travel – Smoph's musings

Benign neglect and facing up to inadequacy

I’m giving my blog a little bit of a dust off. It’s been suffering a bit of benign neglect, like the study you keep meaning to go into but get distracted. On the surface, it might all look fine, and dust motes look so pretty in the afternoon sunshine, but that grittiness sticks to your fingertips, no matter how you rub them.

Most of it was feelings of inadequacy. Other writers I know were talking about their year’s achievements. Inevitably, this turned into: What have I done? And the answer felt like measurably nothing, whatever has been happening in my personal and other professional life. And I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to know about it.

It is, however, a quintessential part of the creative career: many years look like nothing was achieved. And sometimes trying to drill down into that encourages the Imposter’s whisperings in your ear and a fugue of depression and hopelessness settles upon your shoulders.

So, I just wanted to address that before I say I am back. I want to post about my recent trip to Europe and other bits of life I experience for me, and if any of you want to read that, then that’s great. If not, it’s your life.

And that’s all there is to it.

Spring Adventures in Canada: Part 7

Halifax

The last stop on our whirlwind tour of Canada’s east was the capital of the fine state of Nova Scotia. We were lucky enough to stay in downtown Halifax for the two or so days we were there, with a lovely view of the channel.

Our first day there was a bit wet and grizzly but it suited the sombre feeling of the warship bobbing in the dock. We had to wander past it to get to the Maritime Museum. I have to confess, before we went in, I was feeling that I might be a bit over museums and that I couldn’t see that I would really enjoy it. I was really wrong.

We started in the lighthouse section of the museum, walking past the early lighthouse globes. The one pictured is one from the early 20th Century, and each of the many facets is a piece of hand-crafted glass, designed to amplify the kerosene lantern behind. On into the wartime museum, the section that captured my interest was the story of the Canadian Wrens, or the female service officers. Their story is a testament to how far we’ve come, but also how far we have to go. Can you believe that they justified paying women a third of the wage as their male counterparts because they reasoned that they would need 3 women to replace each man? The worst part is, when the women completed the same quota, they did not receive equal pay, or even increased compensation. The Wrens fought for their country and were never recognised as equal to the men.

The museum has sloops inside it, and a hall full of hand-crafted and restored models of ocean liners, complete with histories and years of sailing. Did you know most ocean liners only sailed for about 20 years before they were scrapped, or quite often sank? So wasteful.

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Nova Scotia is also famous for shipwrecks. In the museum there’s a map with a little light bulb for each known shipwreck and it is covered in them. The exhibit focuses on a few of the sad stories, including the most famous shipwreck of them all, the Titanic. The good people of Halifax were the ones to collect the bodies and survivors from the sea.

Halifax is also famous for the largest man-made explosion (prior to nuclear weapons) in 1917, where a ship loaded with explosives collided with another in a strait near the city, catching on fire only to drift into the harbour and levelled a large proportion of the city, though more human life was lost in the following fires. In the museum’s exhibit there are some moving stories, like that of the train dispatcher Vince Coleman, who sent out messages to stop any incoming trains and saved the lives of an entire passenger train while sacrificing his own.

On the wharfs outside the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, there’s lots of stores along the channel-side boardwalk. Here, we got to try Cows icecream, a product out of PEI with extreme tastiness and lots of variety. We may even have had it on our way to the museum…There was also several bars with live music in that downtown boardwalk area, so it’s good fun.

On our last day of our trip we went up into the citadel, which is quite a climb from the water! From the top you can see the whole city, including Georges Island. As it was Canada Day, some of the sections were closed, but several staff were in traditional uniforms and involved in a couple of demonstrations. The walls are crumbling and slowly being smothered by plant life. It was a beautiful day and lovely to be on the top of the city.

It was hard to say goodbye to Duncan and Phoebe, but it had been an amazing trip and we were ready to get started in Vancouver.

If you’ve missed the rest of our trip, here’s the beginning of our amazing journey.

Spring adventures in Canada: Part 5

Cape Breton

20130620-IMG_1225-1 From PEI, we went on to Cape Breton. We stayed first with some cattle farmers in Antigonish, which is just off the island the cape is on. Antigonish is largely farming communities with thick forests. My partner Greg and I actually had a chill out day; we were a bit worn out by all the travelling. We went to a Scotch Whiskey distillery, a rather beautiful location with manicured lawns and whitewashed walls.

Cape Breton and the areas surrounding it acknowledge their heritage. The Scots history is heavily embraced, and many houses bear the Acadian star. For those not too familiar with Canadian/North American history, the Acadians were the early white settler,s mostly from France, many of who made a life with the Metis people as well. In the colonial wars between the UK and the French in that region of the world, these people found themselves in the middle. Many were shipped out, and are linked to the Cajun history of northern America.

Cape Breton

The Cape Breton National Park covers a huge area, and incredibly varied in environments. There was red sand cliffs, savannah, forest, beaches and mountains made of shale that seemed loosely piled in a mountain shape. We saw more than a few trees that had fallen over, seeming having only wrapped their roots around one large flat rock. The Cabot Trail, the main encircling roadway, rewards travellers with many breathtaking scenes. But hold on to your hats; those steep hillsides were created by fierce winds and water.

It was on this portion of the trip that we saw our first moose, nibbling amongst the evergreens. Easily tall as horses, these extremely quiet animals were quite happy munching away as we watched them. I guess they see a lot of people in that part of the world. Everywhere we went we carried sticks; the risk of coyote attacks low, but the risk not worth taking.

We walked in maple forests and amongst ruins from early Scots settlers; we climbed up on sheer and windy mountain tops and in swamps. We did not camp, but I am sure that if we had, there would have been some lovely places. Instead we stayed in a lovely homely cottage on the tip of the island at Bay St. Lawrence in a small fishing village, St Margaret Village. The lovely fresh salt air and glorious sunsets just took our breath away. Hummingbirds flitted around a feeder and a friendly little dog came to play. We had wonderful hosts who gave us hints about what to do, where to go. We had our first fresh lobster, cooked at home. I have to admit, having done it, I wouldn’t again. I don’t know if I could deal emotionally with it again, and it was a lot of effort for a little reward.

Around Cape Breton, the water is deep, dark and blue. It’s dotted with the hundreds and thousands of lobster pots, pretty flotsam in the waves. Interesting discussions were had with our host about the state of lobster and crab fishing in the area, a large industry with strict regulation, yielded that the buying price of lobster was almost not worth the fishing effort because of a glut in the industry. It was hard to listen openly to, particularly when the talk of trawling came up (very minimal in that area); I am in favour of regulation and protection of our oceans and its life. Especially when you compare the monster lobster carapaces on the wall in the cottage with the average size of catch (about a third of the size). Interesting fact: lobsters are extremely long lived and they are unsure of their exact longevity in the wild. In contrast, my aesthetic appreciation was brought out by the brightly coloured boats bobbing in the harbour and the elegantly coiled ropes and painted crab pots of a working dock.

Our hosts directed us to a céilidh in Chéticamp, an event with Gaelic folk music. Our performer was considered one of the pre-eminent people in the Gaelic music field. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

On our way out of Bay St. Lawrence, we stopped at a tiny little place called Meat Cove, where the rock looks like it is sliding into the sea and the beach is made of rock pebbles. This cove is locally famous for being a great spot to whale watch and see the pilot whales that are everywhere around the cape. We definitely saw a pod hanging out in the bay, and I have to confess, I was so excited to see their bulbous heads that I may have hogged the binoculars. In my defence, no one was as excited as me.

We left the lovely scenery of the Cabot Trail and Cape Breton and travelled northwest again, towards the Bay of Fundy.

To read about our journey, start from the beginning, or you can go on to the Bay of Fundy.

Spring adventures in Canada: Part 4

Kindred spirits

Prince Edward Island was our next destination, a place I have dreamt of visiting since I was a preteen and top of my list for my stay in Canada. I loved Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books and always wanted to find Anne Shirley on that island. We stayed in a lovely little hotel on a little inlet, but I dreamed of staying in one of the weatherboard homesteads. The soils are definitely rusty red and striking, and remind me of Phillip Island, a small island not far from Norfolk Island. There’s a lot of appropriately weathered docks with shacks, and in some places lines and lines of oyster farms. We had our first lobster of the trip here, fresh from the sea. Scallops and haddock too. The taste of such fresh seafood was incomparable to what most of us pick up from our local fishmonger.

20130617-IMG_8018-1 20130617-IMG_8014-1 First item on the agenda: visit Green Gables. The state made a park of the house that inspired Anne Shirley’s Green Gables. It was well preserved and I could feel the love of a thousand fans (and even perhaps the little girl that Montgomery was) around that house. She obviously drew a lot of inspiration from the people around her as the house belonged to her cousins and it is said her grandparents were a bit of a model for the Matthew and Marilla. They had preserved two of the areas around the house that Montgomery had described in the Anne of Green Gables series, but disappointingly only as much as they absolutely needed to. We could see the golf course (and hear the teeing off) from Lovers Lane and heard trucks in the Haunted Woods, which spoilt the atmosphere a little. We went to the site of her grandparents house, and it was enchanting walking up the quiet lane to the wooded house site. All that remains of the house are the foundations and a charming little well, where people throw shiny coins to wish.

You might be interested to know that any business on the island is entitled to call upon the Anne of Green Gables name for free; it is only those businesses off-island that have to pay a licensing fee.

Charlottetown, the capital, was a redbrick town that has maintained its small town feel. The outskirts are filled with industrial areas and warehouse style supermarkets. We found out that one of the musicals, Anne and Gilbert, based on the Anne books, was playing on my birthday but disappointingly was sold out.

Our hosts recommended a trip to Brackley Beach, which was romantically windswept and mostly unoccupied. Definitely worth a visit if you’re wanting golden sands against dark blue oceans. It was a little cold to swim then though.

On the day of my birthday, Duncan, Phoebe and I took a ride on Confederation Trail, which used to be the tracks of the island’s unnecessary steam engine. It’s a good story that steam engine: the island thought they ought to have one, as they had them on the mainland, but it bankrupted the council, so they had to join the federation of Canadian states, as opposed to what they were originally planning. It was a long time since I had been on a good ride like that, but I think I did alright. In the background of the flower photos above and below, you can see the colour of the tilled land and roads.

While on the island, don’t forget to try Cows ice-cream. You can get the ice-cream elsewhere, but it’s one of the tastiest and largest exports from Prince Edward Island. Plus, they have nerdy and funny t-shirts in the stores, so there’s entertainment too.

I have to say that Green Gables was my highlight. I’ve always felt that Lucy Maud Montgomery was a kindred spirit because I loved her books so much. I was humbled and teary at being in a place I’d dreamed of all my life. I even re-read the books, and some others, and felt that despair of being left out when I finished them. I left a little posy on her grave and thanked her for the joy she has brought me over the years.

To read about our journey, start from the beginning, or you can go on to Cape Breton.