but it’s over and I’m home again and we can whip out to the cottage during the week and commute to Moncton, it’s so close. Eighteen months of seeing each other only on weekends was enough. More than enough, really. School’s over. Time to get on with life.

By Archie • Acadie, Cottage, First Page

Jan 20 2010

Acadian expulsion ends in complete failure

Why here?

Of all the places returning Acadians could have chosen to begin again, why Memramcook? Like most contemporary travellers, I stood on a historically significant spot and wondered why this community, built on either side of the Memramcook River, became significant. It certainly wasn’t obvious to someone driving in from Moncton on the new Trans-Canada Highway.

What I should have done — and who knows, maybe I’ll try it someday — was pack up my family, Elaine’s family and several others too and starting at, say, Louisiana, make my way up the American Atlantic coast until I got near the original Acadie and head inland far enough not to be noticed and start looking for terrain I know how to work, like marshes that could be turned into farms using digues. Looked at from this perspective, Memramcook looks like an obvious choice to begin to recreate Acadie. In fact, it’s so obvious, one wonders how they got away with it and why the British weren’t waiting for them.

Returnees weren’t crows and they weren’t flying

A quick look at the map reminds one of how close to the ocean Memramcook is, a mere 15 km as the crow flies. But the returnees weren’t crows and they weren’t flying. They may have been sailing or rowing up, or trudging alongside the Memramcook River, a meandering, tidal river that eventually empties into Chignecto Bay, the bay that borders the original Acadie.

They did get away with it, though. The first post-deportation Acadian village, Village des LePlatte, dates from 1766, 11 years after the deportation began. I say began, because it was a huge undertaking and took several years, starting in 1755 and ending roughly around 1763. Given that the first new village dates from 1766, one can see that if the goal was to completely expel the Acadians, then it had failed almost before it was even completed.

A vibrant culture hundreds of thousands strong

Of course, that’s my view, the view of someone sitting comfortably in a Canadian home in 2009 basking in the safety of a modern democracy where governments apologize (however, obliquely) for past wrongheadedness like the deportation. Still, it’s hard not to think that Acadie has succeeded after all. The original Acadians were a people, not a country, distinct from their motherland and from the conquerors. They still are distinct. And they’re hundreds of thousands strong now.

By Archie • First Page, Memramcook, New Brunswick

Nov 20 2009

How 650 girls ended my Catholic education

I didn’t continue my Catholic education into high school at Scollard Hall in my hometown of North Bay, ON, for two reasons: first, it cost money to go there and we had none; and second, no girls. It was an all boys school and that was taking religion too far for me. Besides, a mile from my home and half the trip to Scollard Hall a brand new, ultra modern, mega school had just been built and we were to be the first full year class. There were 1,300 students which meant at least 650 girls which in turn meant my Catholic education came to an abrupt halt.

But that was in the bustling, booming, railroad centre, North Bay, ON. That wasn’t in a fishing community like Cocagne or Escuminac, NB, where a decent education wasn’t about choosing which of five high schools you wanted to attend, but about deciding to go to high school at all. And if you made the choice to be educated, you most certainly were going to be educated by priests or nuns within the Catholic religion.

The luxury of choice of schools

What I’m getting at here is that as a teenager I had choices ― lots of choices ― as to how I wanted to be educated and in what language and I didn’t have to leave home to do it. The worst case scenario was a 20 minute bus ride uptown. However, if I had been born twenty years earlier and 1,500 km east, things might have been different. Anything like higher education — namely, high school — meant leaving home, leaving your family and friends, impoverishing your family twice, once by the tuition and board and once by your not being there to help fish or farm.

Jeannette talked to us about life in the Cocagne area. She was especially adamant that edlucation is what changed everything for Acadians.

Education was biggest boost for Acadians

Lots has changed since then. Louis Robichaud, P’tit Louis, New Brunswick’s premier during the sixties, made basic education for Acadians a reality. It sounds third world, I know, but when Elaine and I chatted with a friend of hers, Jeannette Deprés, who grew up near our cottage in Cocagne, she talked about the poverty of the Acadians in her time.

When I asked what change most improved their lives she blurted out, “Education.” I, with my five high schools to choose from, thought I was listening to a turn of the century story but that story would have been mine had I grown up in the Acadian peninsula.

Now, everywhere you drive in Acadie you find large, modern schools for k-12 and now there are remote campuses of the community colleges as well as the University of Moncton. I work with a young woman who learned 3D-modelling at the Campus de la Péninsule acadienne in Shippigan, traveling the 40 minutes from her home in Tracadie-Sheila every day. Incidentally, good roads was the second major factor Jeannette said improved the lives of Acadians in her time. She described going a lot of places by fishing boat.

I wonder how many young Acadians understand how far their people have come in such a short time. When I hear Acadians of the generation before mine talk about what they had to do to get an education, I know if I had been born here in Acadie, I probably would have gone to work at the railroad down the road like my father did.

Editor’s note: In 1985 Scollard Hall boys high school and St. Joseph’s girls school joined into one.

By Archie • Acadie, education, First Page, History

Oct 15 2009

Tormentine’s been left behind

I can’t help but be awed by Confederation Bridge. By any standard, that’s a huge bridge. On a trip to P.E.I. during the nineties, at the beginning of what was supposed to be a trip across Canada, I saw the bridge in mid-construction. I saw it from the ferry, which would soon be replaced. For the ferry’s staff watching that bridge being built must have been like a condemned man watching carpenters build the scaffold he’d hang from. I don’t know, though, because I didn’t ask anybody. In fact, I had no idea the bridge was going to be anything but good for everyone.

Before that 1996 trip even began, though, on the road from Fredericton to the ferry, the drive shaft fell off the old truck I had bought. That alone should have warned me to abandon the whole cross-Canada trip, but I had committed myself to it and there I was. It wasn’t a pleasure trip and I don’t think about it much anymore. However, being in Cape Tormentine again this summer it was hard not to superimpose the two trips, the one with my son over the one with Elaine. The only consistently delightful thing on that former trip was my son, Christopher, who was 11 at the time, who chattered incessantly to everyone and always seemed to be happy just to be there with me. He’s a soldier now.

woman walking on boardwalk to beach with blue sky overhead

Tormentine’s weather as wonderful as I remember it

This summer, on the first of two trips to Cape Tormentine with Elaine it was the sunniest of days with the freshest of breezes. It had all the makings of a perfect day. Perfect for traveling, for taking photos, but most of all, it was perfect for being with each other. Our happiest times together are when we’re in the car going someplace. It doesn’t have to be somewhere new because we are always new and see things around us with new eyes and more memories.

I wanted to go to Cape Tormentine because in my mind it is an exciting departure point. My very first trip there, back in 1977, I was with another young soldier, Randy LaPointe from Lorne, N.B. We had hitched to the ferry from the army base and walked on with our packs on our backs and no cares in the world. It was sunny then, too. It was a good trip for both of us.

The next trip was still as a young soldier but alone on my motorcycle. I remember a hostel or two, some beaches, but mostly I remember the ferry. I remember going to the front of the line because motorcycles boarded first and I remember being the first one off. There’s something about watching the ramp drop and the wharf appearing and getting the signal to disembark that makes you feel like you’re off on some great adventure. The weather then was unrelentingly beautiful. At least that’s how I remember it.

Something hangs over Tormentine

So, I had expected wonderful weather this time and wasn’t disappointed. It was indeed sunny. But times have changed. Something hangs over Cape Tormentine now that wasn’t there on any of those other trips and it doesn’t go away. It’s like standing at a site where a terrible accident no one can forget has happened. It’s a town that’s been left behind, abandoned.

A few families still live there, but it’s mainly a cottage and camping area now, which means there is no nasty, thriving industry to spoil a holiday. No trucks. No trains. No traffic. Nothing. Where people once parked their vehicles waiting to board the ferry the paint of the dividing lines is fading. The wharf isn’t being maintained and is now fenced off, condemned. The government buildings look dark and cold even on a sunny, summer day. The family restaurant that must have been thriving back then, looks suspended in time, frozen at the moment the bridge opened and the ferries stopped running.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Cape Tormentine and recommend the trip there. It still has loads more character than its usurper, Cape Jourimain, where the bridge begins. I like Cape Tormentine for much the same reasons the residents are bitter: it has been forgotten. In Cape Tormentine it’s always sunny but the mood is melancholy, which isn’t always bad, especially when you can close the book or you can get on the highway and leave.

By Archie • Cape Tormentine, First Page, New Brunswick

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