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.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 15th 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment