Once a bustling point of departure, Cape Tormentine is now a quiet cottage and campground spot. Confederation Bridge made it redundant.

by ARCHIE NADON

Should the Canadian Government have replaced the Cape Tormentine ferry service with some other, viable business when it built Confederation Bridge? I think the bridge was a good idea, faster, cheaper, safer, more reliable than a ferry. It was good for Prince Edward Island and good for New Brunswick. My problem is what it did to Cape Tormentine.

I get anxious when communities get abandoned. It’s bad enough when the economy thumps an industry and mills go under, but when there is a conscious decision to eliminate a community’s sole support it seems there should be some compensation. The tourist stop at Cape Jourimain doesn’t qualify as adequate compensation because it can only support a few students and mainly in the summer.

So what can replace a money maker like the ferry? If government knew the answer to this no community would ever hit hard times. However, too many times artificially supported businesses collapses once the support is withdrawn. Industries, it seems, do best when they’re in a community for organic reasons, like where natural resources are abundant or it’s strategically placed, like Moncton is now. That was once the case with Cape Tormentine.

For a little over a century Cape Tormentine was ideally placed to connect PEI with the mainland. The cape stuck out far enough into the Northumberland Strait to make it a quick ferry ride over. Cape Tormentine thrived because those going over to the island had to stop and wait, sometimes for a couple of hours, depending on the season. With the bridge there is no wait, it’s just part of the highway, there is no need to stop and hang out for a couple of hours and spend money.

Things change, I guess. It seems a lame conclusion, but it’s all I’ve got. The new Trans-Canada did similar things to many communities in the province. Many communities that were in the center of things before are in the backwaters now. Motels closed, restaurants are boarded up. I love the new highway, but I always feel a little guilty using it. The next generation won’t feel that, but I always will. Still, I would like to see something new in Cape Tormentine.

More about Cape Tormentine and yet more…Terminal Tormentine

Acadians returning from the expusion that began in 1755 found their way back to the Memramcook River, 15 km inland, as the crow flies. Of course, they would not have been flying, they would have been following the winding course of this crooked, tidal river.

by ARCHIE NADON

“Why here? Of all the places returning Acadians could have chosen to begin again, why Memramcook?” Like most contemporary travelers, I stood in a historically significant spot and wondered why this community, built on either side of the Memramcook River, became significant. It certainly wasn’t obvious to someone driving in from Moncton on the new Trans-Canada Highway.

What I should have done, and who knows, maybe I’ll try it someday, was pack up my family —and Elaine’s—and make my way up the American Atlantic coast until I got near the original Acadie and head inland far enough not to be noticed and start looking for something familiar, like marshes, that could be turned into farms. Looked at from this perspective, Memramcook looks like an obvious choice to begin to recreate Acadie. In fact, it’s so obvious, one wonders how they got away with it and were not chased out by troops.

A quick look at the map reminds one of how close to the ocean Memramcook is, a mere 15 km, as the crow flies. But the returnees wouldn’t have been flying. They may have been sailing or rowing up or trudging alongside the Memramcook River, a meandering, tidal river that eventually empties into Chignecto Bay, the bay that borders the original Acadie.

This is the site of Village des LePlatte, the first Acadian village settled after the expulsion. The fact that it became a village in 1766, a mere 11 years after the expulsion began suggests the expulsion had already failed.

They did get away with it, though. The first post-deportation Acadian village, Village des LePlatte dates from 1766, 11 years after the deportation began. I say began, because it was a huge undertaking and took several years, some dating it from 1755-63. Given that the first new village dates from 1766, one can see that if the goal was to completely expel the Acadians, then it had failed before it was even over.

Of course, that’s my view, the view of someone sitting comfortably in a Canadian home in 2009 basking in the safety of a modern democracy where governments apologize for past wrongheadedness like the deportation. Still, it’s hard not to think that Acadie has succeeded after all.  The original Acadians were a people, not a country, distinct from their motherland and from the conquerors. They still are distinct. And they’re millions strong now.

Monument Lefebvre in Memramcook, NB, was part of the first Acadian university. My own Catholic education didn't get beyond elementary school. The Catholic high school was all boys, which wasn't for me.

by ARCHIE NADON

I didn’t go to the Catholic high school in our town, Scollard Hall, for two reasons: first, it cost money and we had none; and second, no girls. It was an all boys school and that was taking religion too far for me. Besides, a mile from my home and half the distance to Scollard Hall a brand new, ultra modern, mega school had just been built and we were to be the first full year class. There were 1,300 students which meant at least 650 girls which in turn meant my Catholic education came to an abrupt halt.

But that was in bustling, railroad center,  booming North Bay, ON, in a primarily anglophone community. That wasn’t in a fishing community like Cocagne or Escuminac, NB, where decent education wasn’t about choosing which of five high schools you wanted to attend, but about deciding to go to high school at all. And if you made the choice to be educated, you most certainly were going to be educated by priests or nuns within the Catholic religion.

What I’m getting at here is that as a teenager I had choices, lots of choices, as to how I wanted to be educated and in what language and I didn’t have to leave home to do it. The worst case scenario was a 20 minute bus ride uptown. However, if I had been born twenty years earlier and 1,500 km east, things might have been different. Anything like higher education—namely, high school—meant leaving home, leaving your family and friends, impoverishing your family twice, once by the tuition and board and once by your not being there to help fish or farm.

Lots has changed. Louis Robichaud, New Brunswick’s premier during the sixties, made basic education for Acadians a reality. It sounds third world, I know, but when Elaine and I chatted with a friend of hers, Jeannette Depres, who grew up near our cottage in Cocagne, she talked about the poverty of the Acadians in her time. When I asked what made the difference she blurted out, “Education.” I, with my five high schools to choose from, thought I was listening to a turn of the century story but that story would have been mine had I grown up in the Acadian peninsula.

Now, everywhere you drive in Acadie you find large, modern schools for k-12 and now there are remote campuses of the community colleges as well as the University of Moncton. I work with a young woman who learned 3D modeling  at the Campus de la Péninsule acadienne in Shippigan, traveling the 40 minutes from her home in Tracadie-Sheila every day. Incidentally, good roads was the second major factor Jeannette said improved the lives of Acadians in her time.

I wonder how many young Acadians understand how far their people have come in such a short time. When I hear Acadians of the generation before mine talk about what they had to do to get an education, I know I probably would have gone to work at the railroad, like my father did.

In Parisian French when it’s raining you say, il pleut, it’s raining. But il pleut can also mean he’s crying. In Acadie, when it rains you say, il viens mouille, it’s is becoming wet.

by ELAINE MANDRONA

I have been wanting to improve my French for a long time but have been stuck on a plateau. It’s hard to believe that I had two years of French in junior high, four years in high school and several university courses and still I cannot express myself in the language adequately. But they say that even some people who grew up speaking a language will lose it if they don’t use it enough.

Then there is the problem that I was taught Parisian French and the French in Acadie is different—an older, archaic form of the language, and some of the pronunciation is different, as well as some of the idioms—different enough to confuse me at times. In Parisian French when it’s raining you say, il pleut, it’s raining. But il pleut can also mean he’s crying. In Acadie, when it rains you say, il viens mouille, it’s is becoming wet.

What I need to work on most is grammar, verb tense and those pesky idioms. These are the areas where I fall back on my English-isms with some amusing and awkward results.

Most everyone has had the experience of hearing people who are learning English make cute mistakes—gramatically correct, maybe, but still wrong in terms of meaning. A new French friends from France emailed us and said, “I am impatient to meet you”; eager would have been better, of course. A Chinese co-worker said to my husband, “I was sick and was eating medicine all day.”

And one of my own, when I couldn’t think of the French word for toes I used les doits du pied—fingers of the feet. There were chuckles. I want to get beyond mistakes like that.

So how will I improve? I have no problem teaching myself things and I have planned a multi-pronged approach. I have a Learn French CD with an accompanying textbook, several books on Acadian history written in French, and an Acadian cookbook. I will try to use my French as much as possible in person-to-person, everyday conversation and rely on a few friends to correct my mistakes. This is my version of immersion.

I am reviewing the textbook this weekend to find the holes in my knowledge, things that I’m weak on or don’t know at all. For instance the negation of some. How I missed this in high school French I don’t know. It’s the rule that after all verbs in the negative form, the articles un, une, des, du, de la and d’l are all replaced by de or (d’ if followed by a word beginning with a vowel or silent h).

For instance : “Je bois du vin.” (positive)

“Je ne bois pas de vin.” (negative)

Then there are the object direct pronouns that answer the question of what or whom in a sentence. A direct object is not preceeded by a preposition such as to, for, at, or in. A direct object can be a thing, person, pronoun or even an entire phrase. The direct object pronoun is used as a shortcut to replace a person or thing that is a direct object.

“We brought our computers to the library”. Computers is the direct object.

“We brought them to the library.” Them is the direct object pronoun.

In French je, tu, il, elle, nous, vous, ils, elles are subjects.

Direct object pronouns are me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les, les.

“Regarde le petits chiens.” “See the little dogs.”

“Je les adore.” “I adore them.”

That’s how they’re used.

Now that I’ve written all of this it’s firmly in my mind. Plus from my Acadian cookbook I’ve learned poele for frying pan , fayots for dried beans, mijouter for simmer and lard for bacon .

J’ai ecrit surele sujet de la langue francais. Je la comprend un peu plus meilleur.

C’est correct? Dites moi.

Despite being a gray day, these colorful cottages caught my eye. They were all the same design and were likely built by one developer, but each has something unique about it.

by ARCHIE NADON

What caught my eye as we were driving about the Baie Verte area was a single row of colorful cottages by the sea, just across a lush field of grain. On a different day with a different light the colors of the cottages would have been vibrant, the scene like something out of a children’s storybook with a title like, “Nancy’s stormy day by the sea.” Maybe that’s what our obsession with the ocean is all about, we’re reliving some storybook that was read to us when we were kids.

Funny thing is, I don’t remember ever being read to. I mostly remember me doing the reading and what I remember most about a lot of books were the covers. If it was a good cover then I’d stare at if for a long time, taking it in, not trying to figure out what the story was about, but just enjoying the artwork.

My all time favorite is the only one that I still remember the story vividly, The Five Chinese Brothers. Politically incorrect by today’s standards, to be sure, but I loved that book, and still do. It was written by Claire Huchet Bishop in 1938. Comically, the basic assumption is that since they’re Chinese, you can’t tell them apart. The story doesn’t say they were quintuplets, just that they were brothers. Each of the brothers has a special ability and the one that gets himself into trouble is the one who can swallow the sea. He’s nagged by a little boy to swallow the sea so he can pick the fish up off the ocean floor. The brother relents but the boy won’t come back when signalled, the brother lets go of the sea, the boy drowns and the brother is arrested and condemned to die. The townspeople try several methods of executing the brother, but each attempt is thwarted by the special ability and interchangeability of one of the other brothers.

The cover of my favorite book...as a child. I said as a child, right? It was written in 1938 and I still love it, especially the guy who could swallow the sea. And look how happy these guys are.

When my kids were growing up I made sure I found that book to read to them. I read a significant proportion of the library’s children’s collection to my kids, so I doubt The Five Chinese Brothers had the same impact on them as it did on me. But for me, I couldn’t read it often enough. In fact, I enjoyed reading kids books to them so much I would leave the library with huge armloads of books that I would read over the next three weeks and then go back for another load. The kids enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it just as much.

I’ve spent a lot of time in libraries looking for kids books, sitting in those little chairs, checking out the covers and the stories and being excited about getting home to read them to the kids. And now I spend a lot of time with Elaine exploring the Acadian coast, Acadie, and looking for just about the same thing, good visuals with a delightful story.

The we visited the Bait Verte area was the day before a hurricane that never really hit, hurricane Bil. It gave a socked in feel to the day.

by ARCHIE NADON

The day we explored the Baie Verte area, including Port Elgin, we did no planning. None. We just jumped in the car and headed for the Nova Scotia border like rum runners. We didn’t Google it, look it up in a guide, or ask anyone about it, we just went. Elaine did have her trusty New Brunswick Backroad Mapbook with her, but that was all the preparation we did. We went with no expectations which was a good thing because there wasn’t much there, other than a pickup truck with its transmission on fire.

If we had done a little research (I got most of this history from Port Elgin’s own history page) we would have discovered things of interest. For one, Port Elgin was, at one time or other, Gaspereau Town, Fort Monckton and Fort Gaspereaux. The latter was a fort that was built in 1751 just before the deportation. After the British captured the fort, which had only 19 men guarding it, they renamed it Fort Monckton, after General Monckton, the most misspelled British commander in history. The British gave up on the fort after only a few years because they couldn’t defend it against hostile Mi’kmaqs. There is a cairn with a plaque there now, as you can see in this National Historic Site (scroll down the page about a third).

What I like about the plaque is its neutrality. When I was young, despite being French Canadian growing up in Northern Ontario, I always thought of the British as the only legitimate rulers of Canada. It’s surprising how long it’s taken me to remember to ask, when I read Canadian history, “Who wrote this?’ so that I don’t automatically see things from the British perspective. Yet, there is a third perspective which gets lost more often than not and that’s the Aboriginal perspective, in this case, the Mi’kmaq. That blatant European perspective is obvious in phrases that start like , “Champlain discovered…” Fortunately, it seems that the further we go into the future, the more we learn about the past. Perhaps, someday we really will have a balanced written history of the region, one that includes the First Nations.

The other thing that surprised me was that Port Elgin was once a port. Why the name didn’t tip me off is a subject for some other kind of blog, but it is hard to imagine that this sleepy little village was once bustling with trains, trade and factories, back in the days when the world was less centralized. There was even the obligatory industrialist, this one named Fred Magee, who owned fish and produce processing plants and shipped his Mephisto brand worldwide. His home is now a seniors’ complex.

I’m not sure what all that adds up to. Does it add up to “interesting.” What does make a place “interesting?” Water slides? Wave pool? Huge reconstructed historic sites? All of that, I suppose, depending on your age, depending on why you made the trip. Is Port Elgin interesting? You won’t get much from the Web, most of it coming from the village’s Website. But I’ll know if it’s interesting when I go back and walk the streets looking for traces of Fred Magee or the the old hand-cranked train swing bridge or the Mi’qMak fishing camps or evidence of what used to be the port in Port Elgin.

Read more about the Baie Verte, NB area by clicking here.