easter weekend, grand manan

  With the coming of spring, I am calm again. 

Gustav Mahler

This winter's been a bit gruelling and there are a lot of changes ahead this spring so I was glad to get away for a few days to spend Easter weekend on Grand Manan.  Lots of ocean air, good food,  a little beach-combing, a few walks and many, many hands of this with my mom.  I also got to see my grandfather sing in church on Easter morning.  He turns 90 this year and I think this was probably his singing debut.  A great memory! How did you spend your weekend?

I always sleep really well near the ocean so I'm usually up to catch the sunrise over the cove.

A walk down Shore Road to check out the beaver pond. They've been hard at work already this spring adding a second small dam.

Beach-combing yielded a few treasures.

Easter morning at the Anchorage. 

 

Relax.

to the lighthouse

Swallowtail Light is one of the iconic symbols of Grand Manan. Not only because it's undeniably picturesque but I think too because it's the beacon greets everyone arriving by ferry and it's one of the last landmarks you see as you leave. No matter the purpose or duration of your stay on the island, sailing round Swallowtail bookends everyone's Grand Manan experience. 

The light was first lit in July 1860 following increased calls for a new light on the northern end of the island after the January 1857 wreck of the Lord Ashburton.  (The light was originally fueled by porpoise oil!)  Swallowtail was destaffed in 1985 but unlike many destaffed lighthouses the keeper's buildings - house, boathouse, etc - remain intact. 

sardines and songs

Prior to Saturday the last time I spent any significant time in a herring shed, I was “stringing herring;” standing in front of a seemingly endless bin of fish and one-by-one poking a pointy stake in through the gill and out through the mouth so they could be hung from the rafters in the smokeshed.   A full stick earned me something in the neighbourhood of a dime.  I remember it being tedious and smelly and when I closed my eyes that night all I could see were herring heads staring up at me.  But I also remember sea breezes blowing through the shed, the sound of gulls and the kind of boisterous camaraderie that springs up from sharing a day of manual labour.   There weren’t many more days like this down at “The Crick” (the tidal creek in Seal Cove).  The waning smoked herring industry went into deep decline in the 1990s and is now just a memory. 

So it was under very different circumstances 20 years later that I returned to the Crick on Saturday for an afternoon with the Summer’s End Folk Festival artists at The Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame.  The museum is made up of a number of the old buildings and the legacy of the late Michael Zimmer.  (If you’re interested in the back story I recommend going here where my friend Peter Cunningham captures it beautifully.)

The Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame is not a museum as we typically think of it.  There are no interpretative plaques, no faithful re-creations of ‘how things were.’  Instead it’s a rather eccentric and artful jumble of artifacts; relics of a time when herring was king and the smell of smoking fish (‘the smell of money!’ my dad would chime in) permeated our hair, our clothes and our summers.

It’s magical place and the perfect spot to spend an afternoon of music.    

Peter explains the museum's history to Liam Finney, Julie Doiron, Daniel Romano, Ruth Minnikin & Bry Webb 

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Bry Webb, Ruth Minnikin & Liam Finney.

see you soon, carly maicher

Take me with you so I don't have to miss you, 

Take me all the way across the prairies and back

To the bay.

Carly Maicher, See You Soon

Her latest album is called "Hiding" but Carly Maicher's life lately has been anything but secluded.  The singer-songwriter has spent much of this year on the road on a head-spinning Canadian tour with Zachary Lucky. (60 shows in three months!)  And now she's come back to the Bay and more specifically to Grand Manan Island to the festival she started three years ago.   Now I fully confess that I'm biased towards all things Grand Manan but I think the Summer's End Folk Festival is one of the great little gems of New Brunswick's music scene.  Established musicians and new discoveries playing in the open air a stone's throw from the sea? A perfect way to wind down your summer.  

The Festival runs August 24-25 and with just over a week to go, Carly took the time to answer a few of my questions, one island girl to another.

I love that your bio says you're one part wheat field, one part ocean.   How did you end up on Grand Manan?  How does the isolation of the island affect your writing?

Well, my grandparents are from Grand Manan originally! So, there's definitely a deep rooted family connection here. But basically, my family decided to buy a summer home here, and at the time I was looking to get away from Winnipeg, where I had been living. It sort of just happened - it worked out perfectly time wise, and since nobody was going to be living in the house, I decided to take advantage. My original plan was to just stay a couple of months and work on songs, and maybe record a home-made album, but then I just continued staying. I loved it so much that a year went by, and then years just kept going by. I built a little life here and got busy doing normal life things like working, and socializing.

During my time on Grand Manan, I spent a LOT of time alone with nature. I couldn't get over the natural beauty here. It's beautiful almost everywhere, but to me Grand Manan hosts this kind of obvious rugged beauty that's impossible to overlook. At least if you're not from a place like this. So, the environment definitely affected my writing. There's something super romantic, at least to me, about going to a little fishing island. 

Grand Manan is such a special place in general, but definitely became such a special place to me and an important time in my life. It has been such a substantial part of my life, and where I've felt most at home.

Tell me a little about Summer's End - it's no small thing deciding to start a festival on a pretty remote island. 

One of the things that I imagined about Grand Manan Island before moving here was that it would be a place filled with artists and musicians. I had been to Grand Manan before in my younger years on family trips, but never really got to know the culture really well. When I moved here, I didn't really meet anyone who had the same musical interests as me, which was surprising. There is definitely music on Grand Manan - but not specifically folk or traditional music. After a couple years of living here, I started managing a restaurant (Gallaway's Restaurant which is where the festival is held) - and there I began bringing in music from the mainland to see if we could become part of their touring circuit. With music being such an important part of my life, I needed a way to be able to continue doing that on Grand Manan too.

The festival became a dream of mine after living here and realizing that it's the most perfect place in the world for a festival, and I literally just couldn't believe it wasn't already happening here. So with that, I began planning the first one and everything just sort of fell into place. I thought that it would be a really great thing for the community to have a music festival with some music that maybe the culture here hadn't been exposed to yet. I think music can do wonderful, positive things - and that was my attempt at doing something positive within the community.

What's been the most surprising thing about Summer's End?

The most surprising part about Summers End is actually that the majority of our audience members have been people from away, not people from Grand Manan. This is really interesting! Although it means it is somewhat successful, meaning that our line up typically has some names that should draw, it is also surprising and I'd still really like the local crowd to grow. With there being so many off-islanders traveling to the festival from away, it's become a great tourist event which benefits local businesses - since the attendees are spending two nights on the island, they are contributing to the islands economy also via camping, groceries, restaurants, motels, ferry, etc! 

This year's festival offers up another great line-up - there are better-known names like Julie Doiron and Ruth Minnikin but who are some of the hidden gems / new talent / surprises we can look forward to?

This years line-up is theoretically pretty stacked! Julie Doiron, Daniel Romano, Bry Webb, and the Providers, Ruth Minnikin, and Owen Steel are all already very much so a part of the East coast music scene! People that are up and coming but that you may not have heard of are Klarka Weinwurm (NS), Devarrow (NB), Liam Finney (NS). I'm super excited to have them all involved in the festival!

(If you can't wait for the 24th to take in this music, the folks at SEFF have put together a great playlist over at CBC Music to get you in the mood! )
 

Summer's End Folk Festival is August 24-25th on Grand Manan.  You can get your tickets in advance on the website or in person at Gallaway's Restaurant (Grand Manan) Picaroons Brewtique (Fredericton) and Backstreet Records in both Fredericton and Saint John.

kayaking

It wasn't until my last full day on Grand Manan earlier this month that my dad and I finally made it out onto the water in the kayaks.  While I enjoy a nice sunny paddle, fog gives the rugged island coast a beautiful atmosphere.

We headed out at high tide.  It's my favourite time to kayak.  Not only does it mean we can very nearly launch the kayaks from my parents' front lawn (no lugging kayaks over slippery bladderwrack-covered rocks!) but it also affords a unique view of the coastline.  Since Dad and I began kayaking a number of years ago, I've gained a new appreciation for how diverse the island can be and how quickly it can change from imposing rock formations to soft sandy beaches.

We came upon a trio of deer running and jumping on the bog.

Slipping silently through the water at high tide also allows you to get up close and personal with the local wildlife.  (As an aside: Did you know Grand Manan has no bear, moose, coyotes, skunks, porcupines, or poisonous snakes?)  For my birder friends kayaking is a great way to get those shorebird shots.

Canada geese are messy and we discourage them from coming above the high tide mark at Mom & Dad's cove (using a bell or "Shoo!") but I still enjoy watching them.

High tide kayaking also gives you the chance to thread the needle through some very narrow spaces (although I seem to always find the barely-submerged rock to fetch up on.)

After a slightly soggy but enjoyable paddle and some sea heather gathering it was time to head for home.

heather sees sea heather down by the sea shore

Now before botanists correct me, yes, this is technically sea lavender (Limonium carolinianum to be precise) also known as marsh rosemary or statice.  But in our house it's sea heather and that's all there is to it!

Could there be a better way to pick wildflowers than guiding silently along shore in a kayak? I'm a lifelong Grand Manan-er but it's only been in the past five years or so that I've discovered sea heather. My childhood home was in a different part of the island from where my parents live now and the conditions weren't right for this flower which grows in profusion in and near salt marshes.

From midsummer to early autumn clouds of sea heather rise from the marshy shores.

Kayaking along the coast at high tide is a favourite activity for my dad and me and once the sea heather starts to bloom its lovely to glide along and pluck it from the shore.  Beautiful when freshly picked, it also dries very well making it a perfect choice for a centrepiece or wreath.  In 2008, we hosted a family reunion at my parents' place and I made table arrangements of mason jars full of sea heather.  Four years later, I still have mine on display.   One word of warning, because the sea heather is often partially submerged by the ocean it will absorb some of the smell of the ocean floor so depending on where you pick it, it can be a little pungent.  I find a little time out in the fresh air takes care of that though.

Sea heather partially underwater at high tide.

A note on the pitcher featured at the top of the page.  It came from the Mavourneen a barque out of Yarmouth, NS which sank off the coast of Grand Manan in October 1866 and now rests under 85 feet of water off Bradford's Cove (all crew saved!).  My father, a nautical historian and underwater archaeologist, dove on the wreck many times and brought the pitcher up in 1973.  It's lived in our house every since.  I can't lie - I was a little nervous to do these photos as I had visions of smashing an artifact that had survived a shipwreck! 

Dad on the Mav wreck in 1973 (a few feet from where the pitcher was found) and his rendering off the wreck on the ocean floor.

maggie and milly and molly and may 
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang 
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing 
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone 
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 
it's always ourselves we find in the sea 

e.e. cummings 

saturday on grand manan

A summer Saturday on Grand Manan isn't really complete without two stops.  First is the Grand Manan Farmers Market.  For farm market fans it's good all you'd expect: local delicacies, arts and crafts and strong hot coffee roasted locally.  And, of course more than a few things unique to island life: doormats made from reclaimed lobster rope, whale whistles from a newly arrived potter and local lore. 

And sea glass!  You'll definitely want to stop by and say hi to Esty Deugaw who makes beautiful sea glass jewelry and accessories (and even sugar candy that looks like bits of beach glass.)  The pendant on the right is my mom's newest treasure, made by Esty with a marble Mom found on our favourite sea glass beach.

Of course, for a souvenir of the island, I have to recommend a print from local artist Eric Allaby (known in these parts as 'Dad').  He and my mom have become regular market vendors over the past couple of years.  (his work is also available here)

After browsing local wares, your second stop has to be the North Head Bakery where Martha Ballantyne and Richard Rice have been turning out remarkable breads and baked goods since 1988.  A small island in the middle of the Bay of Fundy may be the last place you expect to find a bakery in the French boulangerie tradition but that adds to the charm.   The Saint John Valley bread is a must. Bon appetit!

The Farmers Market is located at 128 Rte 776, North Head, and meets on Saturday mornings (10 AM to 12:30 pm)

The North Head Bakery is located at 199 Rte 776.

it's the weekend: get down

Watch. Bob Balaban gives you a tour of New Penzance, the island in Wes Anderson's upcoming Moonrise Kingdom - turns out it looks a lot like my hometown!

Make. Cute origami bows over at How About Orange.

Listen. I love Flavorwire's Literary Mixtapes where the imagine the iPod of famous characters like Atticus Finch,   Scarlett O'Hara (who'd surely be cranking Florence + the Machine as she rebuilds Tara) or Harriet the Spy. I'm only mildly concerned how much my iPod resembles that of Jane Eyre...

Admire. Minimalist re-interpretations of film posters and album covers are flooding design sites these days but Rowan Stocks Moore's elegant reimagining of Disney movies are really something.

Breathe. Feeling overwhelmed?  You need these Everything is Going to Be Okay notecards - uplifting and beautifully designed!

Finally, a HUGE congrats to local fashion blogger Kristin MacDonald of Doll Parade who was named fashion magazine's It girl for May.  The talented Kandise Brown  of hibou photo shot Kristin looking lovely in spring florals. Bravo ladies!!

hockey dreams in my hometown

If you think that you are a Canadian, then my boy I will show you I am a Canadian too- if they check me from behind I will get up, if they kick and slash I will get up.  

If we play three against five for fifteen minutes I will get up.  

I too am a Canadian.  

They will not take this away from me.

David Adams Richards, Hockey Dreams

Growing up on Grand Manan, we used to skate on whatever patch of ice we could find. Winters are mild on the island so when it was cold enough that a small accumulation of water in my neighbour's field froze it was cause for celebration.  Looking back I think my "skating pond" was maybe 10 feet by 10 feet.   If we were lucky and the stars aligned and the ponds froze,  you had to navigate bumpy surfaces, branches frozen in the surface of the ice and the occasional muskrat. (As an aside: I developed a skating style that compensated for these imperfections so that when I finally hit slick, Zambonied ice for the first time at Acadia, I couldn’t actually stay on my feet for longer than 20 seconds.)  For as long as I or anyone else can remember, we talked about it all the time but having a hockey rink on the island seemed like the impossible dream.

The ritual that seemed to be playing out in every other small town in Canada parents and kids flocking to the rink in the wee hours of the mornings eluded us. Once again our island life had seemingly cut us off from the shared experiences of ‘the mainland.’ So last weekend as I watched the Grand Manan Islanders skate out to centre ice, as I watched my cousins' daughters take to the ice proudly sporting their Islanders jerseys, I'll admit it was emotional watching my hometown finally live out their hockey dreams.

In November Mars Canada made a significant investment in the island rink and they made this documentary.  It's a great look not only at our hockey story but a great introduction to my very special hometown.

 

sunday night at mam & bap's

Every Sunday night for as long as I can remember our family has been spending Sunday night supper at ' Mam & Bap's' (our family nickname for my grandparents  Betty & Ray).  My weekends on the island usual involve catching a ferry back to the mainland late Sunday morning.  But since I took Monday off from work today, I got to take part in this ritual that's been going on for nearly forty years.  And now there's a new generation making their own memories! 

What little rituals does your family have?

 Mam & Bap cheer on their kids, grandkids & great-grandkids at the skating rink.

kindred spirits

One of the reasons I came to Grand Manan this weekend was to do some research on a couple of projects that I've had in the back of my mind for awhile now.  The first thing I needed to do was to dig into the island archives to find out if there was enough material to do pursue what I had in mind.  (There was!) So I spent most of Saturday afternoon getting acquainted with two delightful ladies, a mother and daughter, and the host of colourful characters who populated their lives in the first few decades of the 20th century.  It's kind of a thrill to pore over the old yellowed original letters - you start to get a real feel for the details of their life and their personalities.  By the time I came across the quote above (written to the mother by the daughter while she was away at college in the late 1920s) I knew I had discovered kindred spirits.  Looking forward to coming back and spending more time with them!

It's the weekend. Bundle up.

Happy weekend!  I am spending a good part of my weekend in a rink which apparently is totally normal for many, many Canadians but kind of a novelty for me. Tonight I get to watch some former NHL players in my home town (surreal, right?) and tomorrow I hope to hit the same ice with some of my family for a little skating myself (even more surreal, I imagine).  Whatever you are up to this weekend, bundle up and stay warm!

Some of my favourite things this week:

I still love classic children's books.  Check out the stories behind the most beloved stories:

An oldie but a goodie, this 20-minute skirt tutorial has me dreaming about all the pretty spring skirts I could make.

2 ingredients + 5 minutes to "the best chocolate mousse of your life?" This I've gotta try!

What I love: things that are wee.  This micro-planter how-to on Etsy will delight the tiniest green thumb. 

Seeing the beautiful people having fun and looking human on Awesome People Hanging Out Together always makes me smile

And because you just can't see it enough, Tina Fey photobombs Amy Poehler- I would love to be either of these women when I grow up.  (Especially Amy Poehler. Why? See above.)

coastal living

Since our Young Company hits the road shortly and then we go into back to back productions, this could be one of my last chances to get out of town before late March.  I figured I should make the most of it.  Lucky for me I have the perfect retreat at my parents' place.  Headed to the island today with a stack of reading, writing and research.  Somehow doing work sitting by a fire or enjoying a latte at my favourite cafe doesn't exactly seem onerous! 

how i spent my summer vacation: 11 shots from summer '11

Grand Manan Adventure

beaches

Grand Manan Art Gallery

cousins

movies under the stars

berries!

rosehips

picking blackcurrants

chasing chickens

summer's end folk festival