Category: Opinion

In preparation for the EBLES event on June 29th, we have been assembling a representative list of local books. This includes the work of Bob Bent, Marilyn Jones-Bent and Dianne Legard who are part of the Panel Discussion. It is truly remarkable the number of writers living in this part of Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, we are connecting with our invited guests: Whit Fraser and John DeMont.

One question that has been troubling me is the distinction between ‘writing and reporting’. Both Fraser and DeMont have had careers as reporters before their book writing.

I have noticed that in these days of social media, changes in the content and quality of our newspapers: the Chronicle Herald and the Annapolis Spectator.
For example, I was surprised to see a notice from the Municipality of Annapolis County on the status of high-speed Internet service in The Reader. I would have expected a critical review in the Annapolis Spectator (perhaps I missed it).

This leads to another question. With the increased use of social media, how is that impacting the quality of the reporting in the traditional media? At what point, do we stop purchasing the newspaper? If all your information arrives electronically, then you are subjected to a barrage of advertisements and other material that matches your ‘electronic profile’.

Of course, books are not resistant to technological change. We can now avail ourselves of electronic books or audio-books.

On a more positive note, in response to one of my blogs, I did receive the following link from Gregory Heming: An ode to the countryside in response to Don Mills’ neoliberal mantra

Last week, too,  I received this photograph from my brother. It is from another place and another time. We both grew up at 39 Hazel Close, Whitton (a suburb of London, UK). The photograph shows the damage caused by a flying bomb that hit #51 in the Second World War, shortly after my brother was born. That’s a long way from Paradise, Annapolis County.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the EBLES team, augmented by Nancy Godfrey, Centrelea Design(Designed for Real Life).

Gregory Heming for his essay. To Peter Maher for his research into our old neighbourhood. Edward Wedler for his continued support. Frank Fox and Paul Colville for our lunch conversations at the End of the Line pub in Bridgetown.

References

Bob Bent.2018. The Last Time I saw Alice. Self-published.
Marilyn(Musial) Jones. 2017. Growing Up in Cape Breton. Self-published.
Dianne Hankinson Legard. 2019. The Lost Voices of WWII RAF/RCAF Greenwood. Gaspereau Press.
Chronicle Herald June 4th Opinion. Gregory Heming
History of Whitton

On Friday, I cycled to COGS to meet with Wayne St-Amour (Principal, Annapolis Valley campus NSCC) and Michael Purcell (Manager, COGS). The chat was about the new residence on the Lawrencetown site. On my way, I noticed the OPEN sign at the WineMakers  Tavern on the corner. Later in the day, Heather and I stopped there for an inaugural lunch. This opening, combined with the renovations at the Lawrencetown restaurant, shows a real commitment by local business to the community. These investments are complemented by the activities across the river at the BeaverCreek Winery and Lunn’s Mill Beer Company.

This week proved to be a painful transition for me. It was time to start up the ride-on lawn mower, as well as the tractor for the orchard. My enthusiasm was dampened by the need to replace the batteries, but also to switch mental gears. I had to ‘get out of my head’ and ‘get into my hands’. Two very different types of thinking.

This transition coincided with listening to a couple of podcasts on CBC Radio Ideas. This week, Jean Vanier died, aged 91, in Paris. Vanier was the founder of the L’Arche movement. The podcasts, The Rabbit and the Giraffe replayed  interviews with Vanier about his life and philosophy. I was struck by his holistic philosophy, but also his deep sense of community.

As I reflect on the initiatives taking place in the Annapolis Valley, it seems that we must ‘seize the moment’. In my conversation with Wayne and Michael, it appears that not a lot has changed since the early days of COGS (1980’s). We still possess a unique circumstance of a specialized technical institute, located in a diverse, culturally-rich, rural setting. There are however some questions that we need to collectively answer:

What is happening to the high speed Internet for the region?

We have talented elders in the region who are having a difficult time conducting their business because of the continuing poor Internet service; undoubtedly placing some at a competitive disadvantage.

What is happening to Gordonstoun Nova Scotia?

This initiative makes sense, especially if it is coupled with the interests of other post-secondary institutions, like COGS. The underlying values are consistent.

What is the vision and business plan for the new residence  at COGS?

We need to understand the market for the courses that will be offered at this facility so that it will cover the initial investment and annual costs.

From where I sit, on the East Side of Eden, the opportunity to grow ‘the creative rural economy’ remains. Carpe Diem. But we do need answers to these three questions. Within the community, there are elders who can assist in finding these answers.

Postscript.

We went to see Sharkwater Extinction at the Kings Theatre, Annapolis Royal on Friday evening. It is a documentary on the life of film maker and conservationist, Rob Stewart. We were surprised at the low attendance. Perhaps, our marine environment remains under-appreciated by land-based rural residents.

References

CBC Radio Ideas. 2019. Two part series. Remembering Jean Vanier: The Rabbit and the Giraffe. Available as podcast.

Acknowledgements

To Wayne St Amour and Michael Purcell for their willingness to chat. John Wightman and Roger Mosher for their regular Friday afternoon feedback. And Edward Wedler for his remote contribution.

This weekend, it is the start of Toonik Tyme, a celebration of the start of Spring in the North.

It includes outdoor events: ski, snowmobile and dogsled races and the sharing of traditional food and crafts.

Last night, at the Visitors Centre, we went to see two classic NFB films, Land of the Long Day (1952) and People of the Ice (2003). The latter featured Sheila Watt-Cloutier and is a documentary on the effects of global warming on the Arctic environment and the Inuit culture. The film is now sixteen years old, pre-dating the argument in her book, The Right to be Cold.

Next week, Wayne Johnston comes to town. He will talk on Ten Cities: the past becomes the present. He will look at the relationship between place and memory through writing and drawing. In preparation, I picked up his novel, The Navigator of New York at the Iqaluit library.

From my brother, I received another BBC podcast, Here be Dragons. It explores the relationship between poetry and maps. The most obscure was the idea of using a city map of Havana to navigate the landscape of the Isle of Angelsey.

I did manage to finish Rubinstein’s book Born to Walk. While I enjoyed the chapter on Creativity, I found the book overall, very uneven.

This week, I received an email about the expansion of the COGS campus. While the additional infrastructure will provide a short term economic boost to the village of Lawrencetown. There were no details on the impact on the curriculum, research and teaching, or the relationship to the larger community, and rural economic development. It continues to amaze me at the lack of connectivity with place.

In a different context, to quote Sheila Watt-Cloutier:

“A great disconnect has grown between our communities, our economies and our environment. This has resulted in rapid climate change that now spirals out of control and fundamentally threatens the world. Those who have traditionally lived closest to the land, and who today maintain the strongest connections to nature, are now at risk of becoming just a footnote in the history of globalization.” p.323.

I would add that we need to demonstrate much more holistic, inclusive thinking, especially from our educational institutions.

Acknowledgements

To Heather and Edward willing participants in the journey.

 

April 1st. Twenty years ago, Nunavut was created as a separate territory from Canada’s NWT.
In the weekly Nunatsiaq News, there was a special 20th-anniversary supplement. It includes the following articles, in both Inuktitut and English.

• Don’t forget Nunavut’s rural and remote regions
• Has Nunavut’s economic boom left the small communities behind?
• Learning our own language
• Nunavut high performers: twenty years up on stage
• The connected territory? Nunavut still waits (high-speed Internet)
• After 165 years Inuit knowledge leads to Franklin’s wrecks
• The big thaw: climate change
• Nunavut’s protected areas for wilderness and wildlife

It would be interesting if our politicians in Nova Scotia could develop a relationship with Nunavut, and see how different jurisdictions address the same issues.

This week, I visited one of the book/craft stores in Iqaluit and purchased two new books: True North Rising by Whit Fraser (book launch video) and The Right to be Cold by Sheila Watt Cloutier (presentation video). Both are biographical in nature. It was fun to read Whit’s book which starts with his employment at the CBC Northern Service in 1967, while I was looking out across the sea ice on Frobisher Bay. Both books provide a model for ‘life as an elder’.

There are also connections. Whit describes his association with Fred Roots, through Students on Ice. I recall Fred from the UNESCO MAB program. Heather and I were shepherding the nomination document for the Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve through the bureaucratic process. Another connection, going back even further, was to Trevor and Hugh Lloyd, Geographers. I remember meeting them at the McGill SubArctic Research Lab in Schefferville, Quebec in 1964/65.

Whit is a keynote speaker at the EBLES event at the Temple on Queen Street, Bridgetown on June 29th. The other keynote is John Demont, who also comes from the reporting tradition, at the Chronicle Herald.

On Saturday night, we attended a concert at the Iqaluit High School. It was a high energy performance by the Jerry Cans. What was most surprising, was the audience demographic. Young Inuit families. Such a contrast to the Kings Theatre.

Another point of reference is the Iqaluit Centennial Library. This was a chance to catch up on lost gems.  I found Robert McGhee’s book  The Last Imaginary Place. A Human History of the Arctic World and Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism.

A final note. There is now a beer store in Iqaluit. Twenty-four Sleeman Silver Creek lager cost me $86. BTW the new snow has created excellent conditions for cross country skiing.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Andrew and Julia for their hospitality. Edward for his support.

References
Nunatsiag News Nunatsiaq News
The Jerry Cans The Jerry Cans
Whit Fraser. 2018. True North Rising. Burnstown Publishing.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier. 2015. The Right to be Cold. Penguin  Books.
Robert McGhee. 2004. The Last Imaginary Place. Key Porter.
Edward Said. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. Alfred Knopf.

Edward Wedler in his postscript (previous blog post) referenced the link between art and science to address public awareness of climate change. This connects well with the work of the Centre for Local Prosperity and their climate change video, as well as installations by Uncommon Common Art in Kings County.

Last week, I turned the page on my Esri Canada calendar, and noticed for March 2019, the map by Marcel Morin, Lost Art Cartography of the ancestral landscape of the Sikniktuk. It shows the dykes and aboiteaux in the Chignecto region, Cumberland County.

If we want to maintain the dykelands of Nova Scotia, we must understand the risk from sea level rise. A recent example was the destruction of an aboiteau outside of Hantsport, leading to flooding of the river valley.

We need to combine the latest science on climate change, with new LiDAR-based topographic maps, combined with the art of cartography to gain a broader understanding of the impact on our landscape.

Yesterday, we held a meeting of the Ernest Buckler Literary Events Society (EBLES) board over on the Bay of Fundy shore. In preparation for the program design for June 29th, it was necessary to read some of the related literature.

Barbara Pell’s book A Portrait of the Artist: Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley offered the following quotations.

“Margaret Atwood told us in 1972:

‘Literature is not only a mirror, it is also a map, a geography of the mind. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as OUR literature, as the product of who and where we have been.’ p.13

“As contemporary political debates continue to illustrate, regionalism has always been a distinguishing feature of Canadian identity and literature. The Mountain and the Valley joins a long tradition of Maritime fiction that idyllically and elegiacally celebrates rural Atlantic Canada.’ p.14

” in its evocation of geography and history, it touches themes of universal importance. Buckler saw the advantages of his regional setting “In the Nova Scotia country,…… you get the universals more than almost anywhere else”.p.14

This afternoon, Heather and I are heading up to the Gaspereau Valley and Avondale to join a tour by Solar Nova Scotia on alternative designs for solar homes. Perhaps Spring is not far away.

Acknowledgements

To Anne Crossman for her storehouse of Buckler books. To Edward Wedler for his enthusiastic championing of science-meets-art. To Jane Borecky for hosting the EBLES board meeting.

References

Barbara Pell 1995. A Portrait of the Artist: Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley. ECW Press.

Marcel Morin, Lost Art Cartography. Contribution to the Esri Canada 2019 calendar March.

Inspired by Uncommon Common Art in Kings County, I thought it might be useful to propose a list of locations for Uncommon Common Science in Annapolis County. The two would be complementary. Uncommon Common Art has about seventeen stops, plus a few “eye candy” locations. There are related events that extend from June to the end of October.

Here is a suggested list of Uncommon Common Science stops in Annapolis County.

1. Geomatics (Centre of Geographic Sciences: Lawrencetown)
2. Geomatics (Applied Geomatics Research Group: Middleton)
3. Dark Sky Preserve (Kejimkujik National Park: Maitland Bridge)
4. Blandings Turtle (Kejimkujik National Park: Maitland Bridge)
5. Coastal Plain Species (Kejimkujik National Park: Maitland Bridge)
6. Coastal Geology (Bay of Fundy )
7. Space Agency (Annapolis Royal)
8. Mi’kmaq Science (Bear River)
9. Historical and Graveyard Science (Annapolis Royal)
10. Bay of Fundy Tides
11. Bloody Creek meteor crater
12. CARP, Clean Annapolis River Project (Annapolis Royal)

Can you offer an uncommon common science stop in Annapolis County or Annapolis Valley — some local science worth exploring?

On Friday, battling icy roads, we held a meeting of the Ernest Buckler Literary Event Society (EBLES) at Burnbrae Farm in Paradise. Simone and Erik provided us with hot coffee and biscuits.

The meeting was to learn about their plans for the Morse Estate and Camp Hillis and to see the potential for future literary events. We were operating in a two-fold context. Ernest Buckler had written The Cruelest Month. It describes a group of writers who go to Endlaw (an anagram for Walden), a country estate twenty miles from Granfort (aka Annapolis Royal). Buckler in his teenage years had spent time working at a similar resort in New England. Was the Morse Estate, part of Bucklers’  mental model?

The second context was that the Morse family published several books in the 1920s describing the local geography of this part of the Annapolis Valley. We also knew something about the history of Camp Hillis, a government-run facility for children with various challenges.  When the property came up for sale next door, Simone and Erik decided to purchase.  They are starting renovations this Summer.

After a couple of hours of discussion and a tour, we settled on a plan of action. First, we need to research more fully Buckler’s book as well as the Morse books. Sandra Barry who has been a long time member of the Elizabeth Bishop Society, described the ‘power of reading Bishop’s work, in situ, in the houses and rooms in Great Village’. We can envisage something similar at the Morse Estate. The new owners have already been in contact with the Morse family and have a number of historic photographs and letters.

The potential of Camp Hillis remains uncharted. Many children spent time at the camp. They would have stories. They would be familiar with the grounds, the house, dormitories etc. It could offer a similar outdoor experience today.

From the EBLES perspective, these buildings and their stories offer a unique writers retreat. Different, but not dissimilar, to what the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia has achieved at Great Village.

To my mind, these places exemplify ‘experiential rural tourism’, where the visitor can be immersed in both, the local landscape and also the stories related to that landscape and its history.

Acknowledgements

To the EBLES Board: Jane Borecky, Anne Crossman supplemented by Sandra Barry, Bill Crossman and Heather Stewart. Your insights and ideas are always a joy. To Simone and Erik, we appreciate your enthusiasm and investment in this part of rural Nova Scotia. Edward for his graphics contribution.

 

References

Burnbrae Farm and Paradise Inn. see website www.burnbraeparadise.ca

Ernest Buckler. 1963. The Cruelest Month.  McClelland and Stewart.

For books by  William Morse see my earlier blog (November 28, 2018).

PS. This weekend, Heather and I head to the Flying Apron. It is an annual pilgrimage in celebration of my birthday (see last year blog). Another fine example of experiential rural tourism.

The photograph from David Hildebrand of the GIS class of 1986 set me off on a research path. According to my records, the graduates were, as follows:

Student Name                     First Job on Graduation (Company, Location)
xxxxxxxx                              xxxxxxxxx

I have removed their names and first jobs for reasons of privacy.

 

Faculty who were teaching in the GIS program.
Pat Castel
Bob Maher
David Colville

This was not the first time we prepared graduates for the GIS industry. Indeed, as part of the Scientific Computer Programming program, since 1980, we had been using GIS software as the application environment.

Just imagine, we graduated twelve+ students per year, for thirty-two years. That amounts to 384 employees for that industry. It begs David Hildebrand’s question: where are they now? Some likely remained in the industry, others likely changed careers several times. Many may no longer need to work, or are no longer with us.

In the world of social media (Facebook and LinkedIn) it should be possible to create a network of these graduates. Indeed GIS is only one technology, one program within the Geomatics cluster. In the 1980s COGS boasted three departments: Survey Engineering, Cartography and Planning, and Computer Programming.

Could a Freedom of Information (FOI) request be made to the NSCC to populate a database of these alumni? Or if the NSCC maintained the database, individuals could self identify with the College, and perhaps add their own biography and story.

In recent years, we have seen the creation of the business, GoGeomatics, by COGS graduate Jonathan Murphy. GoGeomatics hosts socials at many of the urban centres across the country. This allows interaction between Geomatics professionals within different regions. Recently, GoGeomatics has announced a new national conference, GeoIgnite in Ottawa on June 18-19th 2019.

These socials and the national conference are but one mechanism for sharing ideas, experiences and business opportunities. If NSCC supported a COGS alumni database, we can envisage the engagement of this resource, shared stories and examples of the application of Geomatics technology to many of the concerns of both rural and urban Canadians. Indeed the reach is global. Many of our graduates moved to the United States and elsewhere; others found jobs working on global environmental issues.

Blog Update:

This week, I have been reading David Manners book Convenient Season. It is set in the pre-Second World War era. It describes life in the Annapolis Valley from the viewpoint of a young American man, who rediscovers his country roots. There are detailed descriptions of the weather, small town living in Bridgetown, Centrelea, Round Hill.

This takes me back. When Heather and I arrived here in Summer 1980 with two young boys, we rented the old Ernest Buckler house from Bill O’Neill up in West Dalhousie. That Winter, I commuted down the mountain to teach at the NSLSI in Lawrencetown. What has changed from David Manners description of Valley life? Well, there has been a change in the climate. But the trees, the birds are very much the same. There are still many families trying to live close to the land and sea. Convenient Season? Why that title? Think about what has, and has not, changed. Every year, a new group of students arrive at COGS. They find themselves immersed in a rural lifestyle, combined with modern learning technology. Life. School. House. (www.lifeschoolhouse.com)

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Edward for his advice on Internet privacy, and also the graphics

Reference

David J. Manners. 1941. Convenient Season. EP Dutton, New York.