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.

by Archie Nadon

Chockpish. I keep coming back to the photo of the wooden walkway to the beach at Chockpish and I know it’s not the adult in me that’s is drawn to it.

The walkway goes up and over the dune before the breakwater and down to a short path through the grass leading to the beach proper. You can’t see the beach from the wharf side but you can from the platform at the top. You can turn around and see the beach on both sides of the wharf going north and south.

Of course, we love beach access. That’s what we’re about. So many times we ‘re disheartened to see signs reading, “Private rode”, or there are obstacles that make it impossible to get to the beach or you feel like you’re trespassing once you’re there. This walkway says, “Here’s the beach. It’s yours to enjoy.” Mind you, there are no toilet facilities and not many places to hide if the needs arises which means to truly Enjoy you should do your business at home first, but I like what that walkway says.

It was probably built by the Chockpish Harbour Authority that is made up, like all the other 550 some harbour authorities across Canada, of interested local parties, like commercial fishermen and business people. All of them volunteers. They made it for their own kids and anybody else that visits this little corner of Côte-Sainte-Anne, about 20 minutes north of Bouctouche.

I always forget about the walkway, though, probably because you can’t see it until you drive through the one lane bridge (if you’re northbound), turn right off the road and go between the red buildings of the lobster processing plant. You drive between the buildings and go to the end of the long storage shed to where the breakwater begins and you’ll find it. There are other paths to the beach, but we always use the walkway. It’s just more fun. A little more magic.

And it’s all there. The wonderful sand, the beach grass, the weathered snow fences, the driftwood, the shells, the diving terns, the cormorants and ducks as well as the seagull perched on top of the light on the pole at the end of the breakwater, facing into the wind. It would all be cliché if it weren’t so authentic.

I’m sure Parlee Beach by Shediac is authentic, but it’s crowded. When I was young beach wasn’t beach unless it was standing room only, and mostly girls. Now, the only girl I want with me is Elaine and finding a beautiful beach we can have to ourselves is better than any resort.

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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.