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Home, sweet home !
We arrived back in Paradise last night at 12:30 am (Monday). It proved to be a three day return trip. On Friday, Andrew escorted us down from Rossland to Grand Forks. Afterwards, we were on our own, until we returned the car rental at the Kelowna airport on Saturday morning.

The flight to Toronto was scheduled for midnight. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed. This meant that we did not make our connecting flight to Halifax. We arrived back in Halifax around 6 pm Sunday. It was snowing, and the roads were slick. The road conditions improved as we headed west beyond Windsor to exit #19 Lawrencetown.

Lessons

Andrew had made the travel arrangements. Talking, and watching other passengers, those with cell phones seemed able to reschedule, ‘on the fly’. Could we have obtained an earlier flight to Halifax?

If passengers can use their cell phones to intervene without going through an agent at the airport does that result in a two tier system — those of us who are cell-phone-savvy versus those who need the intervention of an agent?

I don’t know the answer. I DO know that there is a generation of ‘seniors’ who have not grown up with the technology of the day.

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What is salient about Roger is that he has spent time teaching English Literature at Acadia University. He now lives in the Slocan Valley, BC.

His collection of short stories cover both geographies.

For now, from the cover, I will only quote Canadian thinker, Northrop Frye who declared ‘that the real question defining Canadian identity is not‘ what are we?’ But ‘where is here?’ Lewis explores both questions.

Acknowledgements

I appreciate the support of both my BC families: Laurel and Nic in Port Moody; Andrew and Julia in Rossland. They provided remarkable insight into the two BC geographies. Heather shared with me the two, very different landscapes and cultures. Edward added the illustrations and links.

Reference
Roger C, Lewis, 2017, Identity Matters, Custom Book Publications.

Heather and I have just arrived in Port Moody, BC. It was likely our first cross-country air trip for several years. Things have changed.

We left Paradise, Annapolis County on Christmas Day. It was a bright, clear day. Very little traffic. We decided to stay at the airport hotel. This gives us parking, while we are in BC.

Boxing Day, up early. We had everything packed in carry-on luggage. This avoids the likelihood of lost luggage, especially if there are travel delays because of the weather.

The air travel was essentially uneventful. Air Canada from Halifax to Ottawa. Air Canada from Ottawa to Vancouver. Nic picked us up at Vancouver airport and drove us to Port Moody.

Some observations. Air travel has changed with the technology.

1. All passengers are using their devices: watching movies, playing electronic games. I had forgotten the need for headsets. Rectified, after an hour or two.
2. Food is ordered, and placed on your credit card.
3. Carry-on baggage was on the aircraft. No worries there except that it ended up on the baggage carousel.

The next leg may prove more complex. We fly to Kelowna, rent a car, and drive to Rossland. That is likely a separate blog.

After the Rossland visit, we fly Kelowna to Toronto; Toronto to Halifax.

Besides coffee, we can be tempted to pick up a savoury pie or the curry of the day. The cafe is in the same building as the Library.

This week, at the kitchen, I picked up a brochure on Meguma Canoe.

They provide rentals for trips on the Annapolis River. Later, I learned that Don MacLean at COGS is the person behind the new venture. The brochure includes a map showing the routes on the Annapolis River between Nictaux and Hebbs Landing.

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At the Annapolis Royal library there are used books for sale.

From the back cover, Raymond Mortimer, Sunday Times:
”I do not think that he has ever written anything more persuasive, more deeply-felt or more powerful.”

”In a despairing fling to have done with the world and women and fame a well-known architect buries himself at an isolated leper colony in the Belgian Congo. He is recognizable, by his mutilated mind, as a ‘burnt-out case’ – a mental leper through whom the disease has run its course.

In his relations with his native servant, with the colony’s doctor, and its Catholic fathers, Querry discovers a sort of sunset peace. But the outside world is tragically incapable of leaving the story there.”

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This week, as part of Plannapolis, there are a series of community meetings.

Stantec and municipal staff will be presenting the proposed Municipal Planning Strategy and Land Use bylaw for public input. (see posts 2022 “Lawrencetown Event“, “A Vision for the Annapolis Region“, “Home Place“)

Will they be addressing no spraying of Glyphosate in Annapolis County? (see posts “A Green Future?“, “Habitat Destruction“, and “Citizen Celebration in Burlington“)

Acknowledgements

Edward has returned from Cape Breton.

References

Graham Greene, 1960, A Burnt-Out Case, Penguin Books.

Meguma Canoe. explore@megumacanoe.com or megumacanoe.com

John Wightman invited us to pick blackberries from his garden. This week, we made blackberry jam, following Jane’s recipe.

Afterwards, we decided to attend the Liberal Annual Picnic at the Legion in Bridgetown. Guest speaker was Stephen McNeil, former Nova Scotia Premier. He described his work in marketing Nova Scotia’s Resources to the world. For the current government he agreed that the issues were health services, housing and inflation. Our current Liberal MLA is Carman Kerr. I hope to meet with him later this week. My concerns would be quality versus quantity. And in particular leveraging our intellectual resources.

Within this context, I had a useful video chat with members of ESRI Press, Catherine and Stacy. The general topic was the application of StoryMap software to my blog. A more specific issue was the representation of rural Geography to a global audience.

I found it revealing that I had been anticipating a conversation between rural Nova Scotia and urban California. In reality, Catherine was located in Maine, Stacy in New Jersey.

This week, aside from a conversation with Carman (face to face). I will meet with Edward Wedler to discuss the technicalities of connecting my blog to online GIS software. More later.

After attending the Annapolis Valley Exhibition, I remain concerned about the linkage between the education Resources at COGS and the need to provide agricultural education in the Annapolis Valley.

We need creative application of the technology to maintain the agricultural lifestyle in rural Nova Scotia. This means leadership.

Acknowledgements

John Wightman shared his blackberry patch, and encouraged our attendance at the Liberal Party picnic. Carman Kerr shows his continual support for the community. Catherine Ortiz and Stacy Krieg from ESRI Press for the video chat. Feedback came from Edward Wedler, Brian Arnott and Heather Stewart.

This week, it is the Annapolis Valley Exhibition, established in 1926, in Lawrencetown. Heather and I have fond memories of our boys showing calves and chickens at 4H in the 1980’s.

We visited the Ex. on a quiet Wednesday afternoon. We heard the voice of Phil Milo giving the commentary for participants in the main arena.

Our overall impression, aside from the beautiful hooked rugs and quilts, was less engagement from 4H, less engagement in terms of fruit and vegetable displays.

The Exhibition should be a showcase for agriculture in the Valley; an opportunity for wider public education on new trends in the farming community.

On a different note, this week, I have had conversations about land administration in the Annapolis Valley. I recall the days of collaboration between COGS and the Planning community on the application of GIS. There was the CLICK project, a collaboration between Roger Sturtevant, Eric Melanson and others. The initiative seems to have vanished. Including the data.

I wonder how effectively we are monitoring and managing land use change in the County. The tools exist, and are increasingly accessible to the wider public.

In the words of ESRI, if we want to be ‘valuing place and purpose’ in Annapolis County (or beyond, the Annapolis Valley) it is essential that the educational community engage with the land management community. COGS, the agricultural sector (including the Exhibition), the forestry sector, the mining sector, the fisheries sector need to work together to ‘organize Nature’ ( reference Cohen and Biro).

Acknowledgements

John Wightman suggested that I talk to Roger Sturtevant. Catherine Ortiz at ESRI Press. Heather Stewart shared the Exhibition visit.

References.

Brent Jones, Keith Mann (ed.) 2022. Applying GIS. Land Administration. Valuing Place and Purpose. ESRI Press.

Alice Cohen and Andrew Biro. 2023. Organizing Nature. U of T Press.

On Saturday night in New Glasgow, we took the opportunity to watch Maine PBS. There were two notable shows.

In both cases, the music brought back a flood of memories. Ready Steady Go ! features the British music scene between 1963-67. A time when I went up to the University of Birmingham to study Geography. Watching Ready, Steady, Go I was impressed by the informality of the studio, the camera work, the audience, and the accessibility of the musicians.

Country Pop legends offered corresponding insight into the history of country music in the United States. Both programs showed the value of public broadcasting, and the engagement of citizens and communities. This is a different experience to the CBC in Canada.

On Sunday, heading back down the Valley, we stopped at River John to see the Berkshire piglets being raised by Sandy (Heather’s sister) and Don. Afterwards, we cut down through the hardwood forests of Colchester County – Sheree Fitch/ Read by the Sea country. Also Mable Murple’s Book Shoppe and Dreamery. We also stopped at the Lismore Sheep Farm and the Earltown General Store. All reminders of the beauty and uniqueness of the Sunrise Trail region. From Truro, we followed our traditional route through the Rawdon Hills to Windsor, and then Highway 101 home.

Acknowledgements

John Stewart provided access to Maine PBS on Cable TV. Heather shared her latest reading. Edward checked out the video links.

References

Hilde Ostby and Ylva Ostby, 2918, Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting, Greystone Press.

Country Pop Legends (My Music), Maine PBS, Saturday June 5, 2021, 7 pm.

Best of the 60s: Ready, Steady, Go!, Maine PBS, Saturday, June 5, 2021, 9 pm.

After a couple of days, dealing with the telephone network, we decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and went to Emergency at the Middleton Hospital. We left four hours later, with prescriptions for a single dose antibiotic.

Meanwhile on CBC Maritime Noon, there was the seasonal discussion of ticks and Lyme’s disease. Evidence suggests that the mild Winters in Nova Scotia are leading to an increase in the tick population.

It is interesting that it is easier to obtain treatment for our pets than ourselves. Although I recognize that pet health can be critically important to human health.

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From NOW Lunenburg County, I see they are looking for BIG IDEAS. My proposal, whether it be Lunenburg, Annapolis or Great Village, focus on the rural landscape and its value to artists, scientists and those who wish to have a close relationship to the landscape. Examples abound.

Great Village: look at the work of the Elizabeth Bishop Society. For Annapolis County, we have Ernest Buckler and a number of other artists. In an earlier blog, I cited the example of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden UK. This week, in the latest Guardian Weekly I was reading about David Hockney and his new exhibit in London ‘Spring in Normandy’ (PDF).

On the Science side, I received the latest newsletter from BOFEB (PDF). From a landscape perspective, our marine environment is often woefully under-represented. Conversely, imagine if we had an ‘environmental partnership’ for the landward side of the Bay of Fundy?

Postscript

From Frank Fox, BBC News reference to ‘The reason wild forests beat plantations’.

Acknowledgements

Dr. Opthof Emergency Doctor, Middleton. Heather and Siqsiq for their help in battle of the ticks. Edward added the graphics and links. Much appreciated.

References

Lunenburg County NOW. Big Ideas competition.

BOFEP May 2021 newsletter (PDF).

The Guardian Weekly, May 21, 2021, Interview with David Hockney: A Man for All Seasons. p51-54 (PDF) David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 is at the Royal Academy, London.

I received this photograph a couple of days ago from my brother.

It shows paddle steamers docking at Clacton Pier in 1938. This is before the Second World War. Clacton is in Essex on the East coast of England, about one hundred miles northeast of London. From the photograph, it looked to be quite prosperous.

Fast forward to the late 1950s. My grandfather, Harry Ballard on my mother’s side, was a taxi driver in London, driving a black cab. On his retirement, he and his wife, Jane bought a bungalow on the cliff tops at Holland-on-Sea.

Our family of five used to go there to visit during the Summer holidays. We would walk, bicycle or bus to Clacton, go out on the pier and watch the fishermen (and ladies) cast their lines into the water. Other days, we would go North to Frinton-on-Sea, again along the coastal path.

Meanwhile, on my Father’s side, John Maher and his wife lived nearby in Hampton. He was a nurseryman, growing and breeding chrysanthemums. They would be sold at the Covent Garden market in London.

Today, I find myself combining a taxi-driver sense of place with a nurseryman’s interest in plants.

The yellow variety was named after his wife. They seem particularly happy in the woods at the foot of the slope of South Mountain.

These connections come together in the study of Biogeography: place and plants.

Acknowledgements

Peter found the photograph of Clacton Pier (1938). I snapped the photograph of the rhododendron. Heather works hard, sharing the gardening. Edward shares the blogging.

Postscript

Check out Brain Pickings, May 5, 2021, David Whyte, A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader. “Collection of 121 original illustrated letters to children about why we read and how books transform us.”

On the way to Iqaluit, we had a stopover in Ottawa. On the recommendation of Andrew, my son, we went to see the Franklin exhibition at the Canadian Museum of History.

There were many aspects of the exhibit design which caught my imagination. At the entrance, a projector system showed the history of exploration routes into the Arctic. Each route revealed more of the known geography of the North. These images served to provide a graphic context for the Franklin expedition. The layout of the ship on the floor of the gallery again provided a tremendous sense of the size and plan of the individual vessel. Third, and most revealing to myself, was the combination of Inuit storytelling with current artwork.

While listening to the recordings, it became clear that the role of storytelling in the oral Inuit culture was critical to our understanding of the fate of the Franklin expedition. These stories of the landscape provided a narrative which allowed the Inuit to travel from place to place. The stories were retold in the igloos by the elders. They replaced maps, although there were wooden maps carved to identify islands and inlets.

Once we arrived in Iqaluit, I had access to books. I found Woodman’s book Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony. This gives more background to the many insights at the exhibition. A second book, on Andrew’s bookshelf, was Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. It includes An Expedition to the Pole p 29-64. This essay is brilliant, divided into several headings: The Land, The People, The Technology. These topics and their focus on the Franklin Expedition reverberates with the exhibition (written in 1982).

Meanwhile, as I was flying from Ottawa to Iqaluit, I was re-reading Robert MacFarlane, The Wild Places p 17.

“I also decided that, as I traveled, I would draw up a map to set against the road atlas. A prose map that would seek to make sense of the remaining wild places of the archipelago visible again, or that would record them before they vanished for good. This would be a map, I hoped, that would not connect up cities, towns, hotels and airports. Instead, it would link headlands, cliffs, beaches, mountain tops, tors, forests, river-mouths and waterfalls.”

One last story. Talking to Julia last night, I found that she had been hired to teach Map Making at Nunavut Arctic College. On the side table, I found, Map Use: Reading, Analysis, Interpretation by Kimmerling et al. Six hundred and fifty pages. With a Foreword by Jack Dangermond at Esri.

It seems that we have come ‘full circle’.

References

David C. Woodman. 2015. Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony. Second Edition

Annie Dillard. 1982. Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters.

Robert MacFarlane. 2007. The Wild Places. Penguin Books.

Jon Kimerling et al. 2016. Map Use: Reading, Analysis, Interpretation.

Elaine Anselin. Closing in on Franklin. Up Here. Jan/Feb 2018. p 55-62