Old Ways

This Thursday, we walked with Rocky and Debby Hebb from our house down to the Annapolis River,

through to the old Lawrencetown Tree Nursery, and up to Lunn’s Mill for lunch. The old roads run through the mixed oak/maple/pine woods along the Annapolis River. On the nursery land, you can still see evidence of different tree-planting experiments.

If Stephen McNeil was serious about forestry practices in Nova Scotia, one strategy would be to reinvent the network of tree nurseries across the province. We will need more trees in the future.

Earlier in the week, we attended a talk, hosted by the Middleton Historical Society at the MacDonald Museum. Steve Skafte talked about the ‘lost roads of Nova Scotia’. He combined his interest in poetry and photography. Steve has self-published a number of books and maintains a tumbler site on the Internet.

Here are a couple of diary entries, to give a flavour of his work.

“October 21, 2019, South Williamson.

“Jerusalem Road.
The definition of a backwoods adventure is always the same to me. A tree-lined lane, narrowly crowded by branches meeting overhead. A natural arbor, bordered in by some geography. Hillsides, stream and hollow are what I’m after, difficulties to keep loggers at bay.”

“October 16, 2019, Arlington West

The time has passed for hippies and draft dodgers, forest farmers, deep daydream ‘North Mountain hippies’ as Spider Robinson called them. In the woods they left well-lived, crumbling remnants, and some unfinished projects like this one.”

Check his tumbler site for more inspiration.

For a darker perspective on lost roads, try Christy Ann Conlin’s short story ‘Full Bleed’ in her recent book collection Watermark.
Acknowledgements

Debby Hebb for her photographs. Steve Skafte for his diary entries.
Edward Wedler added the graphics. Heather, Rocky and Debby were my walking companions.

References

Steve Skafte. Go to steveskafte.tumblr.com1