Monday August 31, 1998 - Nova Scotia

Wolfville - warm and sunny.

In the morning I had another scone and devonshire cream at the Tea Room, and bought a raincoat, rainhat and housecoat, as well as some postcards and a copy of David's book on whale watching. Geoff and RL gave me a large discount but I still spent close to $300. When I left I drove down the west coast. I did not go to Lake Ainslie but was wondering if I should have.

After leaving Cape Breton I stopped in Antigonish to see if I could get on the internet but the library there was closed on Mondays. On a whim I stopped in Mt. Denson to see if Dennis was home, and he was. He was just preparing supper and invited me in. I was able to check email on his computer.

Dennis had had an angina attack in Toronto last winter which was a bit of a scare for him. Since then he has become a vegetarian and has lost some 20 lbs of excess weight. He also had done some thinking about lifestyle and how he got to where he was. He also asked a few personal questions which kind of put me on the defensive, I was kind of glad to leave.

I arrived at Fritz and Carolyn's place late. They were still up and I told them all the news from Geoff and RL, including about the new puppy. Carolyn had visited RL just before I did so they were pretty up-to-date except about the puppy. Carolyn had planned to stay at Geoff and RL's until I arrived there, but ended up leaving early to meet their daughter Erica in PEI. Erica had gone skydiving while I was away and they had a video of her jump.

While I was at Dennis's, I read email from Isaac who was writing to say that he was in PEI now and would be staying there until Thursday. I thought he was going to be there until Sunday or Monday and I was thinking of maybe visiting him there but if he's leaving earlier, then that will be difficult. I would have to leave here on Wednesday if I want to see him in PEI.

Sunday August 30, 1998 - Nova Scotia

Margaree Harbour - sunny.

David was feeling sick in the morning Eventually we got up and went for coffee in Cheticamp. He wanted to be at work by noon to clean up since it was his last day there before going to Ingonish to pick up his kids. We said good bye, I did a bit of shopping in Cheticamp and then returned to Margaree Harbour. I stayed a while at the Schooner Village Tea Room and then went back to RL's house to shower and pack up to leave the next day. Geoff and RL had a new puppy, Rowan. Yohan didn't like the puppy, he pooped and peed in their house and snapped at Rowan. Ceilidh rushed in to chase Yohan off. We had dinner and watched TV.

David called and spoke to Geoff, asking him to give me directions to his friend Ken's house on Lake Ainslie. I think the idea is for me to stop by there on my way back to Wolfville tomorrow. Geoff didn't think I should go there since Ken had recently split with his wife and was either depressed or depressing, or both.

Saturday August 29, 1998 - Nova Scotia

Grand Etang - cloudy, then sunny.

David was supposed to go to work but decided not to go until 6.00pm and hoped I would spend Saturday night with him after that. We went into Cheticamp for coffee and bought some beer and wine. I paid for it because David didn't have any money. We spent the afternoon drinking, telling stories and just sitting out on the deck. We checked out a hovercraft while in Cheticamp; they are trying to set up a regular service to Iles Madeleine. David wanted to leave copies of Shunpiker, the magazine that carries his articles, on the boat for passengers.

We had dinner in Cheticamp and just before 6.00pm David went back to the Park to do his show. I returned to Geoff and RL's in Margaree Harbour to spend the evening. When they went to bed I returned to the cabin on the coast. However, the woman was borrowing the cabin from the owner had returned, David and I visited with her for awhile and then went to David's house in Grand Etang. We were both very tired due to not much sleep the night before.

Friday August 28, 1998 - Nova Scotia

Grand Etang - sunny.

Geoff and RL got up and left early to work at Schooner Village, I got up later and had a shower and then the last of my yogurt and granola for breakfast. Then I drove to Schooner Village and had a second breakfast of scone and devonshire cream and jam and coffee. Again, RL and I yakked about this that and t'other thing in the kitchen.

In the afternoon I drove up the coast to see Gampo Abbey, the Buddhist monastery, and to drop in at the Cape Breton Highlands National Park to see if David was around. That's where he worked in the summertime, and I didn't know if Myrtle had contacted him or not. At the Park office I was told that he had checked in but wasn't around right now; I thought I'd come back later to try again.

I continued up the coast to the Abbey which is about as far north as you can go on the west coast of Cape Breton. I turned off the Cabot Trail at Pleasant Bay onto the Red River road to Gampo Abbey. My Wolfville friend Carolyn had visited there and highly recommended it, but RL told me that if they were on retreat at the Abbey they wouldn't accept visitors.

It was a nice drive to get there along a dirt road up the coast, and when I arrived at the gate to the property there was a sign saying that public tours were conducted at 3.00pm. I arrived at 3.25pm and saw a few people working outside the main building, and a large bull moose calmy eating tree leaves at the edge of the front yard. I asked a woman inside the front door of the main building about the tour, and she went to find someone to escort me. But she didn't find anyone and suggested I look around on my own. I got the impression that didn't mean inside.

I looked around the grounds a bit. There was a meditation space on a grass-topped cliff overlooking the ocean, and near where the bull moose had been (he was gone now) a sign saying "bonsai". I walked in the direction that the sign pointed and came upon a fox who was startled by my arrival and hissed and growled as he ran past me. Scared both of us.

I was expecting to come upon a bonsai garden but it was actually just a working area with a few small trees being "bonsai-ed". When I cam out, the fox was sitting at the top of the path watching me. He trotted off up the road and sat down again facing me and scratched his ear. Since my truck was parked in that direction I continued to walk toward the fox; it got up and moved a little further along and sat down again. Eventually it trotted off into the woods. It was about the same size as Yohan, very skinny with a big bushy tail. As I drove away from the Abbey I saw a cow moose on the side of the road by an upturned dory.

I returned to the Park office to see if I could catch David, he still wasn't there. I went to look in the bookstore and a few minutes later the woman at the office called out to me that David was back. He was just on his way out of the building so I went out to meet him. I don't think he recognized me at first, then he did and seemed happy to see me. Since the last time I saw him he has cut his hair and grown a beard so he looks a bit like a bald Papa Hemingway.

David invited me to have dinner with him at a nearby restaurant. After dinner and a beer he collected a few things from the office and we drove to a cabin on the shore that he had helped to build and had the occasional use of. It was small but quite handsome, with lots of windows and a small sleeping loft. It was set in a field overlooking a stoney beach with the highlands behind it. The windows faced the ocean and it had a big mermaid painted on its roof.

David invited me to spend the night but first he had to go back to the park to put on an evening show for the campers, I agreed and drove back to Margarell Harbour to tell Geoff and RL what I was up to. As it turned out they were in Cheticamp, which I had just driven through, doing some shopping, so I hung out at the Schooner with Myrtle awaiting their return. When I saw Geoff and RL's car crossing the Margaree Harbour bridge I followed them home and told them about my meeting with David. They thought that was fine but not to talk too much about it with Myrtle since they thought it best not to feed the local gossip mill.

I picked up a couple of things and returned to the cabin and David and I had a nice time.

Thursday August 27, 1998 - Nova Scotia

Margaree Harbour - sunny.

I had breakfast in the little picnic park on the Margaree River. It was very quiet, very pretty. The weather was clear and I had a chance to dry out and wash up after last night's rain in Newfoundland. Then I drove to the Schooner Village run by my friends Geoff and RL in Margaree Harbour. They were in the Tea Room when I arrived. I spent the next couple of hours hanging out in the kitchen with RL while she baked. We had huge veggie sandwiches and tea for lunch, I could hardly get my sandwich into my mouth it was so big. RL and I went home to their place mid-afternoon and then I went to the Margaree Forks library to check email. It is a small library with 3 computers and no signup list or time limits. There was lots of email for me and I spent a couple of hours catching up and replying. At closing time I returned to Geoff and RL's place. Their dog Ceilidh got along fine with Yohan but their cats were cautious. They gave me their son Andrew's old room to stay in next to the loft library.

The bridge across the Margaret River and Schooner Village at the far end

We went back to the Schooner for supper and I said Hi to Myrtle who remembered me from the last time I visited. Myrtle offered to call another old friend of mine at home to tell him I was around, but I said I'd contact him myself. David is someone I met when I was a student at Acadia University, we were both "mature students". We went our separate ways and I hadn't had any contact with him until just a couple of years ago on my last visit to Margaret Harbour. That was a pleasant surprise at the time.

After supper we drove to Inverness for Alice's Ceilidh, the last one of the season. It was all kids playing and dancing, and they were very good. Some Americans from Oregon also got up and played some folk-y music which was kind of weird; Geoff didn't like it at all. I enjoyed the music and dancing and just the general ambience of it all. The hall was packed, mostly local people. Alice does this as a fundraiser. She had us all up singing the Cape breton Gaelic anthem at the beginning. Geoff instructed me that I could tap my feet but not clap, except when the fiddle goes from a strathspey to a reel to a jig. But I could never tell when the switches came, except when Geoff would start clapping. It ended around 9.30 or 10.00pm and we drove back to Margaree Harbour and to bed.