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Sean Hickey
From Brooklyn to Breton

Jeux sans Frontiers


Canada


Fancifully-named River Bourgeois appeared like a mirage in the gauzy light of the early morning. A thick line of fog sliced through the midsection of the houses and church across the unmoving river. The strand of pines seemed to levitate, casting a gray reflection on the still water. I was heading west along Cape Breton’s southern coast, part of the Fleur-de-lis Trail, through thick pockets of moisture every mile or so. I had to drive with the wipers on and windows down to find my way to the Lennox Passage Bridge, gateway to Isle Madame, another Acadian enclave, this one the largest in the area. Slicing through more thick forest, I came to Arichat facing a wide bay, the main town of the island. Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral, built in 1837, overlooks the bay and cannons point toward the sea in one of the oldest fishing ports of North America. I went exploring, hoping to meet some people but no one seemed to be stirring at this hour, so I photographed the boats moored in the winding bay, perfectly mirrored in water as still as a millpond. I left town and headed down a winding dirt track to Cape Auget, capped with a lighthouse that guards the island-studded bay. Fishermen pulled small boats through the muddy bogs and into the bay, loading them with lobster traps. I took just about every tiny road I could on Isle Madame, stumbling into Petit-de-Grat, settled by Basque and Portugese fisherman as far back as 1500; and Little Anse, a miniscule village on an island not much larger, where the proud boats outnumbered the modest but colorful houses. Here a tiny paper mill belched smoke from a two-story stack no wider than an exhaust pipe on a car.

Through another picture-perfect fishing village, D’Escousse, I continued on to Cap La Ronde, where the coast turned rocky again and svelte peninsulas angled out to the dozens of offshore islands scattered about the sea. Chicken Fricot sounded like a nice dish, but I could find nothing open at this hour. As I crossed back over the bridge, I wished I had much more time to spend on Madame and this area of Acadian settlement and Mi’kmaq, the native group of this region, culture. But I had to start heading off Cape Breton, and I bid farewell as I crossed over the Canso Strait, the Chieftains blaring from the speakers. Passing a McDonalds advertising “McLobster”, I entered the broad Trans-Canada once again and I felt like I was being carried across the lobster-shaped province and the Chignecto Isthmus, out of Nova Scotia on a rapid tide.

The entrance gate to New Brunswick’s Rocks Provincial Park looked like a theme park without the turnstiles. I had half-expected to see the rise of roller coasters and to hear the sound of the arcade. A neat interpretive center explained the mystery of the Fundy Tides. Surging in the opposite end of the earth, rising tides funnel through the long screw-shaped bay that tapers into long inlets, each of which narrow further. Combine this surging action with the depth of the bay floor, which gradually shallows away from the mouth, and one encounters the world’s highest tides twice a day. The tide rises to a height of 52 feet here where the Bay makes a turn and tapers into the Petitcodiac. Low tide reveals what New Brunswickers call “flowerpots”: tall mushroom-shaped rocks and arches dotted on top with clumps of small trees.

It was interesting to walk among the rocks at low tide and to amble across the seafloor, hard to imagine that in a few hours only the trees would be showing above the water. The giant formations rose up in a swirl of shiny orange and brown, and the retreating tide left a thick bush of seaweed at the bases.

Sign on a dilapidated house outside of Hopewell, New Brunswick: Johnson’s Museum: The Past on Display

Seems like a fancy way to say junkyard.




I stopped for tea and grilled cheese at a farm near the bay. It was brutally hot and two ducks kept cool in the shade of a pickup truck in the driveway. The drive south was a nice one and the low tide revealed miles of tidal flats and a mélange of birds. At the town of Alma, it looked as if the harbormaster had pulled the bathtub plug. Dozens of boats littered the muddy bay, their mooring lines slackened to accommodate the crazy tide. The town marks the northern entrance to Fundy Provincial Park, a vast area of dense forests that sidle up to the bay and its shifting tides. I was angry with myself for not being able to stop in this trail-crossed wilderness to do some hiking. Perhaps I took on too much.

Once on the speedy highway, I seemed to swoop down on St. John, the province’s cultural and commercial center, as well as its largest city. I crossed over the highway bridge just as an enormous cruise ship pulled away from port. I drove up to a park above town that offered a great panoramic view of the city.

St. John’s Reversing Falls could be one of the most overhyped attractions in Atlantic Canada and the busload of camera-toting Japanese tourists on this day did nothing to dispel this. Just west of downtown the St. John’s river slices through a narrow canyon as it makes a hairpin turn in a northward direction. I arrived at high tide to watch adventure boats bounce about the swirling pools. The tide, arriving from the ocean, meets and overtakes a set of rapids, giving the impression that the falls are falling in the opposite direction. To me, it looked like a big frothy mess, interesting, but little more.

I found a campground in Rockwood Park, the enormous, lake-studded patch of green high above the city. Against my better judgment, given the likelihood of rain this evening, I chose the most open, most exposed, site to pitch my tent. But the commanding spot stood high above the freeway, downtown St. John’s, and the shipyards that extended to the Bay of Fundy, (For it’s large-scale ship construction, the city was once called the Liverpool of North America.), and I wished to hear the quiet murmur of traffic far below. This was city camping at its best; in the morning, I’d be able to witness the sun rising over the tall harbor cranes that looked like praying mantises as they straddled the harbor inlets.

Still craving a steak, I showered and drove down into St. John’s pleasant historic center, circling handsome King’s Square, it’s pathways arranged in the stripes of the Union Jack. After passing through City Market, I found exactly what I was looking for on a narrow block off Water Street. I savored my steak and onions, potato, washed down with a pint of Smithwick’s, one of my very favorite beers, and unable to be found in the U.S. Contented, I walked the quiet harborfront streets and came upon Market Square and its hotels at the water’s edge. This was the first city of any size that I had spent any time in on this trip, yet I was struck by how quiet it was at nine o’clock. Save for a few tourists window shopping, St. John seemed pretty deserted. I found it charming.

A teenage girl asked to take my picture and I fell into conversation with her and her four friends, all of whom looked completely stoned. Leaning against the harbor railing, her somnolent boyfriend kept repeating, “This place sucks.” like a mantra. I had only mentioned how charming I thought St. John was. I left when I was met with a barrage of questions of where I was on September 11th. I had another beer and watched the light of the harbor beacon cross the black water, the sound of either a retreating tide or advancing river sloshing against the pilings.

Two hours later, I was jolted out of sleep by a blindingly white light, followed by a boisterous clash that throttled my ribcage. The rain. It came fast, but I felt dry and secure in my tent. If the thunder ceased, I would sleep to the sound of the drops tapping on the fabric. The storm intensified and I buried myself in my bag. Then the water came in. In the increasing lightning flashes, I could see several small pools forming all around me; when I moved I drew the water toward me in little streams. In no time, my hair became wet so I gathered up my bag and backpack and sprinted to the car. Absentmindedly, I had left the window open a crack and the sideways downpour had soaked the seat. The last thing I remembered was sliding into my bag to stay dry. When I awoke, the sun was cresting over the church spires of Canada’s oldest city.






Previous
Further Up, Further In
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Keep the Ocean on Your Left
  Sean Hickey - Bio and Journals
  From Brooklyn to Breton - Intro Average Rating of 2 Viewers
Chapters of From Brooklyn to Breton
  Urge for Going
  A Good A Day As Any
  Further Up, Further In
  Jeux sans Frontiers
  Keep the Ocean on Your Left
  Songs About Buildings and Food

       

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