A Good Place to Reflect: Liscomb Nova Scotia

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, autumn

 

We spent a night at Liscomb Lodge and Conference Centre  in Liscomb Mills Nova Scotia. It seemed to be the main attraction in the area. Chris and I sat on our tiny little deck overlooking the lovely little cove shaded by red and sugar maples interspersed with birch trees. I was hooked.

It was Thanksgiving weekend so we were lucky to get a place to stay. There was no other place where we could dine. It appeared to be a nature resort and conference centre for busy executives from Halifax.

Sitting on the deck enjoying a drink and the view on a lovely autumn day with my lovely wife, I began to think I had arrived in heaven. Until I realized that of course I did not qualify. At least this was a little slice of heaven. I got that much and it felt fine.

I took a brief stroll down to the water where a fine dock offered an opportunity to watch an Asia family canoeing and to admire the reflections in the water. The colours were sensational. A Kaleidoscope of colour.

Later that night we met a very odd guy.  He was an accountant. Accountants are usually not odd. They’re usually boring. Do you know the difference between a lawyer and an accountant? The lawyer has a personality.

We met this one who definitely had a personality. He was there for the weekend  with his wife and like us they were going to the dining room in for dinner.  I did not realize he had talked to Chris as we were going in and he came up to me as if we were long lost friends. Calling me by name, he told me it was great to see me. And I didn’t have a clue who he was. That was the point. He just wanted to bewilder me for a bit. We enjoyed a lovely dinner and chat together.

East Shore Marine Drive

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, photography, Wabi-Sabi

 

After leaving the South Shore of Nova Scotia we headed out past Halifax, which we avoided. We have been to Halifax many times and wanted to concentrate this time instead on the countryside.

 

I insisted on stopping to photograph some old buildings and old boats. Both were beside the East Shore Marine drive we travelled along. This is not the wealthiest part of Nova Scotia, but I sure like it.

The boats were in a boat graveyard. I don’t know what they did to deserve their fate, but I have a strange attraction to the old and dilapidated. I’m not sure I have this affliction. I just know I do. They did seem to be corpses along Marine Drive. The Japanese have a philosophy for weird old guys like me. They call it Wabi-Sabi. I like it.

Sheet Harbour: Sweet Waters

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, autumn, Waterfalls

 

Sometimes, meandering is just plain fun. This day was one of those. We were leaving the area around Lunenberg that included Mahone, Bay, Chester and Peggy’s Cove and started heading north east of Halifax along the shore. It is called The Eastern Shore or Marine Scenic Tour.

We stopped to admire and photograph the lovely falls and autumn foliage at Sheet Harbour. That is a pretty good combination. The Roman poet, Ovid said it well: “There is no small pleasure in sweet waters.” I think that is a perfect description of this day.” The water here sure looked sweet.

This community is located on edge of the 100 Wild Islands. We photographed the river and falls near the bridge across the highway. Nova Scotia is laced with lovely drives. Since the first time Christiane and I travelled to Nova Scotia, about 40 years ago, we have used those scenic routes as our guideposts.  I remember that first year, we actually met the young lady who had written the book for Nova Scotia Tourism. We were really blessed.

Only about 800 people live in the area around Sheet Harbour. Like most places in the Maritimes it was originally settled by the Mi’kmaq First Nation who have inspired me so much. The Mi’kmaq called the place Weijooik which means “flowing wildly.”  I guess that is why the surrounding islands are called the Wild Islands. Currently, West of Sheet Harbour lies Sheet Harbour 36 a small Mi’kmaq Reserve.

In 1773, nearly exactly 100 years before Mennonites arrived in Manitoba to settle the prairies, the first European settlers here were Loyalist refugees who fled the United States, much like refugees who show up on American borders today.  But these were welcomed by the British who wanted British settlers. They settled this area together with British veterans of the American Revolution and they called it Port North. That name was used until 1805. After that, it was called Sheet Harbour on account of a rock at the entrance of the harbour which resembled a sheet. This became a prosperous lumber area and its sawmill became a hub. The sawmill was built about 1863.

It was lovely. No sweet.

 

Self-Sabotage

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Birds, Nature

 

While we stayed at our B & B outside of Chester, Nova Scotia, we suffered a power failure, and I reluctantly went to bed at 10 o’clock one night at our lovely B & B in Chester Nova Scotia. After that I did not miss the sunrise in the morning as I often do. John Lennon, that great English philosopher, once wrote, “The sunrise every morning is a beautiful spectacle, and yet most of the audience still sleeps.” It was not a great sunrise though. Too many clouds covering the beatify. That was a pity. Or as the British would say, a dreadful pity.

 

I must admit I am guilty of missing the vast majority of sunrises. I have called myself an inspector of sunsets, but confess I have missed many sunrises, which are really just as good.

 

I did enjoy reading this morning in the lavish rooms of an outstanding B & B. . I got back to my book on the fur trade, finally. I had been too busy to read now for some time. That is another of my serious moral failings. Today though I enjoyed the quite morning.

 

After reading awhile, I noticed a lovely band of pale orange/red slipping through the blinds of the living room from my upstairs lounge vantage point. It took me too long to realize I should be photographing it. My bad. A bad photographer, distracted by an interesting book. Oh well that was good too. Our host Jackie was not so slack. She captured a wonderful image. By the time I got there the picture was lame. In photography the prize often goes to the fleet of foot, not the malingerer.

 

 

A little later in Mahone Bay I saw this cormorant soaking up the sun in its face.  It did not miss the sun rise. It was not a malingerer.

 

Yet I thought of what legendary Canadian photographer, Freeman Paterson said. I had watched a documentary on him on Gem recently. Many years ago, Paterson presented an outstanding slide show in Steinbach. Who said Steinbach is a cultural desert?

 

Paterson knows a thing or two about beauty. Even how to create or capture it in distinctive images. He said in a recent newsletter, “I’ve long observed that most of the people sacrifice the pursuit of beauty—natural or otherwise—on the altar of perceived necessity. There always seems to be more important things to do. Life gets in the way. Yet the day will come when we no longer have the opportunity to have experiences, nor to create the enriching, sustaining memories that come with them. One might call it, self-sabotage.” It’s like missing the sunrise. Same thing. Self-sabotage.

Aspotogan Peninsula

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

Sometimes I think I photographed nearly every islet in Canada. I liked the flag and eyes on this one

We spent one dreary rainy day circling the Aspotogan Peninsula.  It is a lovely area but the rain and gray clouds were depressing. This is the eastern part of Lunenburg County and separates St. Margarets Bay in the east from Mahone Bay in the west. The original inhabitants here were, of course, the Mi’kmaq First Nation.  These people were primarily nomadic. Now not so much. For example, they could be found in North West Cove, the village of Aspotogan and East River. They lived on the coast in summer and moved inland during the winter. They lived here until 1939 when the Second World War began. I am not sure why they left. Maybe, they became nomadic again.

The name Aspotogan is a derived from the world Ashmutogun or Ukpudeskakun which means either “block the passageway” or “where the seals go in and out” depending on whom you believe. I like the reference to seals. The land on the coast here was fairly high compared to others on the south coast of Nova Scotia so it was used as a marker for sailors coming from Europe or the West Indies on their way to Halifax.

 

In addition to the Mi’Kmaq the next immigrants to this region were first Newfoundland Irish in the 1750s and next New England Planters who arrived from Chester in the 1760s. After that French Protestants came from French village, not far away. After that Germans arrived on the west side. Around 1762 there were 62 English living here as well. They had been invited to help assimilate the Acadians who the British feared might be disloyal to the British crown. Between 1750 and 1753, 2,500 “Foreign Protestants” arrived to settle. Lunenburg was built for them.

Although Acadians never lived on the peninsula, they had a strong influence on it. Even 40 years after their arrival, 10,000 of them lived in Nova Scotia and they dominated the region. As the Americans are now finding, expulsion is not as easy as it looks, even without pesky courts. The English were more ruthless than modern Americans, even under Trump, and they couldn’t accomplish it. We’ll see how Trump does.

During the American Revolution (1776 to 1783) Americans plundered Lunenburg, burning buildings and taking prisoners. The Americans at that time were terrorists in other words.  And they came here from their country to terrorize the locals.

Naturally the Germans exported sauerkraut until the end of the 20th century. Fishing was an important enterprise for European settlers as well as industries that supported fishing, such as shipbuilding.

Besides the Jesse Stone shows that were filmed in the area, many other Hollywood and CBC films were made here including the CBC series Black Harbour and Blackfly as well as Hollywood films High Tide at Noon in 1957, which was shot at Northwest Cove. The outstanding film based on an outstanding book, The Shipping News starring Kevin Spacey was filmed here rather than Newfoundland. I don’t know why. Probably they got some government breaks. Kirsten Dunst and Lynn Redgrave were in the film Deeply that was also shot here.

 

Do Public Service Workers Deserve Respect?

Social democracy

 

It is always difficult to see the water in which we swim. It is so natural we just don’t see it. For decades our minds have been poisoned by the poisonous little people that haunt the dark places on the right. And we have been poisoned by lies and false assumptions to believe that most public employees are parasites on society. Such criticism is so common and so prevalent that we just don’t see it any more. I heard it so often I believed it must be true.

I remember as a young lawyer my principal (boss)  asked me to attend each week at the Land Titles Office to go and try to correct mistakes our office had made on Land Titles documents in order to correct them to avoid the time and extra expense of a rejection, for  that meant we would have to start over.  It was great experience for a young lawyer to see all the mistakes law firms could make on legal documents. After all, we all make mistakes. What really impressed me was how the employees at the Land Titles Office were diligent about reviewing our documents to make sure their office did not accept documents which for various reasons were unacceptable and if accepted would make the system worse and less reliable. And they were always eager to make it better. They did not do it to make our job harder. They just did it to make our work better for the benefit of all who worked in the land titles system. It opened my eyes, which badly needed opening.

The shallow common assumptions held by so many, that public workers are lazy, unreasonable, and incompetent are frequently wide of the mark.

The author Michael Lewis was interviewed recently  on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He talked about civil servants whom he had recently written about in his new book. He pointed out that many of them could make more money in the private world, but they were actually devoted to public service. They did it because they wanted to do some good and that gave them great satisfaction and they are often under-appreciated for that. He said, “The fact that we have allowed these government workers to be demonized says a lot about the state of our souls.”

I would add, and the fact that we have allowed public servants to be defamed by the likes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, tells us even more about the state of our souls.

Rage Farming

Democracy, Extremism, Political Violence, politics

 

Every day, it seems, Canada is looking more like America. This is particularly true of the American right wing which seems to find endless support among Canada’s extreme right.

 

On April 17, 2025 the Canadian election Debates Commission, a non-partisan independent organization that organized and made all the rules for the English language debate in Montreal that night made the decision to cancel the customary news conference after the debate. We did not get the details but the Michel Cormier spokesperson for the Commission said the reason was because it could guarantee a “proper and safe environment” for the media [and presumably political leaders].

According to Rosemary Barton of the CBC who was present, that was because the Commission had allowed in people who were not actually part of the media and were “right wing activists” to come into the room and act as if they are media. She said, “it made for a very fraught environment… and there were a number of conflicts.”

These expressions “left wing” and “right wing” are really becoming increasingly irrelevant. The same goes for “liberal” and “conservative,” or even “progressive” and “unprogressive.”  The issues are too diverse to be covered by such rough blocks. We need much more nuance than such expressions allow for.  I am as guilty as everyone in this respect, but they do at best signify a direction of views.

CBC host and commentator David Cochran made an important comment:

“Democracy is fragile. It’s not guaranteed and it has to be fought for a protected.  Not just at the big moments like leadership debates but on all the small moments in between. The rage farming that is gone into politics is corrosive, destructive, and toxic and it is disrupting the norms and the values civic virtue in this country. And it boiled over tonight. The temperature needs to come down.”

 

This is a lesson our neighbours to the south have forgotten and Canada seems to be headed in the same direction. More and more we see this rage farming everywhere. At protest rallies, political events, and really everywhere people engage in politics, the extremists are doing their best to prevent others from engaging in civic debate and discussion which are vitally necessary to maintain democracy. Extremists on the right and the left must be stopped. Cooler heads must be given their right to speak as well as the hotheads. Everywhere.

We still have a democracy. It’s not perfect, but it is our democracy. We need to protect it. Everyone of us must do our part.

 

Peggy’s Cove Rogues

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Lighthouses

 

 

One of the problems with Peggy’s Cove is the crowds. They are everywhere all the time. And they are relentless. They never disappear. Even when its dark! I waited nearly an hour waiting for the sunset and the crowds to disappear. They never did.

 

Unfortunately, at Peggy’s Cove some good views of the lighthouse have recently been ruined in an effort to make it safer.  While that bugged me, I have to admit safety is important. In fact, it’s more important than getting a good image. People have died here trying to get the best viewpoint for a good shot. Those waves can be dangerous and can pull careless people into very rough water.

 

There are more than 160 lighthouses in Nova Scotia and they can be found everywhere. Some of those lighthouses are world famous. Peggy’s Cove is the most famous of them all. It might be the most photographed lighthouse in Canada.

But Peggy’s Cove is more than a pretty lighthouse. It is also a lovely fishing village.  Though it is a working fishing village, I am convinced that some of the boats in the harbour have been strategically placed there to lure photographers and tourists. I can’t prove that, but I am sure of it. This day we got there too late to really look at both.  And the light was pretty dark already so I had to concentrate on the lighthouse.

You gotta make choices and then live by them. Life is hard and then you die.

Hopefully, before that happens you have seen Peggy’s Cove.

A couple of days later, after our visit to Peggy’s Cover, we returned in the hopes of finding better light. But instead, it was worse. It was raining and blustery by the time we got to town. The air was filled with sleet. Yuck.  I really didn’t want to get out of the car. So, we didn’t stay and went to our temporary home instead. I know I am a pretty wussy photographer. I was convinced there was a conspiracy of the Gods.

Peggy’s Cove is famous for rogue waves. They are dangerous. So are the slippery rocks. If you go there, be careful. Your life is more important than your photograph.