Weathering Bill

Saturday, August 22, 2009

This is a good news/bad news story. The good news is that insects will not be a problem tonight. The bad news is that this is the case because I'm parked in front of Wal-Mart in Yarmouth Nova Scotia, not at my Campground Host Site in Ellenwood Park. Alas, I will not be getting my swim today. The approach of 700-KM-wide Hurricane Bill off our shores panicked the Nova Scotia Parks Department to close down their parks system for two days. Never mind that the winds here at the coast will be 30 miles an hour higher than inland, there are no trees to fall on me in this asphalt jungle. At least I'm on a hill well away from the shore and parked beside the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission with it's walk in beer cooler if I get too warm. The park is closed until Monday at least when parks staff will assess the damage.

 

It's remarkable how different campgrounds in the same parks system can be despite the fact that they operate under the same voluminous set of regulations and statutes. The first surprise is that this campground has a non-descript beach monitored by two provincially sponsored lifeguards 8 hours a day 7 days a week even though they often guard single swimmers.  People in the know walk over to the smaller but kinder campers beach in the park. The campground host site is drive-through and strategically located at the entrance to the two campers loops with a steep walk up to the comfort station and a short walk from the beach. No racoons here to visit the garbage and aside from red squirrels and chipmunks not much wildlife. So far I've heard the resident barred owl at 4:00 AM, a mourning dove, a boreal chickadee and seen a female cardinal and a loon out on the lake at dawn.

 

Whereas the majority of campers in Cape Breton were from Quebec or out of province, here at Ellenwood most people are locals who return repeatedly over the course of the summer to their favourite sites.  Weekends are the most popular times to camp which makes the fact that the beaches were closed last weekend due to an error collecting samples by the resident lifeguards and now again this weekend due to Bill tough on park statistics. Parks staff here are welcoming and friendly making an unexpected addition to their compliment feel instantly at home. Save for the fact that the gate to the day-use area is locked at dusk no record is kept of visitors there. The campground is gated and the office open 24/7 and manned by a female staff. I have met the Kevlar-vested and armed conservation officers in their brand-new air conditioned SUV complete with onboard computer.

 

Just before notice came down that the park was closing I managed to drum up business for the nature walk this morning and rode over to join Matt and the two people who showed up to take it. When we got back learned the park was closed and finished packing up for the move to Wal-Mart in Yarmouth. On the way paused at the visitors centre to catch up online.

 

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Woke at 4:30 to the insistent sound of pounding surf at the coast. The wind picked up gradually and imperceptibly. The rain arrived at 6 AM just as if someone had turned a water sprinkler on high. By 1:30 the sun started coming out and the sky clearing but the wind, if anything is still picking up and gusting heavily. Across the province broken tree branches and tree falls are taking out the expected number of power lines and along the coastline police are finding it necessary to protect thrill-seekers from their own stupidity. The cynic in me says let them go and allow natural selection to improve the overall intelligence level of the gene pool. I'm waiting to hear if Mark got surfing in the 30 foot rollers. The workers in the park to which I'm attached the next two weeks have been told not to report to work today so I'm waiting for someone to tell me what the assessment is tomorrow morning. I'm not expecting much more than a few broken branches and blown leaves.

 

I just moved my RV in closer to the store so it can break the wind for me and turned my RV nose into it. I'm about to go visit my hosts who seem to be doing a bang up business. Weather, it would seem, does nothing to curb the urge to shop. The rain, however found all the building's leaks and the wind has done an excellent job of sweeping the parking lot.

 

Monday, August 24, 2009

After looking out and seeing the heavy morning fog pulled the covers back up and went back to sleep. Decided to patronize my hosts again and went in to pick up some new socks and undies. Drove down to the visitors centre to send my E-mail and got them to call my park and establish that yes, they are open. As of nearly 5 PM I'm the only camper in the park so visiting will not be a challenge as long as I manage to get along with myself. The life guards in the day use area were paid to stay home yesterday. Slowly but surely I'm getting my campsite back in shape. Before supper I'll go for a swim.

 

 

 

 

On Being a Campground Host

So this is where reality meets romance. Yes, I get a complimentary campsite and in return I get to meet fellow campers and answer their questions. I also get to interact with campground staff and have discovered the reception there is mixed.  It would seem that just because a park tech who works in an off-site office has decided his park should have a campground host doesn’t necessarily mean that the staff who actually work on site are totally sold on the idea. Opinions there seem to be mixed. 

 

Neither the North Atlantic nor the Minas Basin can be expected to accord swimmers a warm welcome. The patch of gravel that passes for a beach at the Battery will cool one off quickly. At Five Islands the expansive shoreline begins with a 30 ft pebble shingle followed by mudflats that extend up to a mile and a half out to sea at low tide.  At the turn of low tide the sea rushes in quickly and at the turn of high tide the undertow sweeps all out to sea. Ellenwood will have fresh water lakes and I’m hoping that rumours of high fecal coliform counts prove to be incorrect. 

 

The art of meeting people has its ups and downs. One can never predict what kinds of questions one will be asked. I now know all about the proper preparation of clams. Are the mackerel running—they are here at the Battery. Are the squid running—they only show up here once every 5 years and if they were the locks would be coated in ink, try Canso. Where are all the Bald Eagles? I can now say I saw one perched early this morning in a spruce tree adjoining the water near the lock and alas my camera was in my RV a half-mile distant.  I also witnessed a British Lass stretched out on a blanket in the sun have a panic attack because an inch worm crossed into her view.  Luckily she didn’t witness the 3 inch slugs I saw at Five Islands or she’d have been traumatized for life.  Is the Newfoundland Ferry likely to be busy—call them.  When does the coffee shop open—Tim Horton’s is 24 hours. Where would I buy lobster—at Lobsters-Are-Us in Little Harbour on the way to Point Michaud Beach.  See I’ve picked up a bit of local knowledge. 

 

Every park seems to be different.  Some are gated and sign visitors in and out, some have given up on gates that just don’t work.  Day use in Nova Scotia Provincial Parks is free.  The Battery Park, I’ve discovered lacks a sewage dumping station but most have comfort stations with warm showers.  The fire wood here at The Battery is the driest I’ve encountered anywhere in my camping experience but soft wood has no staying power.  The campsites in most provincial parks tend to be spacious and here at the battery afford one magnificent views of St. Peter’s  Bay.  The town of St. Peter’s is a short walk across the lock.  The St. Peter’s Canal adjoins this park and one can sit and watch boats pass through all day and the swing bridge operate to allow sailboats with tall masts passage. I have never seen as much Cow Parsnip in one place as I have here at The Battery.  In mid August sunny days are bringing goldenrod and asters into bloom. 

 

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Entered Nova Scotia as a fog bank ate Tantramar Marsh.  No piper at the visitor's centre on weekends.  Found a bank in Amherst along with Sobey's.  Stopped at the Masstown Market near Truro a local phenomenom that combines beer/liquor/wine, nursery, bakery, meat market, fruit stand and grocery store/knickknacks all in one.  From there drove up to Five Islands along a pot-holed Hwy 2 with tire-eating breaks in the pavement.  Five Islands is a place to watch the tide pour in and out of the Minas Basin.  My Campground Host Site up beside the hilltop comfort station was seeded days before I arrived and the sign put up that very morning.  A long walk down a steep hill takes you to the cliffs overlooking the East River and the five offshore islands.  The 'beach' has 30 feet of sharp pebble shingle leading to mud flats  that extend for over a mile at low tide and disappear at the rate of 1 ft a second when the tide roars back in.  An offshore rock approachable at low tide bears the image of the old wife-she was definitely an old hag.  A Mi'kmaq from Millbank came in Saturday Night to tell us how Glooscap created the Five Islands by throwing rocks at Beaver in the Bay.  A Korean is busy buying up businesses in Five Islands including an entire island where he built a resort with materials barged and helicoptered in.  Parrsboro has stores and a Geological Museum.  Joggins has a fossil museum. 

 

At my sister's in Lake Fletcher got my laundry done, to sleep in a double bed, and to bathe in a large bathtub.  Visited my Aunt Muriel in Bridgewater area after driving down through dense fog.  Got carrot cake for my birthday and then my brother-in-law engineered a complete washing and waxing of my RV along with various repairs and bike adjustments.  We got in canoeing on a local lake becoming becalmed after fighting our way a mile up the lake against a stiff breeze.  Watched The Watchmen and the Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  The former a marathon watched over two nights, the latter better than I'd expected.  Sunday got out for deep fried clams and chips-I treated. 

 

The ride up to Cape Breton on a Holiday Monday was blessedly uneventful.  The Canso Causeway looks miserable as the sea has been chewing away at its banks.  St. Peter's is a busy little town with local bars featuring Ceilidhs-live Scottish/Irish music.  Authentically the word connotes an informal kitchen party.  St. Peter's is the home of Wallace MacAskill a sailor who began a career in black and white photography of the sea and ships after a tourist gifted him with a Kodak Brownie camera in thanks for his assistance.  His photo of the Bluenose graces our dimes.  There is also a small museum and a so-called wildlife museum with inappropriate donated specimens manned by a local boy who will work until the grant money runs out in two weeks.  Talking with him was more interesting than his museum.  The Campground Host's Site near the comfort station actually has jury rigged 30 AMP power on crushed rock surrounded by mud, a Campfire Circle, and a twenty-foot canvas Teepee from Ohio the purpose of which no one can explain.  It is not appropriate to the local Mi'kmaq traditions. 

 

St. Pedro began as a Portugese Colony until the French made it St. Pierre with a fort named Toulouse.  It was leveled after the British captured Louisbourg.  A French Trader named Nicholas Denys held sway here for twenty years until a granary fire leveled his holdings and he left for Bathurst New Brunswick.  The British established Fort Dochester here on the height of land after capturing New France.  Nothing but signposts mark any of these sites.  The remains of a farm owned by a family named Kavanaugh remain as foundation stones but his home ended life as an insane asylum.  Adjoining the park the National Parks Service maintains the St. Peter's Canal as the oldest working canal in North America.  It affords passage from St. Peter's Bay on the Atlantic to Bras d'Or Lakes boats being lifted or dropped according to the tides.  Bras d'Or-Shoulders of Gold-Lakes are salt or brackish but with only two narrow outlets onto the sea vary by less than 1 foot in height so are barely tidal.  Being protected waters they are ideal for canoeing and kayaking. 

 

Monday the third the fog didn't lift until noon and settled back in by 4.  A large boat negotiated the locks but all anyone knew of her was the sound of her echoing fog horn.  I spent the forth of August cycling around town and today, the fifth settled in for a lazy day in camp.  Only a dozen sites in the park are occupied.  There's a campfire tonight with a talk on the canal.  I have been strongly encouraged to visit Arichat, Point Michaud, and Marble Head Beach and may strike out if the rain holds off tomorrow.  There's a weak but warm sun shining in my window but fog all but obscures the far side of the bay.  The park has more cow parsnip than I've ever seen in one place before.  Have talked with people from Maine, Quebec City and Montreal, along with families from Moncton, Halifax and Ontario.  A family from California and a couple from South Carolina and New England.  Gave travel advice to a Moslem Bosnian couple from Toronto.  They were sleeping in the attached rear of their pickup truck.  One of those enclosed box jobbies. 

 

Just was out for a walk to drum up business for this evening's campfire and must now get a bite of supper before things get interesting around here.  The campfire circle is part of my host site.  After another week here I head for the southern end of Nova Scotia six hundred kilometers distant.  Getting there involves driving most of the way back to Halifax, then down Hwy 101 to Yarmouth.  I expect to give myself two days for the trip.  I'll want to stop in Yarmouth along the way.  Finally, there I will get a chance to go for a daily swim though it will be a fresh-water lake, not fifty degree salt-water.  Guess I've gone soft.  I don't take cold showers any more either.  Today is warm and the humidity nearly 100%.  Haze still obscures the far shore of the bay but at least we aren't socked in with fog. 

 

Be careful what you ask for.  The ankle I sprained in Five Islands is still bothering me but then sprains heal slowly especially if you keep walking on them.  That's life in the wilds of Nova Scotia.

 

My second week at The Battery began after a sunny weekend broken only by one brief spritz of rain. Last Friday I went for a drive to see the recommended local sights.  Finally haze-free skies afforded clear views of the bay and Ile Madame opposite.  The park filled up with campers eager to take advantage of one of the few fine weekends we’ve enjoyed this summer.  The St. Peter’s Canal did a bang-up business with a great deal of excitement attending the passage of a 42 ft wide 246-ft luxury yacht with four feet to spare on either side and scant room fore and aft inside the lock, half the town came down to witness the show. 

 

I’m not sure that most people who arrive here have any clue what a campground host might be or why he shows up at their campsite but I’ve only met one group who out and out didn’t wish to be pestered. As with any job that entails meeting the public one never knows what to expect and it would be impossible to predict the questions one is likely to be asked.  Sure, I can recharge your camera batteries.  I even volunteered to dogsit while a young couple attended a Ceilidh. I’ve now met three people who know my first cousin in Bible Hill near Truro.

 

On Thursday the Thirteenth I got out to the band shell in town beside the Catholic Churches Glebe House where the audience was treated to Cape Breton Fiddling and a local folk/rock group.  Dakota from Ile Madame played three guitars, a banjo, mandolin, and National Steel or Dobro. I made it back to camp for the evening campfire where a local fisherman explained the ancient art of building a lobster  pot from scratch and ended with a demonstration of knitting the end webbing and parlour. 

 

Last night I demonstrated that if you build it they will come.  Built up a roaring fire in the campfire circle and settled back to read and people started arriving. A couple from the Ottawa Valley showed up fiddles in hand and just like that I had my own Cape Breton Ceilidh happening right here beside my RV.  People wandered in and out until 10:00 at which point everyone went home to bed.  With any luck we can stage another such event again tonight.  Today is Saturday August 15^th marking the halfway point of August and the temperature is headed for the scalding mid-thirties. After I finish typing I believe I’ll wander down and try out the waters of St. Peter’s Bay—should be a bracing experience.  This being my last full day in camp  I am busy wrapping up the paperwork I have to fill out to fulfill my duties as campground host.  I will also sort through the park’s campground host box and add the bits and pieces I have collected along the way for the next hosts. 

 

 

Home Impressions

Home: where one is treated the best and complain the most.

One can’t go home.

 

After months in a home that sways in the wind sleeping in a double bed that didn’t rock when I rolled over was a revelation.  Having someone else cook meals and do my laundry was certainly a luxury.  Be careful what you ask for.  I’d hinted about a brush to wash my RV and soap my brother-in-law would recommend and it arrived on my birthday but I wasn’t expecting to get the RV scrubbed from stem to stern with a polish job bumper to bumper including the roof.  Applying polish to a 22-ft, 8 foot high vehicle is no minor matter.  I was told I should do the four wheels on my own time.  My brother-in-law also took the kinks out of my bike rack, did some fibreglass repairs, and helped me with a few other niggling repairs and adjusted my bike.  Having a mechanic/handyman in the family is a useful fringe benefit. 

 

I don’t wish to sound blasé and world weary but after 35,000 KM certain trends seem to fall into place.  It is remarkable how many people who live next door to landmarks others have travelled half way round the world to view have never seen them.  This is equally true of urban sophisticates and rustic peasants.  I have long-since lost count of the number of places boasting the world’s best beach, covered bridge, tallest or longest whatever.  Shediac, New Brunswick is the Lobster Capital of the world, Austin Texas the  Music Capital of the world, Long Beach Oregon has the world’s longest beach no one can swim.  Famous people or legends seem to get around.  Alexander Graham Bell for example invented the telephone in the US and in Cape Breton Nova Scotia and Brantford Ontario.  Paul Bunyan dug the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence but there’s a statue of him and Blue Babe along the US Pacific Coast and he’s claimed by the East Coast as well. I hadn’t expected to find a 300 foot statue of Davy Crockett in the middle of the Texas Desert. 

 

There’s only one right way to pronounce words, name a plant or animal, cook a food, or perform certain tasks.  Across Canada, for example there are at least a dozen plants referred to as Mayflowers.  In the US South tea comes iced in a tall glass with lemon slices; coffee?, forget it.  In places where the temperature regularly tops 100º F don’t expect to find chocolate bars which melt at 80º F.  With my Germanic background I don’t feel comfortable saying you’all or effecting a southern drawl and have my pronunciation of place names regularly corrected.  Don’t go camping in an Arroyo—a dry stream bed—it may become a raging torrent due to thunderstorm activity hundreds of miles away in the mountains.  I was recently informed by a local with a Scottish brogue thick as porridge that she did not have an accent.  I was taken aback when my Aunt sliced my entire pound of bacon in half and heated her frying pan on a red hot burner before she put it in the pan.  Her pan is too small for a full slice of bacon and thin so over high heat bacon might well stick.  Therefore she believes  you have to heat the pan before you start the bacon.  A large well-seasoned cast iron frying pan works best if you start the bacon slowly in a cold pan. 

 

Chicken-fried steak has nothing to do with chicken and comes deep-fried in batter smothered in milk gravy.  What passes for hot salsa on the west coast wouldn’t even rate as mild pasta sauce in Texas.  Anyone for prickly pear salad?  Fried rattlesnake?  Rapi-pie?  Poutine—gravy, BBQ Sauce, and cheese curds on French Fries.  Hodge Podge?  Canadians wear out their kidneys attempting to get a buzz off most American Beer.  In some provinces it would be too low in alcohol content to legally rate as beer and patrons would accuse the barkeep of watering down his draft. Anyone for possum, squirrel, grits?  Grits to me seemed like watery cream of wheat. Biscuit and chicken gravy?

 

Along the East Coast a black flag indicates a hurricane is on the way.  Coastal areas have signs marking the storm surge levels, evacuation routes, and public shelters. At least they generally get fairly good advance warning.  In the Mid-West if the sky turns greenish-purple and the siren goes off you have five minutes or less to make it to your storm cellar or the lowest or most protected area in your home before the tornado hits.  On the west coast tsunami warning signs mark evacuation routes to high ground.  If the tsunami siren starts undulating make tracks for safe ground.  Unfortunately science has yet to perfect a method of predicting earthquakes in other than geologic time-frames.  California highways are shut down when there are major rain showers—they are not built to shed water.  In Seattle and Vancouver snow brings all traffic to a standstill—no one has snow tires and the municipalities have no ploughs.  On the west coast expensive homes are built in areas prone to brush fires, land slides, and coastal erosion; Miami is built on a sand bar.  In the Rocky Mountains no stopping signs mark areas prone to avalanches and land slides.

 

In Florida one is cautioned to beware of plunging into a fire-ant colony and not to feed the crocodiles.  In Texas turning over rocks or logs is likely to disturb a scorpion and walking past tall grass calls for care lest it be inhabited by a rattler.  If you camp and leave your boots out it’s wise to tap them out before putting them on to dislodge potential tarantulas or scorpions inside.  In Texas and New Mexico look fast because as Wiley E Coyote will tell you Roadrunners are quick.  In Saskatchewan and Manitoba Greater Prairie Chickens, a large bird over a foot tall will freeze in the middle of the road and refuse to move believing this makes them invisible.  One didn’t move until I nudged him with my bumper—I wonder why they’re endangered.  In bear and mountain lion country make lots of noise and don’t fall behind or strike out ahead of the pack.  If you encounter a bear back away slowly and do not establish eye contact—remember, black bears are excellent climbers.  It charged make lots of noise and as a last option play dead and protect your vitals.  For cat encounters one is advised to look at big as possible and to charge first.  If attacked fight back aggressively.  Don’t hike alone, in their territory these animals consider us prey. 

 

The world may be a dangerous place but man is still the most dangerous creature in it and highway traffic the most dangerous place to be.  Seeing a full-page spread on the ten most wanted in the Coastal News in Southern California was hardly an inducement to become a tourist.  Learning that in LA a policeman is killed weekly makes one wonder why anyone would answer a full page ad placed in the local tourist brochures.  Graffiti, vandalism, theft, and gang activity mar too many urban areas and the cliché about billboards blocking a view of the natural wonders they would advertise is all too real.  Despite these concerns common sense is still one’s best protection and a locked vehicle one’s best defence. At home or abroad don’t leave valuables in plain sight. 

Back on Home Soil

Continuing along New Brunswick's Acadian Coastline I stopped a night at a poorly run campground in Bouctouche before spending Friday and Saturday night in Shediac near Parlee Beach.  Declaring itself the Lobster capital of the world the tourist bureau has a strip of small shops featuring local cooking, crafts, and knick knacks plus Le Homard Gros—the Big Lobster.  At my campground managed to catch up online and read 6 weeks worth of CBC News updates.  Reading about all those murders, violence, political intrigue, and natural disasters in one sitting is quite an experience.  In the last month I've also made a concerted effort to read my way through 10 month's worth of MacLean's Magazines, now it's on to 16 month's worth of Reader's Digest along with PC World and Backpacker.  In Shediac spent an evening in Pascal Park listening to a public outdoor concert of Acadian Music and took the bike trails down to see the beach and other attractions associated with it. 

 

Before leaving Shediac I got my RV in order, my propane tanks filled, my holding tanks emptied, and my water tanks filled.  Left Shediac Sunday morning and entered Nova Scotia through a fog bank that concealed Tantramar Marsh.  Also missed being piped into Nova Scotia because the person who plays the pipes takes weekends off.  Found a bank and shopping centre in Amherst and drove out to Masstown Market near Truro to stock up on the likes of Brown Bread, Dulse, fresh strawberries, Valley Apples, Maple Syrup, and Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.  On the way to Five Islands on Highway 2 discovered that what I'd read about the condition of Nova Scotia's roads in MacLean's Mag was no exaggeration—tire eating potholes.  

 

At Five Islands was given a warm Nova Scotia Welcome, a tour of the park, and led to my campsite discovering to my elation that they'd installed a 30 AMP hook-up for me.  Since I'd been led to expect I'd have no hook-ups I was delighted to be so surprised.  Shortly after my elation was dampened when I spun out on my bicycle on the loose rock covering the hilly roads in the park and skinned my left knee, sprained my right ankle and bruised both palms.  Nights in the park are punctuated by marauding racoons who stage raids on the garbage cans, scattering their contents.  Doe's with fawns wander through the park one showing off twins and another a singleton.  Overhead soar bald eagles.  In the forest especially in the early morning the fluty calls of Wood Thrushes vie with the ubiquitous robins.  Near my campsite the "Quick, Three Beers" call of the Olive-Sided Flycatcher sounded and a black-throated green warbler posed just below the campground office. 

 

The joys of Five Islands Park are esoteric ones best appreciated by those satisfied to spend the hours it takes to see the dramatic rise and fall of the Fundy Tides.  For those who can get a campsite with a view of the Minas Basin or who take the time to make the half-mile hike to the shore the rewards are great.  However  these waters are more for looking than swimming as when the tide is in the beach is covered by coarse pebbles leading to muddy tidal flats.  Once past the waters warmed by those mudflats the deeper waters are chilling and plagued by dangerous undertows.  The change of tides is marked by powerful currents and at low tide the mud flats stretch for miles.  For those who would dig clams conditions are ideal and for those properly shod a walk to check out "the Old Wife" rock formation and the exposed cliffs is rewarding as long as one remembers to keep a weather eye on the state of the tides.  Boating is not advised.  When they can be seen, sunsets are spectacular.