Elaine

About Elaine

Posts by Elaine Mandrona:

Aug 26 2019

Acadie! Acadie!

The trip up the Acadian Coast has spectacular natural scenery, for sure. But this time the journey offered something more for the eyes. Something that had to do with the soul of Acadie — buildings festooned with the Acadian flag, streamers. Lawn chairs, trees, old wringer washers and plows decorated with red, white and blue and the yellow etoile of Acadie. (France’s flag with a yellow star on the blue is the flag of Acadie). Scenes of early Acadian life populated front lawns, complete with traditionally dressed mannequins wielding axes or churning butter. If I were a part of this great family, I would hang giant underpants on my clothesline, red, white and blue, the etoile on the bum of the blue pair.

Special signs on homes with the family names — Hache, Melanson, LeBlanc— announced to passerby’s “Here we are, come visit. We are all connected and probably related. We are Acadians!”

Child dressed with Acadian flag colour glasses

Seriously festooning

This festooning started to become intense at Neguac. Something was up. A 30 foot Acadian flag hung on the great Catholic Church in the town. Acadie is a nation within a nation and all of these descendants of the “Grand Derangement” —the forced removal of the Acadians from their homes by the British in 1755 — were gearing up for the Congrès mondial acadien 2019, World Acadian Congress set to take place from August 10-24 and kicking off from Abrams Village on Prince Edward Island. It’s a combination of conferences, displays, art and cultural exhibits, educational events, family reunions and celebrations all rolled into one.

I have great respect and admiration for the Acadian people. I love hearing the French language. That’s one reason why we relocated to this part of New Brunswick. Acadian French is a more archaic form and my high school Parisian French doesn’t always jibe with it.

man playing guitar for a farmers market crowd

Je me souviens

The Quebecois motto is “Je me souviens”, “I will remember”. I don’t know if Acadians have a motto, but I think that it should be “J’attends.” “I will wait.”, just like Evangeline waited for her lover Gabriel in the Longfellow poem. Acadians have had a long struggle for equality and recognition. They are not pushy nor do they complain much. Even Chiac, a version of French spoken mostly in Southeastern New Brunswick, blends both French and English. They adapt.

They do like to celebrate, play music, decorate profusely and quietly build their strength. New Brunswick is the only bilingual Province in Canada now, and I like it that way. Like in the Beatles’ song “Blackbird”, the line, “You have only waited for this moment to arise” comes to mind.

Acadians (15,000 approximately) were scattered to Maine, New England, the Atlantic States, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Louisiana (think Cajun) and to the Acadian peninsula during the “Grand Derangement”. In a way they have had the last word. They have built a culture on the beautiful Acadian Peninsula. They have the coast with the warmest waters north of the Carolinas. They have a community that spans the continent.

P.S. I just read that the Acadian motto is “L’union fait la force”, “Strength through unity”, Well, that says it.

By Elaine • Acadie, First Page

woman looking at camera from inside the glass of a lighthouse

Aug 17 2012

Morphing Miscou Beach

It was really different this time and I’m still not sure if I like all the changes. We hadn’t been to Miscou in two years and arrived on a hot, windy August day to find that the lighthouse site had been developed as a tourist destination. Pros and cons, pros and cons, I thought. But the island would surprise me again.

The massive lighthouse itself had been refurbished and was open to the public. It was now possible to pay $5.00 and climb the 96 stairs to the light and observation deck of this giant and experience a god’s eye view of the shimmering island. It’s pretty high and you have to climb through a hatch to get to the open air of the deck. So high that I only stayed out there a few minutes before vertigo drove me back inside to grip the handrail and nestle beside the huge glass lens of the light.

But I was glad I went up. I was determined not to let arthritic knees stop me. I wanted to experience the reawakening of this colossus with the giant orb. The lighthouse has been reanimated and that is good. He is the watcher and protector.

The gift shop/snack bar was another new addition. Tastefully constructed and sided with wooden shingles, it offered souvenir knick-knacks (not so tasteful), ice cream and take-out food. It seemed like a popular spot and I told myself that all of this was good for the local economy — really there isn’t much else on this island of 800 souls. Nothing original about the shop, though. It did not reflect the soul of this place.

view from the lighthouse at Miscou Beach

Our first pilgrimage to Miscou

The first time we came to Miscou Beach there wasn’t anything there except the lighthouse and it seemed as if we had discovered it. The sparkling water, beautiful stones, rhythmic frothy surf and salty air delighted and heightened our senses. It made us want to fill our lungs with the wild wind. It was magical and sacred and it had a presence. It didn’t need any gift shop or scurrying tourists. We now call our almost yearly trip to Miscou a pilgrimage and we mean it.

Which brings me to the third new structure there, still under construction. Looks like it will be a small chapel. OK, I thought, something to inspire reverence. I walked over, took a peek inside and experienced something uncanny. I heard music. It sounded like an organ, then voices singing, then chanting like the kind that Gregorian or Tibetan monks do with low, resonating tones. It was beautiful.

The chanting of the wind

The wind at Miscou is relentless and it took me a few minutes to figure out that it was the wind blowing through the steel scaffolding that was making these eerie sounds. Still, it seemed as if the island’s spirit was singing to me.

Then I remembered something called Aeolian Harps developed by the Ancient Greeks. I Googled it when we got home. Aeolius is the god of the wind and the protector of an island. His harp is an instrument played by the wind. It is a wooden box with a sounding board and strings stretched across two bridges. It is placed in a partially opened window so the wind can blow through.

The character of the sound depends on the material that the strings are made of and also their length and thickness. They can be tuned to various notes or pitches. The nature of the wind and the resonating body also influence the music.

Curiously, An Aeolian harp plays only harmonic frequencies. With so many disturbing and disruptive sounds in our modern environments, these sounds can be like a balm to our jangled senses.

Wikipedia says about the harps: “Their vibrant timbres produce an etheric, almost mystical music that many people find alludes to higher realms”. Ahhhhhhh, so the spirit of Miscou did speak to me.

I am now in the process of composing a letter to Miscou Tourism suggesting they build some structures, some “Miscouian Harps” to give the wind, one of Miscou’s most dominant features, a voice to sing, a voice to carry us to higher realms.

woman in a large room of a wooden lighthouse

By Elaine • First Page, lighthouse, Miscou, New Brunswick

shadows of two people on a beach boardwalk

Aug 15 2011

It’s a love story

Exploring the Acadian coast together was a love story

I grew up on Long Island Sound where the summer weather was sultry and the Sound was extra salty. I learned to swim there. It was easy. The extra salt makes you more buoyant. You could see Long Island out there, if it wasn’t too hazy. It’s very similar to the way you can see P.E.I. off the coast of New Brunswick, giant windmills and all.

Archie grew up in North Bay, Ontario, on the shores of the ocean-like Lake Nipissing. There are giant waves, sandy beaches and big ships and you can’t see the opposite shore, it’s that big. It seems like the ocean, but there’s no salt in that water.

So we come by our love of beaches and surf naturally. We seek them out. We’re like salmon trying to get back to our origins.

The Bouctouche Bay Inn

Our exploration began at the Bouctouche Bay Inn, 1999. That’s ten years ago now. It was a quick holiday in the Fall away from our respective kids, romantic and passionate. We must have left a few sparks smoldering – the place burnt down. But really, that was four years later, and it was probably a deep fat fryer that led to the demise of the old and beautiful Inn. It still makes me sad whenever we drive by the grassy rise where the inn once stood.

Caissie Cape Cottage

The next year we rented a cottage at Caissie Cape for a week and explored the whole time. By the following fall we had purchased a cottage in Cocagne. It’s definitely our happy place. We met and came together later in life and that has posed some challenges, but the cottage in Cocagne became our first home together, our first shared space. It gave us privacy, sunny sensual surroundings and a place to breathe and relax. A slow pace and a place where love could bloom.

The Coast is Always Changing

A coast, where sea meets shore, is a place where a lot happens all the time. Water, wind and sand constantly interact and change shape and rhythm. Of course everything is always changing from the subatomic level on up to the macro expansion of the universe. But on the coast, you can see it always changing, all of the time. That’s the difference and that’s why it’s so compelling to watch and enjoy. The elements come together and act on each other, sometimes gently, or sometimes with gusto or even violence. But the result always seems to be something beautiful — the stones, patterns on the sand, seaweed, twists of driftwood, the sudden lifting grace of birds, the rippling sea grass, the parade of clouds.

A landscape can be a backdrop, a mirror or a metaphor for a state of mind . Or, for a relationship. Why do we love this coast so? The deeper we go into this place, the more we learn about each other. It allows a dialogue. It makes room for us to create together.

I ask Archie, “Why do you love going to the cottage so much?” His one word answer, “Escape.” Why do you love me? “You are my companion”. I take this to mean that we are a perfect pair to travel the road of life. Counterpoints and complements.

woman holding heart shaped stone on her heart

Why do I love going to the shore? Simplicity and freedom. Why do I love my husband? Because he is always in motion and that motion is always toward something good.

We feel openness and expansion at the shore. When we’re ready to go inside, by contrast the small cottage doesn’t seem cramped, but cozy. It’s a place of gestation, it holds and contains.

Auberge le Vieux Presbytère in Bouctouche through trees

We were married four years ago at the Auberge le Vieux Presbytère — an old rectory now reborn as an inn. I could feel that many prayers were said in that space. It’s in Bouctouche, right on the water. As we said our vows we could look right out at the water through stately maple trees. It was a blustery, rainy September day. Perfect, though. We can weather storms.

Sometimes we jostle and unsettle each other like the waves, sometimes we polish each other, like beach glass. Sometimes we surprise each other, like seeing a red spider on white beach sand. Sometimes the right words to say just come, in an instant, like the punctuation of birds taking flight.

We come here to the shore to find each other, to push, to polish. How beautiful. How full of discovery, motion and peace, all at the same time.

stormy weather clouds while woman walks on beach

By Elaine • First Page, New Brunswick, Uncategorized

beach scene with lagoon looking formation and woman walking beside it

Jul 9 2011

Cape of light and emptiness

Seek the light — good universal advice. We’re heading to Cap Lumiére, one of the most beautiful and empty beaches around. It’s on the Acadian Coastal Drive which stays as close to the coast as you can get and has good signage. To get there, we hug the coast from Cocagne to Bouctouche, go through the village, past La Dune, up to Chockpish, then onto Route 505. This last leg is like driving on the edge of a cliff in spots.

We go past the dock, busy because it’s the height of lobster season, until the road turns to a sandy beach road, we park and walk. From here you can walk for miles.

A high, white place

This is a high, white place to me even though it’s sea level. It’s a holy place, a place to go to be alone with my thoughts. It faces east, the direction of new beginnings.

When I’m here, I find it hard to believe that it is so beautiful, yet so undiscovered. There even isn’t much on the web about it, or about the lighthouse, built in 1864, which sits squarely on the roadside just before the beach.

There is a whole world at your feet waiting to be discovered.

It’s baffling why so few find and venture out to the Cape of Light. Perhaps the information highway doesn’t reach here. Perhaps it’s a place that you have to find serendipitously, the road leading you there when you’re ready to find it. You go when you feel the magnetic pull of the place.

Topographic art

To me, the beach at Cap-Lumiere is one of the most magnificent beaches along the Acadian Coast. It’s actually called South Richibucto Beach on the topographical map I have up on my wall. It narrows and reaches to almost touch the other finger of beach reaching down from Kouchibouguac National Park, North Richibucto Beach. It reminds me of the Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel. A white-bearded, windswept God reaches out a finger to a muscular, reclining Adam, giving the gift of life. In my mind, they’re Finger of God Beach and Creation of Adam Beach and all this is Eden.

Behind the beach at Cap-Lumiére sits a large, boggy salt marsh. Maybe that’s what keeps the beach from being over-developed and overrun. Bog makes bad real estate and mosquitoes keep away all but the most determined walkers and seekers of beauty. What’s left is a strip of sandy shore and luckily the wind often keeps the pesky insects away. But maybe there are bog fairies there that are the keepers and protectors of Cap-Lumiére. I wouldn’t doubt it one bit. After all, I haven’t seen too may four-wheelers there.

This whole shore is riddled with inlets and small streams that all meander their way to the ocean at this particular spot. Wind and water do their job shaping and reshaping the sand dunes as well as the sand bars that lie a little way offshore. Every time we come here, the contours of the beach have changed some, the forces of weather here being powerful and sometimes downright wrathful making the interface of sand and water sculptural and dynamic.

A lot of a beach’s spirit is determined by its waves and here they’re vigorous and loud. This is a beach for people who are kinesthetic, who like to feel the invigorating force of the elements. But on a hot summer day at low tide Cap-Lumiere has a gentler side. The water is warm, and the waves are strong and can massage, are therapeutic, and the hot sun casts a sleepy spell.

woman taking pictures of things on the beach

A world at your feet

We only visit, but what lives here? Birds, seaweed and sea plants, insects, little fish and crustaceans all populate the beach. There are different kinds of seaweed, more than I’ve seen on other beaches —long thick brown pieces that have ruffled edges like lasagna, seaweed that looks like shredded paper and seaweed that has little air-filled bladders that pop like bubble wrap when you press on them. After a storm, all of these are washed ashore in a jumble, like some tangled salad.

You can make a day at Cap-Lumiére be whatever you want it to be, and wander along its shore as long as you want to. There is no interpretive centre, no signs, no boardwalk. It is a rare find and a gift in this day and age of development gone mad. Make of it what you want. Make all of the discoveries yourself.

Empty of human imprint

It gets me wondering, though, what’s so good about solitude and lack of human imprint? Sure it’s fun to be packed onto a sandy shore with sunbathers, running and laughing children and sometimes their pets. You can people watch, smell the sunscreen and catch the tide of excitement and activity like a ride on Coney Island. That’s a different kind of beach, a different state of mind. Emptiness offers something else.

I read an article recently about the over-scheduling of our children. Nowadays, you’re considered a bad parent if you don’t fill your child’s free time with activities, lessons, sports and play dates. The article went on to say that kids need unstructured, alone time to regroup and tap into themselves otherwise they become overstimulated, scattered and ultimately shallow with no inner resources to draw on.

We grownups need that too but get less and less of it all the time. That’s why a solitary walk on an empty beach becomes so important. At Cap-Lumiére Archie and I go our separate ways, following or pausing to observe what attracts us be it low flying plovers feeding in the seaweed, tiny hermit crabs you can pick up in your hand, interesting shells and rocks, beach peas or the view that’s just beyond the curved shore ahead. Later, our paths merge and we’ll continue along together, the rhythm different now.

A place for solitude

Solitude gives an opportunity to explore our connections with other people by their very absence. We have a social identity, a way of being when we’re with other people. In solitude this persona fades, we see more clearly other aspects of ourselves, a more authentic self. Being alone is not the same as being isolated or lonely. It can be healing and delicious.

When alone on this beach and in other remote natural places, sometimes prickles come on the back of my neck, like there is a presence. Like the place is saturated with spirit. It can be felt, but not so easily described. It makes me feel expansive and connected.

In art, defining shapes is important, but so is defining what is between those shapes, the empty space without which the work would be meaningless, chaotic. My time at Cap-Lumiére is that space in between that helps me define my life. It gives me clarity and an awareness of what is and what isn’t.

By Elaine • Cap-lumiére, First Page, New Brunswick

Jun 20 2010

Florina Beach, Cocagne Island, Carmel

Maybe it’s the first day of summer

It’s the 20th of June. Maybe it’s the first day or Summer, of maybe it’s tomorrow. We don’t have a calendar here that tells us. But the day starts out overcast and then the sun comes out, humidity building. Just before we set out for a beach excursion, it starts to sprinkle, so we decide not to go anywhere, but to stay home at Florina Beach. It’s our beach. It deserves some attention.

It took me two times looking at this place to see the possibilities. The first time that I saw the sign “Florina Beach”, I thought it said “Florida Beach”. How silly, I thought, comparing this place to Florida. But Florina is the woman’s name who used to own this land. She’s in her 80s now and still lives somewhere nearby.

Our beach

The beach here is a small triangle. It’s much nicer and there’s much more of it when the tide is out. The water is shallow and warm and the sand is fine. Little fingerlings jump at the water’s edge and flash in the sunlight. There are tiny hermit crabs here that live in snail shells and there are lots of clams, too. Tiny oyster shells from the oyster farming cages are scattered on the beach. It seems like a gentle place where baby sea creatures are given a chance to grow and get a foothold on life — a place of gestation. After a storm the beach is often piled high with seaweed that looks like shredded packing paper.

Is the island splitting in two?

From Florina Beach, looking across to Cocagne Island, we are noticing a curious thing. Until now, Cocagne Island has been two distinct forested clumps of land with a low, marshy neck connecting them. But this year we can see blue water and sailboats on the other side of the neck — like it’s thinned. Carved away by the action of the surf? Rising water levels? Eroded by the increasingly violent storm surges and changing currents?

Surette Island, nearby, didn’t used to be an island. My friend Jeanette told us that. She grew up here 70 years ago and at that time it was connected to the mainland. Could be that this whole coast is more dynamic than one would think. It’s taken us a while to notice.

So what if Cocagne Island is cut in two? Will we get bigger waves? A better beach? Or will the beach that we do have be washed away? Will the oyster fishery in these gentle waters be ruined?

At one time there was talk of “developing” Cocagne Island with high end homes, a golf course and a bridge. But the locals were against it. The island would be forever changed. So reports of vicious mosquitoes were circulated. Actually they are quite aggressive and bloodthirsty — so this was no lie.

The island is a living thing

To me it’s important that the island stays wild with its oak forests where the herons nest and with great, untouched beaches on the ocean side. I even want to keep the mosquitoes. They’re food for the fish. They’re part of the abundance of life here. We need a repository of wilderness as a balance to all that is developed and changed by human activity.

But the island seems to be a thing alive. Alive and changing. Not only is it thinning in the middle, dividing like a cell, but the sand spit on the north side seems to be coming closer to the main shore. Left to its self-determination, and going at an island’s pace, it may yet willingly connect to the mainland.

woman on beach looking at distance island

My friend Carmel died this week

My friend Carmel died this week at the too young age of 59. I was waiting for her to arrive in these parts for her summer residence any day now, as she does every year. Instead I got an email from her daughter, “Mom died today.”

Things seem like they will always be the same, until suddenly they are no longer the same at all, like an island cut in two. We often don’t notice the subtle changes, and the slow erosion until in one dramatic and startling moment everything is different.

Carmel, we spent time here together. You were a part of my life. You helped me give birth to my daughter. You were a good friend. Today I see that our lives, our souls, are built moment by moment, grain by grain. And all of the grains are moved by forces like the tides and the wind, pushed, gathered, eroded, divided, scattered and reconfigured. We can resist or ride the currents with grace, flow and generosity. We can welcome the reshaping. We can become something else. I think that you would understand. We can reach toward connection with another shore, familiar yet unknown.

By Elaine • Cocagne, First Page, New Brunswick

Jan 30 2010

Memramcook — The cradle still rocks

The village of Memramcook, NB, may be known as Le Berceau de L’Acadie — the Cradle of Acadie — but I came for a massage. I’m at the Memramcook Institute, formerly the Collège Saint-Joseph, the first successful Acadian institution of higher education. That college laid the groundwork for the modern day Université de Moncton. Times changed and the college morphed into a resort, the resort has a spa and here I am.

For a really good massage that can transform stress and body blockages, a lot of elements have to come together. The physical environment, the ambiance and the therapist — you need to get a sense that all of these things are right for you. Every massage is different, but if any of the basic elements are out of whack, the experience can be more frustrating than healing. I know all of this from both on and above the massage table because I’ve been a massage therapist for 18 years. I work my body hard and it gets sore and distorted and tight and I need someone who really understands my body to get it all to release.

Andrée Poirier Massotherapist

Andrée Poirier — My therapist that day

The Memramcook Spa is on the third floor of the Memramcook Institute. The lovely old building with its high ceilings, old woodwork and large windows has an ambiance that lends itself to relaxation and introspection. I like the fact that both learning and worship — two of the more evolved human activities — once took place here. The atmosphere is quiet, soothing, contemplative.

I first came here with my daughter for a going-back-to-school treat last August. I booked a massage with the therapist available that day, Andrée Poirier. It turned out well. Better than well, it was the best massage that I have had for a long, long time. So I booked with her again. I never asked her if she was related to Pascal Poirier, the first Acadian chosen to serve as a senator by John A. MacDonald and educated at the Collège Saint-Joseph, now the Memramcook Institute. Next time I will ask about her connection to the place.

She was very present while doing her work on me — she paid attention. She combined basic Swedish massage with myofascial release and energy work. In layman’s terms, she did some basic stroking and kneading, some deeper work on my stuck spots by stretching the fascia (connective tissue that surrounds muscles and bones) and by frictions. But best of all, I could feel her attention and soothing, focused, healing energy. She was also trained in Reiki. We were both in a meditative state as she worked slowly, deliberately and with great compassion. I felt great afterward, like a new woman.

Acadie reinvented

It’s curious the path things take sometimes, how everything can come together to structure a memorable experience. This place of learning and spirituality for the Acadian people reinvented itself —metamorphosed into a place of healing and recreation. My Acadian therapist is part of a new generation that has moved forward: competent, confident and generous. The cradle still rocks, although now to a different tempo.

By Elaine • First Page, Memramcook

Oct 15 2009

Terminal Tormentine

The waves are choppy and the wind blows cold at Cape Tormentine, even though it’s early August. Tormentine, even the name sounds tortured, tormented, and harsh like turpentine. It’s a point of land sticking out into Northumberland Strait, the beginning of our coastal route and the closest point in New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.

The ferry to Borden, PEI, used to leave from here, but now the terminal is abandoned and derelict. Wind blows through broken windows. Plants are breaking up the pavement and reclaiming the ground. The wharf and surrounding buildings all have fallen into disrepair and are unsafe. A chain link fence attempts to prevent access to the curious and foolhardy. A few recreational fishermen, mostly retirees, some fathers and sons cast their lines into the water in the areas where they’re allowed to go. The Confederation Bridge, built 12 years ago, has changed everything. What was once a bustling and important little village is now breathing its last.

dilapidated restaurant with RV park behind it and then the ocean

There are always survivors

But a few businesses have managed to hang on. There’s still a campground here that seems full enough and a restaurant, Smallwood’s. Actually, we surmise that they both may be owned by the same person — the campground provides captive customers for the overpriced, stuffy and unimaginative eating establishment.

The decor and the feel of the restaurant down to the swivel seats at the lunch counter are of the 1950s. Dust motes drift in the dingy light coming through the venetian blinds. It feels like a mirage or a hologram. It seems like the very molecules that comprise the place struggle to not dematerialize. The waitress at Smallwood’s confides, “I hate the bridge. I used to waitress at the restaurant in the Ferry Terminal”. Clearly, this is a step down, way down.

An old and sad story

Cottages, tiny palaces of summer pleasure and whimsy remain, wildflowers and whirligigs in the yard. These folks have stayed for the ocean.

The fate of this village is a story told over and over again in New Brunswick. Progress diverts energy and money away from small once prosperous towns — and the towns inevitably die unless they can reinvent themselves.

I just realized that I’m speaking of Cape Tormentine as if it’s a person. A terminal person (pun intended). Despite the stark and lonely aura of the place, I find beauty in the sagging, faded buildings. A once perky beauty relaxing into an inevitable greying and softening. The rusting water tower looks like a work of art with its varying shades of orange, brown and blue. The trees poking out of the windows and waving at us like neighbor’s hands in the wind make me smile. The forest knows it has a good chance of taking over again.

There is passion and excitement here too, though, and it definitely comes from the sea. Elemental, big whitecap waves, loud surf. Wheeling birds, flags and fabric flapping in the wind. It fills us with excitement, sadness and a strange kind of undefined longing….

From a distance, I can see something arching out of the sea. I imagine that it’s a water serpent or a roadway being held up on the tails of whales. But it’s man made — the usurping Confederation Bridge.

By Elaine • Cape Tormentine, First Page, New Brunswick

Sep 25 2009

To the lighthouse — Elaine

“Today I just want to get in the car and go,” Archie says. It is the first day of our summer holiday at our cottage in Cocagne, NB, and already Miscou Island is beckoning. We always drive until we get to the very end, to the lighthouse. It is a pilgrimage to the northeastern-most point of New Brunswick, to remote a place of beauty. Even on a cloudy day everything is luminous: rocks, flecks of sand, old lobster traps, scrubby trees, sea birds and, of course, the surf. When we’re there, a shift takes place.

Getting to Miscou is a relief. The drive isn’t easy. You have to really want to get there but then, at the end, I see the tall, massive, octagonal shaped, red and white lighthouse held down with guy wires and even though the lighthouse is so huge, the restraining wires give the illusion that it could float away like a balloon.

The Lighthouse

I have to crane my neck way back to see the top against the blue, blue sky. This sky color can only be seen once you reach the ocean. You don’t get that color anywhere else, only here. Everything opens up inside. I can see and breathe and the amazingly good smelling air has a healing quality. The rhythm of the waves calms me, the whole journey is a metaphor for my life the past couple of years.

It has been a struggle to work three jobs and travel back and forth between two locations, only seeing my much loved husband on weekends. Finances haven’t been easy, either. They rarely are during a time of transition. The grind wears me down but we are trying to start something new, but I do know where I want to go and the life that I want to have.

Anyone fifty-plus knows making big life changes isn’t easy but unless I take steps to reinvent and renew myself, life becomes rote and unconscious and is a kind of death. After a low emotional ebb, after soul searching and praying, something opens up in me, just like the sky at the end of Miscou Island. I have that feeling of freedom, I am dwelling in a place of magical beauty and can see the big picture of my life. That’s what pilgrimages are meant to do.

Walking as mediation

I love to walk. I like to get a measure of a place through my stride, so down the beach we go sometimes looking far out across the water. I can see the deep, inky blue hills of the Gaspé from here, and they beckon. White cumulus clouds skirt the top of the hills, like icing on a cake. I like the feeling of connection to Quebec, a faraway kingdom, one that I’ll have to visit someday, too.

The sounds of the surf are fairly subdued today and the rhythm affects the way I breathe. They relax me. If I stop to listen, I can hear music and singing in the sound of the water. If I were a musician and could write down this musical score, it would be transcendent, brilliant, even. This place brings out the creative in me.

Beach stones

One of the biggest treats of Miscou Island is discovering the rocks and stones. Note to self: I must look into the geology of this place, but for now, I cast my eyes downward and look for interesting specimens. Almost all of them are tumbled into smooth spheres or ovals. Some are striped in layers of black and white like Yin Yang symbols, some are splashed with a deep red like spatters from a careless artist’s brush, some are speckled like a bird’s egg. All are beautiful, especially when they’re glistening with water. They are all sculptural and I want to take them all home — Miscou, please come with me!—but I have to settle for just a few and put them in the pockets of my hoodie. The rocks make me look like I have a lumpy tummy and they clack in my pockets as I continue to walk along.

Miscou beach goes a long way around a snub-nosed tip of land with inland tidal ponds along the way, each one a slightly different ecosystem haven for gulls, terns, cormorants and ducks. These pools, surrounded by razor sharp beach grass and succulent beach peas are full of life, the water’s surface still and glassy, or faintly rippling from a kiss of the wind, counterpoint to the moving, frothy surf. The seabirds dive here, spearing small fish.

Another treasure that I love to find at Miscou is beach glass — broken shards from pop or beer bottles or old cosmetic jars. The surf here rolls the glass smooth and frosty-looking in fairly short order.

I know glass, I used to be a stained-glass craftsman. Glass is basically silica — sand heated to extremely high temperatures and rolled into sheets or blown into vessel shapes. I like the cycle and irony that beach glass represents. Sand is made into glass by people, glass is made back into sand by nature.

The most common colors are clear white or brown. It’s always a treat to find green, blue or even sometimes purple or red. Into my pockets these jewels go, too. I’m going to continue the circle, another spiral higher and make these gems into some kind of art once I get enough of them. Then maybe I’ll bring it down to the beach and offer it up to the god of surf.

Engine Trouble

All of my imaginings are interrupted by the sound of engines. Two four-wheelers speed toward us, rooster tails of sand thrown up behind them. Deep tracks are left in the impressionable sand. I try not to be annoyed or judgmental, but I say to Archie, “How can they think that’s fun?” He looks at me like, Don’t you understand the energy of boys? I’m on a pilgrimage, and I guess they’re on a noisy, destructive quest full of adventure, danger and daring.

Time to turn back, the lighthouse again in our view, the friendly giant. The walk back always goes faster than the walk out. In some places we retrace our own footprints. I lighten my load of a few rocks, quicken my step and soon we’re back at the parking lot by the lighthouse.

Last year when we were here, an ice cream stand had appeared when years before there was no hint of any commercial enterprise. Pretty good idea, though. Ice cream on a summer day after a long walk on the beach is pretty appealing. Nothing says summer more than that! But last year when we ordered up two cones of vanilla, they said, “Sorry, we’re out of ice cream.” We were really disappointed. But Miscou is remote and when you run out of ice cream, who knows how far you have to go to get more. All the way back to Lameque? Shippigan?

But this time, they were well stocked. We lick our generous cones fast before the ice cream melts while sitting in the parking lot. Eating ice cream makes me feel like a kid, or is it Miscou that has me feeling renewed and youthful?

Flight

We finish and it’s time to go. The drive back, we know, is long. Just as we are leaving, the doors of a minivan open up and three men emerge, two with guitars in black cases and one with a double bass. They carry their instruments toward the beach. Are they going to test the acoustics in the lighthouse or just play on the beach in harmony with the sound of the waves? Again, a bit surreal. An Impressionist painting. Actually, I am thinking, this may really be a dream.

By Elaine • First Page, Miscou, New Brunswick

Aug 9 2009

Bas-Cap-Pelé plays

I told Archie to go and explore Le Goguen Musée de l’Art Brut on his own (“brut” means raw or rough art). I was feeling sick and irritable and my broken toe throbbed. We were in Bas-Cap-Pelé checking out some of the “attractions”.

Le Goguen Musée de l’Art

One Desiré Goguen’s sculpture. This one is a rocket ship made from barrels and astronaut’s made from, among other things, tin cans.

This Musée Brut place had lots of found-art sculpture in the front yard. At first glance, it looked like a lot of junk, but hey, the guy seemed to have a sense of humour and he was recycling. He was offering something to the people who passed by—a smile and something to puzzle over.

So Archie went over to explore the outside museum and took a bunch of photos.The Two Bishops in a Kayak that Archie speaks of actually had the tops of bleach bottles glued to their heads with some kind of ropey fiber or coconut husks glued onto that. The meaning I took was they were early missionaries plying the coastal water and out to convert the natives, but they just looked silly. Maybe that’s how they looked to the natives, too.

3,000 plus monkeys

man with wall of stuffed monkey — Désiré Goguen with a fe of his 3,000+ stuffed monkeys.

Then Archie was invited into the inner sanctum and disappeared inside the “monkey house”. He came out smiling, looking delighted if somewhat puzzled. He told me about the 3000 plus stuffed toy monkeys inside covering every surface.

Monkeys of every kind, huge ones, tiny ones, mechanical ones. I’ve been in scary “fun houses” with skeletons and ghouls, but this seemed to be a silly fun house. What would it be like going to bed with monkeys looking down at you from the ceiling? How could you dust that many fuzzy toys?

Bas-Cap-Pelé is a playful place, we concluded. There were several really nice “terrains de jeu” for the village children with swings and slides and jungle gyms and grassy areas to run.

Fifties reborn

Near one of these playgrounds someone had erected replicas of a 50s style gas station and diner right in their backyard, complete with antique gas pumps and “White Rose Gas” and “Coca Cola” signs. They were really well done replicas. The gas station was really just the owner’s garage painted yellow and white with all the antique service station pumps and signs outside. Were there antique tools inside? What was missing was, of course, an antique car but it may have been parked inside. I like to think it was the Ford my dad had back then.

Railcar Diner?

The railcar style diner was red and had rounded corners and a cute little striped awning on the front. But it was done on a smaller scale than a real diner—kid sized (I think it might have been an industrial mobile office once). I almost felt like I was back in the 50s when buildings like these were shiny and new, heralding “modern” times. How the world has changed. If I was a kid, I would have loved to play there. They put me in a good mood.

What makes these old guys so playful?

I am wondering what makes adults like Désiré Goguen and the man who built the replicas do what they do? As a child, at one point I realized that when I became an adult I could no longer play with my dolls. That was just for kids. There was a sadness with that realization. Who made that rule?

I still have my doll family that my aunt bought me when I was seven-years-old. They’re stored in an old carrying case. They’re from the 50s too and my daughter played with them for a while. I told myself that I was saving them for her but now I find that they represent so much joy and happiness that came from my childhood, I just can’t bear to part with them. Am I saving them for my grandchildren perhaps? The dolls are in their case just waiting to bust out and play with the next child that comes along, I imagine.

The Bas-Cap-Pelé people who made these “attractions”, maybe they’re retired fishermen or farmers who worked hard their whole lives without much leisure time. Now they’re playing and inviting others to do so as well. Or maybe their lives were such that their outlooks have always been playful and good-natured.

From what I’ve read of Acadians, they rolled with the hard times, but enjoyed the good times. When the fishing and farming seasons were over, they filled their long winter hours with music making, collecting and hobbies. Now it’s just more of the same. In any case, these grassroots expressions of the spirit of this place caught our attention compelling us to linger and explore this community a little more. These folks had something to share and they wanted a reaction.

By Elaine • Bas-Cap-Pelé, First Page, New Brunswick