Lorraine & Baleine

There was a young girl from Lorraine

who fell for a boy from Baleine;

they chose to make the most

of their wild lobster coast,

side by side they pledged to remain.

One Year Ago Today

A year ago today, our household packed into a moving truck, we set off on a new adventure. Our Ford cargo van packed solid with immediate necessities like food, money and clothing, we departed our Ontario home of twenty years in the hills and began our three-day journey eastwards, all the way to our new home on the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The weather was sunny and the landscape through eastern Ontario and Quebec largely draped in snow. Having skirted Montreal and Quebec City, our first night's rest was at a lovely inn in Montmagny. The second day, we pressed on into the high, open mostly-treed terrain of New Brunswick, all the way to our longtime friends Anna Torma and Istvan Zsako, who live at the border to Nova Scotia in lovely countryside outside Baie Verte. After a bubbly reunion, a hearty meal and a pleasant overnight, we set off on day three into Nova Scotia and then across the Canso Causeway onto Cape Breton Island, rising up in welcome before us.

The drive along the eastern shore of the Bras d'Or Lakes is winding and scenic, offering long vistas. By afternoon we reached Marion Bridge via a dirt road shortcut as the fog filled our vision. Here we picked up our new house keys from Judy Hussey, our real estate agent, and negotiated the last leg to Louisbourg and along the bumpy, pot-holed road to Little Lorraine. Our house and surrounds sat shrouded in mist, and the boom from the ocean, waves on the beach, salt-tang sea air greeted us energetically.....

And, here we are today, one full year later. We sit, yes, shrouded in mist and the ocean is booming, waves rolling in, fresh sea air filling our lungs. We are ensconsed in our home, looking out in all weathers to wonder at our good fortune to have found this haven. Spring was cool and foggy; Summer took her time to arrive, then passed in a flash; Fall lingered lusciously with extended warmth and colour; Winter has been largely white, punctuated with several snow- and wind-storms. The coast and sea are mesmerizing, continually changing in appearance as the winds rise and fall, the sun comes and goes, the skies cover up and clear, precipitation sets in and tapers, dark follows day, and the tides rise and fall. And a panoply of stars reveals itself by night, as the Milky Way appears to tumble into the sea.

Gundi likes to comb the beaches for purple and green-tinged rocks and pebbles, striated, flecked, weathered, and polished. I tend to sea-gaze, take in the wave action, and scout out seaweeds of all kinds - kelps, dulse, wracks. Each passing storm system washes up a whole new shoreline of deposited plant material, dredged and ripped up from the sub-tidal sea floor. Upon the land, our step springs with the bounce from the carpet of berries, mosses, lichens.

Gundi is always working her hands. She is designing, making, sewing, crocheting, reading, cooking, eating, drinking, exploring.... I find myself drawn to reading, writing, learning, and, lately, growing, gathering, and harvesting food. This act of producing and consuming food locally, in our own community, is vital as we negotiate fresh paths in our common future. 

We have got to know our friendly, caring neighbours, local fisherfolk, farmers, food producers, chefs, community leaders in Little Lorraine, Louisbourg, Albert Bridge, Gabarus, and Sydney; we have established new friendships. Everything takes time and perseverance, especially in this current pause of distanced communication and interaction. We are using this time - while we are precluded from exchanging visits - as an opportunity to connect more with friends and family who live far away. I believe it is deepening our personal bond to each other, our love for each other, even at a societal level. Our heightened vulnerabilities strengthen our empathy.

Here by the ocean, we miss the changing colours of deciduous trees, the folds of the land in the Northumberland Hills, the village of Warkworth, farmers markets and regular customers, the warmth and company of dear friends. I still miss family and friends across the ocean. But, we make our choices in life, and this move to Cape Breton, with its natural beauty, vibrant geography, history, and culture, has been a very rewarding one for us. In a year, we have been off-island just once, to visit with friends and take in the bountiful attractions of our new province of Nova Scotia, over on the mainland. While no man is an island, I guess I always was, will remain, an islander at heart.

How We Got Here

Ever since we moved to live on the East Coast of Cape Breton Island last April, locals have confounded us by asking: " Now why would you want to move here?" The answer is simple, and we just point to the open North Atlantic and say "To be on the ocean".

 

Oceanside Wild, as the name suggests sits perched on a knoll looking out over a picture-perfect maritime bay to a foghorn and two rocky headlands that protect the cove of Little Lorraine. Beyond lies the open ocean. Facing south as we do, the nearest landfall as we look out is Venezuela. Due east is Bordeaux in France.

 

The trails snaking out around the cove and along the coast wind through low spruce woods and along open taiga habitat carpeted with crowberries and blueberries, mosses and lichens. Seaweeds of many varieties, shapes, and sizes wash up, storm-tossed on the multi-hued rock and sand beaches. At low tide, we mooch through the exposed strands of kelp and kombu, wracks and dulse, harvesting small amounts by hand, being sure to leave each plant base intact on its holdfast to grow back again.

 

This wild east coast of Cape Breton runs from Arichat in the south to Glace Bay in the north, washed by the waves and winds, storms and tides off the vast ocean, tickled by warm summer breezes and pounded by icy winter surf.

 

We have registered our land and surrounding natural shoreline and coastline as an ARK, practising Acts of Restorative Kindness through www.wearetheark.org , founded by the visionary Mary Reynolds in Ireland. We are the first such Ark on Cape Breton Island, and in Nova Scotia.

 

And so - from the sale of our organic farm in the hills of southern Ontario - it was only natural that we - farmer Pete and glass artist Gundi 

( www.gundi.com ) - would find our home and new calling at Oceanside Wild.

 

With all manner of sea greens from our nearby shores to harvest and dry; fish from rivers and ocean to smoke; wild berries from the hillsides to be picked; greens and herbs from raised beds to be grown, we are happy to introduce you to Oceanside Wild Fine Foods. Taste the wild, deep flavours of sea and shore!

 

Peter Finch

Gundi Viviani-Finch

Visit us at www.oceansidewild.com

Life in Little Lorraine, Year One

We moved here to Oceanside Wild, Little Lorraine, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada on April 17, 2019. We migrated here from our farm property at Rolling Hills Organics in the Northumberland  Hills of southern Ontario. We are now eight months into our new life adventures, and winter is here.... of sorts; with Christmas just a couple of days away, the sun is shining, early dustings of snow have disappeared, the temperature is hovering around zero Celsius, and the sea is eerily calm. Ontario has already experienced waves of snowfall, extreme cold, and thawing melts.

Prior to leaving the farm, we discarded unnecessary baggage accumulated over the years, a dumpster-load which included scads of maps and satellite images from my previous occupation of cartography and map publishing. Farm equipment including two greenhouses, a New Holland tractor, a BCS walking tractor tiller, sundry seeds, tools and farmers market material were passed down to Jason Conner of Windy Hollow Farm who will take up the reins of farming organically, just around the corner from Rolling Hills Organics. Our furniture and belongings were loaded onto a large transport truck and dispatched to their future home on the ocean on Cape Breton Island. We drove our 'Dolly' Ford cargo van, crammed full of immediatelty-useful gear, crossing eastern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, mainland Nova Scotia, reaching the Canso Causeway to cross onto the island of Cape Breton. Late winter flurries greeted our arrival in the cove settlement of Little Lorraine and gazed gleefully at the embracing headlands that frame our view of the north Atlantic Ocean.

In our first few delightful months of living here, we have:

taken many walks along this wild coastline; marvelled at the views and ever-changing weathers, seas, and skies; picked berries, harvested seaweeds, collected beach pebbles and rocks; explored our locality (having traded in our 'Dolly') in our Volkswagen Tiguan; entertained six sets of friends and family; got to know many lovely neighbours and locals who have welcomed us warmly; gone on a week's tour (off-island!) of mainland Nova Scotia; made many trips to Sydney for regular shopping and supplies. Sydney is for us here like Cobourg and Peterborough were for us in Northumberland - half an hour's drive away and offering banking, food, drink, and all the amenities and services we need, with the added bonus of an airport! We have registered 'Oceanside Wild' as an 'Ark', seeking to retain our land and surrounds in their wild, untamed state. After all, nature's ebullient canvas is perfect the way it is. Having dispensed with the farm business, we no longer have a tractor to fuel and no farmers markets to drive to, thereby cutting our fuel conumption for transport by more than half. In selling the farm and purchasing a house on an acre and a half on the East Coast for less than half the sales price, we have downsized to enable us to enjoy our years of semi-retirement, investing sensibly and all but removing debt from our lives. In heating the house with a much smaller footprint, we no longer burn wood, but heat by a combination of electric baseboards and gas propane. We have moved to a province that has no nuclear power, is weaning itself off coal while providing households with incentive to switch to solar power and conserve power through energy efficiency and heat pumps. We have signed up to install solar panels on our garage roof with the goal of reducing our power bills to zero in a few years. However, financial prudence - enforced by carefully evaluating our limited savings - is making us cautious about the viability of promised efficiencies. And we are wary of the frequent foggy days, especially in Winter and Spring. We both work from home. Gundi has been inspired to make new smaller sculptures using glass and Cape Breton beach rocks. I grow some greens, herbs, and vegetables in raised beds and plan on expanding these three-fold next year. I am setting up a new business, 'Oceanside Wild Fine Foods', drawing on my experience of organic food and farming gained over twenty hands-on years. On a very small scale, sea greens, sea salts, sea teas, salad greens, wild berries, herbs and spices will find their way to markets both local and Ontario!

In the meantime, I have been practicing by volunteering at the Cape Breton Food Hub, getting acquainted with local promoters, marketers, growers, harvesters, producers, supporters, eateries, and eaters. They are a wonderful bunch of individuals networking well, in tune with the seasons and foods. Through the Food Hub, I met Dave and Jennifer Kyte who moved to nearby Gabarus just after we got here. They moved from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia where chef Dave ran a food distribution business; Dave is returning to family roots here. In planning a new food business in Gabarus, they have already added a commercial kitchen to their home and are selling breads and dishes at the Saturday Cape Breton Farmers Market in Sydney. Through Dave, we have been introduced to new friends via a cheery bunch of Gabarusers from near and far. Becoming a member of the Foggy View Players, who perform at the Louisbourg Playhouse (modelled on Shakespeare's Globe), gave me the opportunity to help out backstage at their Christmas comedy production which was heartily received. So, bit by bit, we are getting to know our community and the people who make it work. It all takes time, and we miss our friends back in Ontario. But, we are contented in our fresh and wild new surrondings, sometimes giddily so, and are very happy to have made this move when we did.

Cape Breton Welcomes

Little Lorraine: "Proud in Spirit & Strong of Heart"

First it was Brenda, our mail lady."You must be Mr. Finch!"

"Oh, yeah, how did you know that?" "Well, I've not seen you before."

She was putting mail into the Little Lorraine community mailbox, and she was right, of course.

Next up came Darlene as we entered the Louisbourg Library and opened our mouths. "You must be Peter & Gundi!" "Yes, how did you know?" "I was told to listen out for your accents." Wayne and Lorlee, who we had bought our house from, had told her that we were coming from Ontario but hailed from further afield. It's a fair cop.

Sun going down over the fireweed

And then, the other evening, as I was loping languidly down the gravel road towards the wharf, looking for another of those dusk vistas to photograph, I heard a car crunching slowly towards me. I stepped aside and the driver rolled down his window. "You must be Peter!" "Yes, but how did you know?" "I've seen you on the Facebook." Guilty, as charged. Jackie MacDonald was heading down "to go mackereling" from his brother Burt's dock. A bumper lobster season now behind them, fishermen around here are turning to halibut and mackerel for their catch, sometimes just for supper.

These curious welcomes come on the heel of several acts of kindness from neighbours. Wayne and Lorlee left us the ultimate manual for the house. A mathematical engineer with attention to the minutest detail in unison with a hostess with a flair for writing combined to make moving into our new surroundings smooth and effortless. To an un-handyman like myself, this has been a true boon. Just consult 'Gundi and Peter's Guide Book.' At the tail-end of winter, as we faced a long wait for our furniture to arrive via movers from Ontario, Lisa and Derek drove around from across the cove with a table, two chairs, two glasses, and a bottle of wine. Sweet! When I delivered them back a few weeks later (minus the wine, of course), Derek joked that he would be able to drink again. Our close neighbours Terry and Natasha wouldn't take any money for our first feed of six lobsters and have been reliable suppliers ever since. On the last day of lobster season, Fraser, who, we are pleased, has just bought the 44-acre plot of land beside us, gifted us six lobsters, thanking us for putting up with the sound of the boats leaving the cove daily at 4 am.  (We actually loved this reassuring routine and miss it now that it has gone quiet).

A House with a View (not ours)

Four months into our new life adventure, summer is here, and it is the ocean that gets our mornings rolling by welcoming us into her fullsome fresh salty embrace.

An Open Sea

An Open Sea

We look out on an open sea,

a sea of charm, a sea of scorn,

a sea of life, a sea of death,

a sea that rises above the judgements of men.

We live facing an open sea,

a sea that lives in days, as it lives in nights,

a sea that lives in seasons, as it lives in years,

a sea that lives beyond time, in all eternities.

We die facing an open sea,

a sea that rages, a sea that roars,

a sea that is placid, a sea that is playful,

a sea that swirls, and ebbs, and flows, forever.

We are reborn by an open sea,

a sea that turns us mineral, as it turns us vegetable,

a sea that turns us animal, as it turns us green,

a sea that creates, a sea that destroys all that it touches.

There is an open sea, beyond you and me,

a sea that sculpts, a sea that paints,

a sea that fogs, a sea that blinds,

an open sea, at home with the sun, the moon, and the stars.