Ernest Blair Experiment

In New Glasgow, this weekend, I visited the local library. I wanted to follow up on Thomas McCulloch and the Pictou Academy. I found a copy of Marjory Whitelaw’s, “Thomas McCulloch: His Life and Times“; a small book published by the Nova Scotia Museum.

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”McCulloch and the Academy flourished together for a remarkably short time – only fifteen years. But in those few years he gave his students the expression of an ideal about the vigour of liberal thought to which they responded and in turn passed on”.

I discovered that McLelland and Stewart had published his The Stepsure Letters. That book will have to be ordered through the Lawrencetown library.

After listening to Zita Cobb, I wanted to follow up on the creative rural economy. Edward reminded me of his investigations in the 2013-14 time frame. I recall too the workshop by Celes Davar on experiential tourism. That was held in November 2007.

McCulloch led me to William Dawson, a graduate of Pictou Academy. Dawson, besides his Geological research, was superintendent of Education. He designed the Mount Hanley schoolhouse.

Joshua Slocum was a student at the school until his family moved to Brier Island in 1854. Slocum was the first to sail single-handed around the world.

Acknowledgements

Edward reminded me of his blog on the Creative Rural Economy. I remembered Celes Davar’s Experiential Tourism workshop. Heather enjoyed the trip through Old Barns, South Maitland, Kennetcook to Windsor, and home.

References

Marjory Whitelaw, 1985, Thomas McCulloch: His Life and Times, NS Museum, 42 pp.

Thomas McCulloch, 1960, The Stepsure Letters, McLelland and Stewart, New Canadian Library.

Celes Davar, 2007, Fundy Riches and Valley Traditions: Experiential Tourism and Capacity Building in the Annapolis- Digby area, Earth Rhythms Inc.

Peter Sanger’s book contains four essays. I have now had the chance to read all four. The book title, Spar, comes from the Anglo-Saxon for gypsum.

In 2002, Sanger was living in South Maitland on the Shubenacadie River, famous for its tidal bore from the Bay of Fundy. The last essay, ’Groundmass’ describes the connections between the Geologists, Charles Lyell, and J.W.Dawson, and Charles Darwin. Darwin had Lyell’s Principles of Geology with him on the Beagle on his Galapagos expedition. Dawson dedicated his Acadian Geology: an account of the geological structure and mineral resources of Nova Scotia to Lyell in 1855.

Sanger also connects Elizabeth Bishop with the tidal bore she witnessed, either in Great Village or Truro. And also connects Darwin’s expedition to the Galapagos Islands over a hundred years earlier.

When you drive through the Rawdon Hills from Windsor to Truro on Highway #236 you cross the Shubenacadie River at South Maitland. This part of Nova Scotia has had links with the scientific community and literary community that go back two hundred years. And yet the region is small and finite, centred on Truro extending down to Windsor, across to Parrsboro, and on the North shore from Pictou to Pugwash. It covers less than ten pages in the Nova Scotia Atlas (1:150,000. 90 pages).

Sanger’s book is difficult to review. The other three essays are Biorachan Road, The Crooked Knife and Keeping: the Cameron Yard. My best recommendation is “read it”; check it out, from the library, especially the last essay, Groundmass, for the relationship between words and place.

Acknowledgements

Edward added the graphics. Heather shared in the reading and the travel.

References

Peter Sanger, 2002, Spar: Words in Place, Gaspereau Press.

Province of Nova Scotia, 2019, The Nova Scotia Atlas, 7th Edition, Formac Publishing.

Postscript

Apologies for two blogs on consecutive days. I had to go back and read Sanger’s book a second time.

BTW. For a good laugh, check out YouTube from Edward in the Comments to the previous blog.

On our way home from Heather’s eye check-up in New Minas, we stopped in Kentville. I was looking for a copy of Peter Sanger’s book Spar: Words in Place. I went to the office of the Gaspereau Press. I was not disappointed. I found a single copy; as well, I picked up Audubon in Nova Scotia by Eric Mills.

From Sanger’s Foreword:

These essays are pauses during which I looked at a map. Their concerns are the ways in which we take words with us when we journey, what they do with our conversation while we travel, and how we may learn to live with their consequence when we have found a destination. p.13.

I remember reading the first essay, Biorachan Road, sometime after we had walked the same route. Perhaps, as part of our ’Road to Georgetown’ trek.

Eric Mills describes Audubon’s trip from Pictou (August 22,1833) to Windsor (August 29, 1833) via Truro and Halifax. it is an excerpt from Audubon’s journal.

”What had brought this British province to Audubon’s attention? It had to be one, or perhaps both, of two connections involving bird collection, both centering on the educator and Presbyterian clergyman, Thomas McCulloch, who at that time lived in Pictou.

McCulloch established the Pictou Academy, providing education beyond grammar school level to local youth. McCulloch’s philosophy of education was broadly based. He believed that Nova Scotian students should receive an education not based solely on the classics, but on knowledge useful to students and their communities. In this, religion, the classics and especially knowledge of the natural world were of prime importance. And the natural world could be taught well with the aid of equipment for experiments in the physical sciences and the use of museum collections, primarily animals, notably birds.’ p.18. Sounds relevant today!

This morning, we stopped at Joanne’s Cafe, Chocolates and Books in Annapolis Royal. I found a copy of Buckler’s Whirligig and an old school book from the Baddeck Rural High School Library. The Land and People of Canada by Frances Ross, published in 1947. More reading.

Acknowledgements

Heather shared the book discovery travel from Kentville to Annapolis Royal. Edward added the graphics.

References

Peter Sanger, 2002, Spar: Words in Place, Gaspereau Press.

Eric L. Mills, 2018, Audubon in Nova Scotia, Gaspereau Press.

Ernest Buckler, 1977, Whirligig: Selected Prose and Verse, McClelland and Stewart (eBook link)

Frances Aileen Ross, 1947, The Land and People of Canada. Longmans, Green and Co.

Heather and I were discussing changes in the landscape. She pulled off the shelf, Geology of Nova Scotia.

The field guide by Hild and Barr describes forty-eight sites across Nova Scotia, divided into three sections: Foundation, Meguma, and Pangaea. Looking forward, we have grandchildren who are interested in geology and the natural landscape. Now is the time to add geological sites to our search for waterfalls. The field guide gives a trip planner, maps, and specific points of interest.

As we approach the Christmas Season, The Reader is full of events and celebrations: Christmas market in Clarence, vermiculture workshops, the Bridgetown Motor Inn under new ownership.

We drove through Clarence, our old house between the Elliots and the vanRoestels has been removed without a trace. The Bent farm now extends west from the Mount Hanley road towards the Fitch Road.

In Paradise, besides the sale of Andrew’s farm opposite, our neighbours to the west, have sold their property. Rural Nova Scotia is changing. It’s a new demography.

Sunday morning, I receive by email Emergence Magazine and the Marginalian. Emergence Magazine includes the essay ’They carry Us with Them’.

The great tree migration explores tree migration in Maine, from the perspective of black ash, sugar maple, paper birch and red spruce.

Acknowledgements

Heather rediscovered the Field Guide, Geology of Nova Scotia, and recognized the growing interest of our grandchildren. Louis Falls continues to produce The Reader each week, including the Word Search puzzle. Edward added the links and graphics.

References

Martha Hickman Hild and Sandra M. Barr, 2015, Geology of Nova Scotia: Touring through time at 48 scenic sites, Boulder Publications.

Emergence Magazine, November 7, 2021, They Carry Us With Them: The Great Migration.

The Reader, November 5, 2021, Vol 13, Issue #42. A Free weekly paper serving the communities and people of Annapolis County.