Romantic Canada. Victoria Hayward
but unknown to inland Canada—the lighthouse keeper’s little nest with which goes the white tower with its lamp connected with the house on isolated headlands and far away on the point, by itself, in others. A chart of the eastern coastline reveals hundreds of such lighthouses; and for every lighthouse, followers of the piper know, there is a little cottage tucked away somewhere. Great camaraderie exists between the unpainted, weathered, shingled cottage of the fisherman and the home of the man whose light and bell guide home through the fog the little dory to its place. The one is more fixed up than the other having the government behind it in the matter of paint, but both know what it is to crouch for shelter among the boulders. In time of storm “the holdings is what counts”, as Big John puts it. There is just one thing that the sea-coast folk fear above the storms of winter, and that is—fire. There being no fire-department in these parts, every householder takes precaution by putting a ladder across the roof from eave to ridgepole alongside the chimney. This fire “prophylactic” is a fixture built-in with the house and looks like some “idea” in the architecture so universal is it.
In the long miles it is noticeable that groups of these sea-coast one or two-roomed homes usually cluster together around some little harbour. These are companionably drawn together by the little sheet of water affording an anchorage or safe dry-dock in shelving shores for the little fish boats—breadwinners of the family. Peggy’s Cove, on St. Margaret’s Bay between French Village and Sambro on the south-western shore of Nova Scotia, is such a little rocky haven—looking like a miniature Newfoundland. The road fringes the shore for eighteen miles after one leaves the railroad at French Village and one may make it afoot and getting tired beg a lift in a passing ox-cart, or may engage passage with the mail-driver. The mail-driver is an institution in all these out-of-the-way regions, and one may cover most of the distance as a passenger in his cart.
Many a little home we look into away “Down North” from Inverness to Grand Etang on the one side of Cape Breton, and from English Town to Dingwall on the other, whose open door we have been able to make with the mail-driver’s, or the little coastal steamer’s assistance, or by driving ourselves in a hired team part way, and walking part way, regular pilgrims, staves in hand. But there are thousands of little homes along shores where no roads go except that over the sea. One is rewarded for “making” any of these, over the cliffs, carving out a road for oneself, if it be possible, if not, taking to the boat. In fact, one soon likes these most isolated homes best. Their originality and their strength appeal to the pioneer latent in us all. And here dwell the men and their families who have held “the line”, keeping alive the great fishing industry of Canada. Here dwell in truth our much to be admired codfish aristocracy. In fact, in all these little homes reside men upon whose personality “United Empire Loyalist” is indelibly stamped. These are people who accept the hardships of life with composure, relying less on outside supports than we of the cities. No stores are here to run to for supplies. The doctor comes not at all or only in summer. In the Magdalen Islands there is no communication except by telegraph from Christmas time till the following spring. Here, one winter, it became desirable to get “a mail” to the mainland. The men interested prepared a large cask, made it watertight, put the letters inside and headed it up. They gave it ballast and a little sail and consigned it to a strip of open sea, first painting on it a request to the finder to forward the “mail” to the nearest postoffice. Those letters reached their destination.
The Magdaleners are fisher-folk in the main, though of course in Havre Aubert and Grindstone there are a number of business, and a sprinkling of professional men. The homes here in these remote islands, being French, have the French touch of thrift well developed. Paint is here in most instances, and though the islands are bare of trees a little garden is generally managed with the aid of a fence made of bits of wood culled from sea-drift.
These real little homes may be a mile or a half mile inland among the smoothly rounded Damoiselles—a little unhandy to the boats—so the Frenchmen of Havre Aubert have built themselves a little row of summer cottages right on the shingle, so close to the waters of the Gulf on each side that they could almost step out of the boat into the front door, did it not happen to be on the second floor for safety from the waves in time of storm. Such a cottage has the double advantage of allowing greater despatch of the fishing and of saving the wear and tear on the “all the year round” home. We wonder it has never occurred to the coastal fishermen of other parts to have a summer home as well as a winter one.
Doubtless the new era will bring many changes and improvements into all this region of Canada. The new roads, the autos, the modern builder, the agriculturist, the large number of summer tourists, the shipbuilding, the improved methods of fishing, improved drinking water systems, direct and indirect foreign trade, library and lecture centres, expansion in railroads all radiating from and meeting again in Halifax—Queen of the Maritime cities holding in her hand the fate, among other things, of these little homes—will all come soon. But we hope the day will never come when these little gray cottages will disappear from the Canadian landscape. We hope sincerely that in their case it will not be necessary to destroy in order to build; that if their location is the one thing needed to conduct the fishing quickly they may be saved to form the fishing-season homes of our fishermen, an extension of the plan now followed out by the Magdalen Islanders, while a snugger situation may be chosen for the up-to-date winter home so well merited by those harvesting Canada’s fish and those other deep-sea voyagers carrying her ships and trade into foreign ports.
CHAPTER V.
LOW TIDE IN THE BAY OF FUNDY.
Of all the forces. …
But, while Time is everywhere, Tide is local. And though by a system of daylight-saving we have sought to get the best of Time, Tide, as wiseacres of old put it, “waits for no man.”
Such a play of thought and words as can scarcely be conceived, surge and race with “tide”. “A full tide,” “a brimming tide”, “high tide”, are synonyms for success in life, for progress, for the acquisition of wealth, for “Bon Chance”, as “good luck” is phrased in Quebec. Whereas “Low Tide”, “Ebbing Tide”, and kindred terms, we all know only too well what they mean—dull business and empty pockets. But over-riding all these is the cheerful swing of encouragement in “There’s a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to Fortune.”
Nowhere does the daily life of a people hang so intimately on tide as down Bay of Fundy way. Tide there plays a titanic scale. It lengthens out the scant octave spanned of other shores to fifty, and in some places it is said, to sixty feet. The people of these parts live “on the landwash” as it were, with “high tide” and “low”, a daily portion. The Bay of Fundy apportions to its people the biggest slice of tide afforded to any people anywhere in the world. And, as it disregards the ordinary laws of all ordinary tides in the matter of ebb and flow, so, strangely enough, its physical “low tide” is more often than not, the “high tide” of business and affairs. It is when the edge of the Fundy Basin is a line of mud from St. John to Parrsboro, around the Minas Basin and back to Digby, that life awakens and things begin to happen. It is as if the old Bay said “Any old place can have a high tide but who can have a ‘low’ like mine?”
The Low Tide of Fundy is indeed its most prominent feature, playing an important part in the despatch of passenger and mail steamers from both Saint John and Digby. Indeed, the Bay-steamers actually play a game with the tide. If the steamer is “in” and the tide “out”, the steamer must wait for the tide to come “in” before she can go “out”, on its brimming fullness through Digby Cut. So, the schooners and square-riggers all come “in” and go “out” when the tide is full. But they load the deal in West Bay whichever way the tide “sets” ’round Cape Split. So, too, the stateliest Square-rigger or most sail-crowded schooner going up the bay for