This weekend, I had the opportunity to read Rebecca Solnit’s ‘The Beginning comes after the End’ . Its subtitle is ‘Notes on a World of Change’.
From the back cover: ‘While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces anti-racism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing towards a more interconnected, relational world’.
This morning, I returned two books to the Middleton Library; Walter Isaacson’s book on Elon Musk and the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (see It’s a Small World and A Celebration at Meier Point).
As the ferry returns to Corran, my gaze lingers over Loch Linnhe’s glassy surface.
“These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger / like women feeling for the smoothness of yard goods.” Wrote Elizabeth Bishop in her poem, The Map. While she didn’t mean precisely here, between the water’s sheen and my revised grasp of local geography, I can see exactly what she meant.”
This resonates with me on several fronts. I enjoyed the reference to Elizabeth Bishop (EB). It brings to mind the efforts of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia and Great Village. It also reminds me of Elizabeth Bishop House and the archival guide to her life in Nova Scotia by Sandra Barry (see my posts One, Two Three, Two Conversations, and Reading Where We Live)
Second, the reference to EB brings to mind the role of West Dalhousie in the life of Ernest Buckler (another EB).
Here we are connecting Scotland (the West Highlands) and New Scotland i.e. Nova Scotia. We are also connecting the sense of place, across both sides of the Atlantic.
On Fridays, Heather and I are able to attend classes at CORAH. For Heather, it’s Chair Yoga and for me it’s Mens’ strength and fitness. These opportunities for ‘rural aging in place’ contrast with the distractions/frustrations of a mixture of online learning and global politics.
Reference
The Guardian Weekly 25 October 2024, p.62. Country Diary Ardnamurchan, West Highlands, Scotland, UK by Mary Montague.
Acknowledgements
Sandra Barry is a cornerstone of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia. Edward Wedler added the graphics and links. Heather Stewart shares my ‘sense of place’ across the two continents.
Postscript.
From my perspective, the blog is, in its own way ‘A Country Diary’.
This week, I visited Integrity Printing in Bridgetown to pick up Volume 7 (2022) hard copy of my blog texts. This allows me to visit previous years’ work.
For example, under GoGeomatics for February/March:
Reading Jim Lotz, the Lichen Factor, he describes a number of community development projects including the Prince Edward Island Ark (John Todd) and L’Arche ( Jean Vanier).
Lotz quotes Vanier, Community and Growth 1979 (p.199)
“People can only put down roots in a community when that meets their deep and secret desire and their choice is free – because putting down roots, like any commitment implies a certain death. We can only welcome this death if there is a call for a new life that yearns to grow.”
Heather and I met Trevor Goward in the late 1970s. It was a time when we were on the West Coast of Newfoundland (Gros Morne National Park) or in Ottawa at the National Herbarium. I was part of the Rare Plants team headed by George Argus. George was a Salix taxonomist. Other taxonomists, at the Museum, included Irwin Brodo (lichens), and Bob Ireland (mosses).
Fast forward to 2022, I am reading Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life.
’Goward, curator of lichens at UBC, is foremost a lichen obsessive (he has contributed around thirty thousand lichens to the university collection) and is no less a lichen taxonomist (he has named three genera and described thirty-six new lichen species).’ p.79.
’We believe that books on lichens need to answer two questions. The first question is, how does one learn to identify lichens. The second question is, why should one bother? It is this second question, not so much the first which is comparatively easy, that has preoccupied us for the past dozen years.’
From twelve readings on the lichen thallus.
”Lichens, he argues, have relevance far beyond their interest as objects of scientific inquiry. Lichens exist as a doorway, a portal. Look out this doorway in one direction and what you see is an ecosystem – a collection of unrelated species, fungi and alga and bacteria. But look out the same doorway in the other direction, and what you see now is an organism, in a sense no different from any other macroscopic organism.”
“The double status of lichens as organism and ecosystem make them the ideal model entities through which to contemplate a new scientific philosophic and artistic paradigm, now in the process of emerging.”
”In recent years, Trevor has reconfigured his 4 ha. home property, Edgewood Blue, into a not-for-profit place for learning, for naturalists and others committed to a closer relationship with the living world”.
Acknowledgements
Heather first discovered the Entangled Web. This, in turn, led us to the Ways of Enlichenment website. Edward added the graphics. Trevor responded to my email.
Last week, we held a meeting of the Ernest Buckler Literary Event Society (EBLES) committee at Anne Crossman’s, under the linden tree. We discussed plans for the next event, likely in West Dalhousie, 2023.
Jane Borecky returned Roger Deakin’s Waterlog: A Swimmers journey through Britain. Later at home, I checked through the index, and found and re-read #23 Orwell’s Whirlpool. Deakin describes his visit to Jura.
”Whirlpools and wild places are inextricably linked with our capacity for creativity“, as Orwell demonstrated when he chose to come to Jura to write his last novel.
Meanwhile, I had finished reading George Orwell’s Selected Writings. Besides excerpts from his life in Burma, Spain and Marakesh, it includes essays on the English class system, Boys’ Weeklies and Charles Dickens.
”A century after the Group of Seven became famous for an idealized vision of Canadian Nature, contemporary artists are incorporating environmental activism into work that highlights Canada’s disappearing landscapes.”
I forwarded the link to Edward and Anne Wedler. Meanwhile, Patrick emailed me a link to the Radical Landscapes exhibition in Liverpool, UK.
On Saturday, we took a road trip from New Glasgow to South Victoria, through Oxford, Pugwash, Tatamagouche, River John and home.
As we drove from Oxford to South Victoria to Pugwash, we noticed significant changes in land use, both the forestry and even the roadside weeds. It would be a fascinating geographical study to map the changes in the demography and the landscape. Since we had both Heather and John Stewart in the car, we had an ongoing commentary on the changes that have taken place in the last fifty (plus) years.
Eventually, we arrived in River John for Sandy Stewart’s (Heather’s sister) birthday party. Sandy had been busy painting a new sign for the community of Melville.
Here are my questions.
If you are an artist painting landscapes, how do you separate your art from your life?
The same question applies to writers.
How do you separate your writing from your life? This certainly applies to George Orwell. I think the same applies to Roger Deakin. Hence, once back home, I pulled Roger Deakin’s book off the shelf, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm.
Acknowledgements
Heather and John Stewart accompanied me down memory lane. Sandra Stewart provided a painting of her place. Edward and Anne’s planned adventure brought the Group of Seven into focus. Plus a contribution from Patrick Maher (this week) at a conference in Ambleside, the Lake District.
The concept of ’composting’ is ’fertilizing with a mixture of decayed vegetable matter for soil’.
In recent weeks, I have been attempting to provide Jonathan Murphy with a background on my academic career. The end result was to rediscover my curriculum vitae from 2011 on my iMac desktop computer. I called Kyle Hackenschmidt at Bridgetown Computers. With his help, I was able to email the file to Jon at GoGeomatics.
The lesson is that either I keep current with the software on the iMac or I unload the files onto a thumb drive for future access. Clearly, my technology range is now restricted to the iPad which is the preferred environment for my blog.
As we age, we shed different parts of our life. This was reinforced by an excellent documentary, Coral Ghosts, as part of Earth Week on CBC.
It describes the work of Thomas Goreau, an impassioned marine biologist who uses his family’s extensive archive as a catalyst to save the world’s reefs. Pity, that every week is not Earth Week.
This afternoon, I stopped at the COGS Library and talked to Andrew Hannam. He showed me an excellent poster by a Cartography student which documents the lives of JB Hall and Major Church. It includes a map of Lawrencetown, showing where they lived in the village. Worthy of a stop at the Library.
Acknowledgements
Kyle, for his technical computer help. Andrew for his Librarian advice. Heather provided the photograph of Buddha in our back garden on the slope of South Mountain. Edward added his graphics touch.
HEATHER — “ I am again joining Buddha on my sitting rock. He has been sitting here all winter and has a lovely cover of Copper wire moss.“
References
Coral Ghosts aired on CBC Tuesday, April 19, 2022.
This week, I received an email from Moose House Publications. ’Big books about small places’. They were looking for short stories for Volume 2 ( 3000 words). In the same time frame, I received an email from Melissa Rostow. In 2015, I had mentored her on a Story Mapping project: four days through Haida Gwaii (also, see previous blog posts 1, 2, 3 and 4).
This was written in 2014 with Heather Stewart. It was turned into an electronic book by Ted Mackinnon. In the same time frame, Jonathan Murphy formed GoGeomatics Canada. Story Mapping: Haida Gwaii was posted on their website in July 2015.
The next phase was the creation of a blog site under the heading Ernest Blair Experiment. This started in January 2017 with ’At the Edge of Paradise’ — a poem. This blog still continues today. March 19, 2022, is blog #393.
The challenge for me is … How to turn writing in an electronic blog format into a short story?
Here is my solution: ‘COGS in a wheel’.
Many years ago, when the acronym COGS referred to the College of Geographic Sciences before it became the Centre of Geographic Sciences, and part of the Nova Scotia Community College, David Raymond, Cartographer, produced a number of items that showed cogs in a wheel; each Geomatics discipline engaging with the other, related disciplines. These included Computer Programming, Cartography, Planning, Surveying, and Remote Sensing.
This educational model still has relevance today. Increasingly, we need the education to be holistic and to focus on the inter-connectedness of disciplines, sciences and technologies.
Today, I picked up George Monbiot’s ’This can’t be happening’ in the Penguin Ideas Series, #4.
From his Foreword (p.5)
”Clearly, we need to demand practical changes: new technologies, new economies, new ways of living. But we also, and primarily, need to do something deeper: to overcome the ignorance the billionaire press has manufactured, to wake our friends from the stupor of consumption, to break through the barrier of disbelief and provoke a new moral imagination.”
From my perspective, we are but all cogs in a wheel. It is the connection between Moose House Publications, Melissa Rostow, Ted Mackinnon, Jonathan Murphy, myself — all connected through COGS in rural Nova Scotia, Lawrencetown, Annapolis County — that gives me hope as we face the global challenges of 2022.
Acknowledgements
Brenda Thompson at Moose House Publications for seeking out short stories. Melissa Rostow for remembering our work on Story Mapping: Haida Gwaii. Edward Wedler added his Remote Sensing and technical expertise. Ted MacKinnon and Jonathan Murphy for their contribution to the “Story of COGS”. Heather Stewart shared the journey.
This blog does not meet the 3000 words criteria however it does provide access to other online resources that can expand our imagination and the word count.
On another note: Sunday 20 March 2022 is World Storytelling Day. 2022 theme is “Lost and Found”.
As we drive on Highway #1 from Bridgetown East, we keep a lookout for the Alpacas. Will they be outside in the snow or in their house? We speculate on the ownership, perhaps Wools on the Corner, Heather suggests.
On the right-hand side, we stop at D’Aubin Family Meats to buy sausages and bacon.
We notice that there are cars parked in front of the Bridgetown Motor Inn. JFW tells me that it is the meeting place for the morning coffee club. The Inn is operating under new ownership.
A couple of times a year, I have to stop at Bridgetown Watch and Clock repair. David changes the battery, replaces the watch strap. Stop at the Bank of Nova Scotia to pick up some cash. (It was only yesterday, that I witnessed the closure of the branch in Middleton).
On Thursdays, late afternoon, I can stop at the PharmaSave to pick up a copy of the Reader and the Register. The Reader, published by TAR, is a free weekly paper serving the communities and people of Annapolis County.
At COGS in Lawrencetown, we teach Esri GIS software. Specifically, the use of ’story maps’. In this case, in collaboration with Edward Wedler, I wanted to produce a ‘map story’. The story is about Bridgetown. The map is one way of sharing that story about a special place.
Acknowledgements
Edward continues to add depth and colour to the blog. Heather adds insight too.
Last week, Heather and I went to check out the new encampment by Extinction Rebellion. It was September 2020 when we camped with them to protest against clearcutting and spraying parcels of forest off the Rifle Range road in West Inglisville (see Anatomy of a Protest).
The protest was deemed a success. Here we are, fifteen months later, facing the same issue in the Beal’s Meadow area, closer to Trout Lake. Obviously, nothing has changed in terms of Clearcutting on Crown Land in Annapolis County.
On both occasions, we discovered old derelict school buses, like this one shown, lost in the woods. It is our assumption that these buses were used as administrative vehicles for harvest crews or tree planters.
The buses are a poignant reminder that this landscape has been used (abused) for several decades. Imagine the stories that could be told about the relationship between the communities, the people, the wildlife and the land.
We have a literature that recognizes this relationship. It could be the writing of Ernest Buckler, or Dave Whitman writing about Roxbury, or the work of Mike Parker, or go back further to the Tent Dwellers. The lakes and wetlands have been given names: Eel Weir Lake, Beal’s Meadows, Crispe Bog. Where do they come from?
This week, we see two events.
Strategic Tourism for Areas and Regions (STAR). STAR is an industry led regional tourism development planning process to help grow the tourism economy in the Annapolis Valley. Imagine the stories which could be told about this landscape.
Community of Bridgetown meeting. December 8,2021. In September 2020 the then warden Timothy Habinsky and Larry Powell came out to the camp and expressed support for Sustainable Forestry and against Glyphosate spraying and its potential impact on our water supply. What is the position of the new Council?
Finally, from Emergence Magazine, Amitav Ghosh, in “Beings Seen and Unseen” (listen to the interview), ’discusses how the widespread silencing of nonhuman voices deeply entangled in capitalism and the geopolitical structure that sustains it, and calls on storytellers to lead us in the necessary work of collective reimagining: decentering human narrative and re-centering stories of the land. (photo by Sumit Dayal via Emergence Magazine)
Acknowledgements
Heather shared in our discovery of the landscape and wildlife on South Mountain, whether by bicycle, ski or on foot. Nina Newington has provided an inspiration. Edward contributed the graphics.
References
STAR meeting. Tuesday December 7th MacDonald Museum, Middleton. 2 pm
County of Annapolis meeting. Wednesday December 8th. The Legion, Bridgetown. 7 pm.
Postscript
Today (Sunday) we went to find the ’blue bus’. There was fresh snow on the ground. Unfortunately, we ran out of light. I will find it, and share in a future blog.
Working in the orchard, you learn that trees produce many products, if you look after them. Fresh apples, cider, vinegar, brandy. The products also feed others : deer, bear, squirrel, chipmunk plus numerous bird species.
Can we apply the same analogy to my use of WordPress? Another realization. In writing my blog over the last few years, I have become dependent on WordPress.
What would happen if you applied those same cyclic and sustainable lessons to the way we manage the trees in the forest ?
When I read Alistair MacLeod, I appreciate his descriptions of life, and the lives along the Cape Breton coastline. I appreciate his use of language, including Gaelic. Is the story telling process really word processing or, as in the case of cider pressing, extracting the essence from the fruit which comes from the trees which we manage for a variety of products?
We have a deep relationship with our landscape and we interact in many ways with the landscape and all the other species which co-exist with us. Why allow a single-minded fixation on wood supply to destroy this complex relationship with the forested landscape and its co-habitants? Why do we see changes in the climate ? Why do we see the changes in the population of these other species ?
I am willing to put my faith in the cider press, but also in the word press.
Each week, Edward helps me master the idiosyncrasies of the WordPress software. Heather continues to see the trees and not the wood.
References
Edward found this link to over forty classic British movies for free, hidden as a scavenger hunt on Google Maps. In his view, mixing maps, GIS and geography with entertainment is a powerful, educational and business notion. Looks like fun.
Ernest Blair Experiment 