We love this bridge that goes over the sand dune and leads to the beach at Chockpish, New Brunswick, about 20 kilometers north of Bouctouche.

by Elaine Mandrona

There is a lobster processing plant here and this time of year the activity of canning lobster is in full swing. All of the workers have arrived, their cars cramming the parking lot. We drive past the red buildings, as red ad boiled lobster, and park near some sheds away from the activity .

A little gray weathered footbridge is the magical passage way to Chockpish beach. It’s open water, big waves, especially since it’s windy, and you can see the windmills on the PEI coast off in the distance. I imagine them spinning like crazy.

On our side there are upscale, widely spaced cottages perched on the shore. Windows facing the sea, like eyes looking out toward the pencil line blue horizon and cottony white clouds. Actually, our favorite cottage of all time is here, and I’ll tell you, we’ve done a lot of exploring and looking at cottages as we travel the Acadian Coast. We’ve been lusting for it for the past ten years. It’s gray shingle with a stone chimney, two stories, a filigree screen door lets in the sea breeze. Roses are climbing up the side. Some folks from Ontario own it, we think. Someday, we fantasize, it may have a “For Sale” sign on it. And we’ll have truckloads of cash after we win the Lotto to buy it.

Chockpish—what does it mean? Sounds native, but we’ve never been able to find any information about it. Chock full of fish is what I think about.

The sand on Chockpish beach is fine and warm this day, even though a stiff cool breeze is blowing, ruffling the grass and churning up whitecaps.

A formidable stone breakwater says “Danger No Trespassing on Rubble Mound Structure”. I wouldn’t dream of it.

Closer up the waves are ink blue with undertones of root beer brown—sand stirred up as the waves break on the shore. I study some subtle patterns in the sand close up. They’re fine line drawings made by hidden hands in the waves as they advance and recede.

This one lane bridge crosses the Chockpish River. Behind it you can see the lobster processing plant.

A seagull hangs in the air. Three cormorants dart from the other side of the rubble breakwater and skim the water, flying low. The gulls like the wind, they play with it, hovering and diving, letting it lift and drop them.The more agile terns use it to change direction like acrobats. One seagull perches on top of a pole, watching for a long time, like he owns the place.

The sea grass twitches like a horse’s flank. Like a horse that has been spooked.
I am praying that the Louisiana oil spill doesn’t make it up here. Chockpish is pristine, virginal and pure, up to this point, anyway. It’s a treasure. One of the nicest beaches around, it seems like not many people know about it. Even at the height of the summer, we never see many visitors here.Today it’s just us.

We walk back over the footbridge to the dock. There are interesting, colorful boats bobbing next to the wharf. A metal bridge spans the Chockpish river that widens here and empties into the ocean. The cars going over it make a muffled thunk thunk sound.

Today, Chockpish is all about motion. Motion and clarity, everything is in sharp focus.

The ruins of an old wharf in Saint Thomas de Kent, NB. We’ve had a cottage in the area for almost 10 years and only just noticed these because we had never actually walked this beach.

We’d like to make a living from the sea. Not by fishing, of course. There are no fish left. We found that out when we decided that this year we would try every type of local fish, freshly caught and bought from those little markets you see along the coast. However, that project’s death knell was sounded by the door chime of the first market we tried. The only fish they had were some trout and salmon. From Halifax. No, we won’t be making a living fishing any time soon.

What we want to do is write about our explorations. We live 20 minutes from the coast, have a cottage within view of it. We’ve driven from Miscou to Florida, at one time or other. The Florida trip was a one-off deal and was made when Elaine and I were still just friends, but we know most of our Acadian Coast pretty damn well, at least that’s what we thought.

We've started stopping more often rather than just doing a lot of driving. It's amazing how much more we see when we just stop.

Time to start stopping

We’ve put a lot coastal miles on our various vehicles but we’ve just realized that we haven’t done much stopping. We joke that we almost never talk to anyone, but how do you talk to anyone when you’re cruising along at 80 to 100 KMH? So, now we’re stopping. No fisherman ever caught fish zooming out and then back from the fishing grounds and so we’ve make that every weekend we park the wheels and walk or just sit at mini-destinations, enjoying the air, taking pictures, or writing. We still haven’t talked to anyone, but that will come.

This weekend we dropped anchor (That’s the last fishing metaphor, I promise.) at Saint Thomas and we discovered the ruins of an old wharf. The wooden cribwork, looking like sets of rotten and broken teeth, is most easily seen at low tide, naturally, and makes for an interesting photograph or two.

Just an average wharf

We want to know more about it, though. Sure, we know no famous ship moored here. None of the survivors of the Titanic swam ashore and I doubt even one U-Boat snuck in under cover of dark to lay mines during WWII. I’m sure it was the average wharf where the local fishermen moored their boats at day’s end, unloaded their catch and went back out the next day. That’s the magic of it, though. People lived their lives around this wharf and much more so than of the wharves of today and that’s what gives these old centers their depth.

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Driving up and down the coast you see only the “today” of whatever you come by and that is two dimensional, there is almost no context. There is only foreground, no background. Stopping to delve into the local history provides depth the way shadows make a drawing look “real”. Stories, happy and sad, are the details that bring a place to life.

We don’t know any of the stories, yet. We know only that there was once a wharf at Saint Thomas, that it was abandoned and replaced by a solid around the bend to the north of it. The ruins are the only hint of this chapter of the community’s history, but we intend to find out about it and paint a better picture of it.

Elaine likes chores. She sits there thinking them up. That's not something we have in common.

If I had a pressure gauge you’d see the needle dropping almost immediately upon arrival at the cottage. Being there is like a really good drug. When I had kidney stones a few years ago they gave me Demerol and within seconds the pain was easing. That’s what being at the cottage is like. We leave Moncton wound up and not knowing it and then we sit on the porch of the cottage and decompress. I’m surprised our eardrums don’t pop. We almost always say, with some surprise, “Wow, was I stressed.” Pressure tends to creep up.

Briefly we thought about moving there permanently but I think the real value of the cottage is about being somewhere else. A place isn’t somewhere else if you’re there all the time. Perspective is gained from seeing things from two slightly different directions. Slipping out to the coast always provides that perspective and when we come back to the world we see things as they are again. If we moved there, we’d just have to find another place to help us maintain our sanity. We need some other refuge.

Besides this year we have a bonus because the place will be paid off and then even the loan payments won’t be an added stressor.

An even bigger bonus this year is that the long haul of doing an internship at CFB Gagetown is over. I loved it, but it’s over and I’m home again and we can whip out to the cottage during the week and commute to Moncton, it’s so close. Eighteen months of seeing each other only on weekends is plenty. School’s over. Time to get on with life.

Exploring the chapel before my massage. If ever there was a setting for healing it's the Memramcook Institute. Our massage association had one of our general meetings here.

by ELAINE MANDRONA

The village of Memramcook, NB, may be known as Le Berceau de L’Acadie—the Cradle of Acadie—but I came for a massage. I’m at the Memramcook Institute, formerly the Collège Saint-Joseph, the first successful Acadian institution of higher education. That college laid the groundwork for the modern day Université de Moncton. Times changed and the college morphed into a resort, the resort has a spa and here I am.

For a really good massage that can transform stress and body blockages, a lot of elements have to come together. The physical environment, the ambiance and the therapist—you need to get a sense that all of these things are right for you.  Every massage is different, but if any of the basic elements are out of whack, the experience can be more frustrating than healing. I know all of this from both on and above the massage table because I’ve been a massage therapist for 18 years.  I work my body hard and it gets sore and distorted and tight and I need someone who really understands my body to get it all to release.

The Memramcook Spa is on the third floor of the Memramcook Institute. The lovely old building with high ceilings, old woodwork and large windows has an ambiance that lends itself to relaxation and introspection. I like the fact that both learning and worship—two of the more evolved human activities—once took place here. The atmosphere is quiet, soothing, contemplative.

I first came here with my daughter for a going-back-to-school treat last August. I booked a massage with the therapist available that day, Andrée Poirier. It turned out well. Better than well, it was the best massage that I have had for a long, long time. So I booked with her again. I never asked her if she was related to Pascal Poirier, the first Acadian chosen to serve as a senator by John A. MacDonald and educated at the Collège Saint-Joseph, now the Memramcook Institute.  Next time I will ask about her connection to the place.

She was very present while doing her work on me—she paid attention. She combined basic Swedish massage with myofascial release and energy work. In layman’s terms, she did some basic stroking and kneading, some deeper work on my stuck spots by stretching the fascia (connective tissue that surrounds muscles and bones) and by frictions.  But best of all, I could feel her attention and soothing, focused, healing energy. She was also trained in Reiki. We were both in a meditative state as she worked slowly, deliberately and with great compassion. I felt great afterward, like a new woman.

It’s curious the path things take sometimes, how everything can come together to structure a memorable experience.  This place of learning and spirituality for the Acadian people reinvented itself—metamorphosed into a place of healing and recreation.  My Acadian therapist is part of a new generation that has moved forward, competent, confident and generous. The cradle still rocks, although now to a different tempo.

The chapel. I came for a massage but the Memramcook Institute offers other places to feel healing.