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© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved.

You’d think, being a musician, I’d be stalked by songbirds tweeting pretty melodies. Instead, ravens, with their fringed, feathery, Roman noses and decidedly un-musical voices, are my daily companions here on the island. There’s a pair loitering on the homestead that are either siblings from this year’s hatching or a mated pair. I see them foraging every day. They fly by with the egg shells we’ve put out in the woods and fight over them. Canny, they resist most efforts to photograph them (I snuck this one of the pair on the wire) but their presence is constant. This is their territory, the nearest open patch of land for foraging.

Alone, you might mistake one for a crow, whose Latin name is corvus brachyrhynchos or “raven with a small nose,” but ravens are heftier and taller as well. Size difference notwithstanding, ravens do have a relationship with the crows and I’m pretty sure they communicate with each other. I see both mobbing hawks here. Fearless, ravens are even described by Roger Burrows in Birds of Atlantic Canada as “a crow that’s convinced itself it’s a raptor.” Like all corvids, ravens are very curious, always looking for food, with calls that are anything but musical. “KEE-ROOOONK” they croak, banging things on the roof, which we are grateful is not made of metal. Imagine the racket. 

For centuries, Native peoples have revered and respected ravens as the bringer of light and as the companion taking souls to their final rest. It’s in the latter capacity that I’m most familiar with the mythic raven. In March 2008, I was touring in Arizona and New Mexico and on an off day, we visited the Grand Canyon (photo left). I thought I’d stepped into a painting and the majesty, the beauty of the landscape was a balm to my heart. In Florida, my father was on his deathbed in hospice and he and I had said a tearful goodbye on the phone. It was a somber day and the band was thoughtful of my feelings. We all noted the omnipresence of the ravens. They ride the thermals at the clifftop so of course, we saw them constantly. The park even sold a tee-shirt with their image on it. 

Buffeted by wind, we explored the south rim and enjoyed the rare March sunshine. Around four, we got off one of the jitneys used to ferry visitors around the park. As we stood there, a raven landed right in our circle, looked around until it met my eyes, and settled. The bird’s mouth opened and closed while it uttered clucking noises and whuffled it’s throat feathers in and out. Gobsmacked, we were rooted to the spot. I swung the camera on my wrist up and took this photo, then the bird flew off. Five minutes later, in the parking lot, my cell phone rang. My brother was on the line. Dad had died at about the same time the raven had more or less talked to me. We finished the last day of the tour and then I flew to Florida for Dad’s memorial service. 

Back in Massachusetts later that month, band member Max Cohen and I were recording and editing some music. I thought there was outside noise rattling through my head but it turned out to be a tune, a new one. I picked up the fiddle and started playing the first half. Max walked in with his guitar and played the B part. Together, we had just written “The Raven’s Wing,” a tribute to my Dad. 

We made a quick demo and I sent the file to my mother and told her the name. “Raven’s Wing,” she mused. “Did you know that was the name of your father’s unit in WWII?” Dad had flown with the Army Air Corps in Italy. Mom continued, “Their newsletter is called ‘The Raven’ and their insignia is three silver ravens on a blue background.” Gobsmacked yet again, I wondered – did my father send a messenger or was that him? Fanciful, perhaps, but it had been, overall, a strange experience, one that led to fancies.

Factor in that I had a pretty volatile relationship with my father. We didn’t get along. I think he was scared that I would go astray, that I was so headstrong I couldn’t be controlled. He was right about that and though he tried, he failed to control me and in the process, we lost our connection to each other.

Still, I am so much like him, hiding my tenderness under a gruff exterior, unable to keep my mouth shut when I know I should. I am my father’s daughter in character and in looks. His stamp is on my face and my daughter’s and he looked like his Hébert ancestors. Those forebears were hard-working Acadian farmers, stubborn-as-hell men and women who never learned to keep their mouth shut, either. That’s who we are.

It was only after my father’s death that I came to know him better through my sister and that is comforting. Today, August 31, 2020, would have been his 96th birthday. It’s my fancy but perhaps the ravens here came to say he was doing just fine with his old friends, soaring the thermals at the cliff edge. 

Raven’s Wing – with Max Cohen, Fiddlers Summit 2010, Shepherdstown WV

Raven’s Wing – with fiddlers Bruce Molsky, Robin Bouliane, Pierre Schryer, and guitarist Quinn Bachand at the 2014 La Grande Rencontre in Montreal. This was the first time any of them except Bruce and I had heard the tune but they immediately found the heart of the music and let it soar.

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved

Big fields of beautiful flowers have always fascinated me. The riotous profusion of color makes my heart beat faster. I recall standing thunderstruck on Whidbey Island in San Juan Sound in Washington state, looking at a 20 acre field of wild foxglove in every shade of pink and purple. If I’d been Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” I’d have taken a nap in the poppies and never woken up!

My childhood years were a challenge and I soothed myself in the sanctuary of nearby woods and hedgerows, filled in spring with the blue of violet and the white and green of lily of the valley. I counted the seasons in those woods and when we moved, I went alone to bid them farewell. The abundance of those flowers became part of my inner landscape. When I saw photos of the lavender fields of Provence, I wanted to roll in them like catnip.

Oddly, sunflowers didn’t used to be my favorite flower. I judged them by a rose’s beauty and fragrance, forgetting the rose’s thorns. Sunflowers are tall and spindly, oversized, scraggly-looking standing there by themselves, one or two specimens in a home garden. I think I started noticing and admiring them when a neighbor planted a half acre plot near my old Amherst house. Every year, I looked forward to seeing them push up through what had been lowland and wave their heads at the sky. It was a big stand of just sunflowers and it dawned on me that that’s how they are meant to grow, holding each other up to reach the sun. After that, they became my favorite.

In the Margaree River valley, I found an even bigger field of glorious sunflowers owned by Miller Farms in northeast Margaree. I pulled my camera out. It was the end of my first summer on the island and the field was an enormous bouquet wishing me well until I could return. When we married, our friend’s house was filled with sunflowers and asters. Every year I take photos of that Margaree field to be reminded of the beauty.

Sunflowers (helianthus annuus) are heliotropic plants, with flowers turning to follow the sun. Native to the Americas, that head-turning characteristic is found wherever they grow. Their symbolism goes back a long ways. In old Tarot decks, sunflowers signify success and growth and you’ll find them on the cards most associated with a successful harvest.

Today, I look at Miller’s field of sunflowers and their collective sunny optimism inspires me. For half a century, I’ve been trying to lift myself above the labels of my childhood, to bring my heart to the fore, to learn to be happy. I can’t do it alone. I’ve needed many villages of people and a lot of music and I’m still working on it. 

The sunflowers remind me that we depend on each other, that we are stronger together, and that together we can hold each other up, turning toward the light.

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved.

One thing you won’t go short of in Cape Breton is music. It’s everywhere. Fiddlers, pipers, singers in Gaelic, French, and Mi’kmaq, step dancers, pianists, pipers, drummers, accordion players, guitarists, square dancers. Everywhere you look, there is music going on. There’s even fiddling on the radio when you enter the grocery store here (I LOVE that!). Music is the calling card for Cape Breton culture.

Per capita, there are more great musicians here than anywhere I’ve ever lived. All summer long, in a normal year in Inverness County there are daily events up and down what has been dubbed “Canada’s Musical Coast.” A feature of those events is the relative youth of some of the players. That’s not an accident. The heritage here is so strong, runs so deep, that young people take up fiddling, piping, step-dance (often the first thing learned), piano, singing – any or all of the above. They’ll also learn to sing and speak in Scots Gaelic or French or Mi’kmaq in school if it’s part of their heritage. Yes, I said “in school.” You can be educated in an immersion program here – all three languages are available. It’s one of the ways Cape Breton protects her cultural heritages.

So, once that young musician, singer, or dancer has the basics down, they are often put on a stage – be it a local ceilidh or community event, often with siblings providing musical support. Early on, these students lose their stage fright and learn to focus on the dance and music, to take performing in their stride. To some this might look like stage-parenting – but for real – do you want kids to get good at something? Then let them do it over and over long enough to become competent. It’s how young musicians are nurtured on the island. It’s a given here that you practice and then you try it out on stage. The structure for that and the necessary encouragement is built into Cape Breton society. 

Now, I’ve been an educator for 50 years and I’ve seen kids dragged to lessons they don’t want. I’ve been the teacher trying to make it fun so they’ll stick with it. So here’s the coolest thing. These kids really want to play, to dance, to sing, to learn the old tunes! Their peers are doing it and they love it. There is community status in this for them. I’m sure teenagers here listen to their own music as well but they don’t reject this older part of their heritage in the process of becoming an adult. At the same time, adults are happy to provide as many venues for their performances as possible. Of course, parents of a talented fiddler dream of the next Natalie MacMaster or Jerry Holland but this process offers far more than possible stardom.

Participating in local music events that reflect their heritage reinforces their value, their importance, and their duty to the community as a part of growing up. These parents are rooting their kids in something real, something that gives them an identity they will carry for the rest of their lives, something they can hand on to their own kids someday. Parents and grandparents here look at the out-migration of the young as a heartbreaking fact of life, so anything that will bring their kids back to the island is good. And if they can’t find work back here, well, at least they’ll carry the music of the island with them, won’t they?

So, where do young people go to learn these skills? To start with, many learn right at home. The MacMaster-Leahy family is probably the best known example of what that concentrated attention to heritage can yield. This 2017 link shows Natalie and Donnell’s kids playing on NBC’s Little Big Shots. Their outfits are made from the Nova Scotia tartan and you bet those girls loved the sparkles! Check out the taps on the boy’s sneakers, too!

https://www.facebook.com/MacMasterLeahyKids/videos/1888227441418186/

If your extended family sings and speaks another language or plays an instrument, there’s a good chance you’ll do the same. Where communities value heritage and culture, not just from a commercial standpoint but one of deep connection to their roots, it’s not remarkable to find such dedication to what folklorists call “keeping it alive.” It’s NOT dead and maybe that’s one of the secrets. If you don’t let the good things go, sell them out for empty substitutes, they are there when you need them, for values and for a sense of who you are. Providing young players here with a place from the start ensures that the island’s musical future is in good hands. 

[I’m researching programs that teach Cape Breton music and dance and will list them with contacts in a future post.]

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved.

What is there about this place that draws new visitors not just once but lures them back over and over again? The beauty of the island is a given. It’s truly gorgeous, from coastlines to Cape Breton Highlands to inland river valleys and farmlands, but there’s something else here, something stronger. I think it’s the people.

Visitors to the island almost always want to come back. They crave that Cape Breton welcome. People wave at you when your car goes by, smile at you and tip their baseball cap if they see you on the sidewalk, stop for you even if you’re not in the crosswalk. People here are actively nice, even cordial, to strangers. If you live in a big American city, you almost never make eye contact on the street or on public transport. Here, you are seen and welcomed. While you are here, you’re part of the village – not just your wallet – but you. How refreshingly kind.

The first time I met someone from Cape Breton was back when I was a spring chicken, at the French Club in Waltham Massachusetts. (Capers refer to “the Boston States” when they talk about Massachusetts.) They introduced themselves and one of their first questions was “and what was your mother’s mother’s name? And your father’s mother?” We quickly established that my family was French and kept talking. Everyone you meet here is interested in your lineage because, in fact, you might be related. And if it turns out after all that you’re NOT a relative, they are truly disappointed. It happens here all the time. That kind of welcome keeps people coming back.

Bob began visiting the island with his late wife Jay and their daughters in the early 1980s. After a few trips around Nova Scotia, Cape Breton was such a success as a family vacation spot that they drove every year from their home in Torrington CT to the MacLeod Campground in Dunvegan. The campground owner was not really surprised when they bought a place a few miles down the road late in the late 1990s. “We rather thought you’d be doing that, didn’t we?” I guess the locals can tell when the island has claimed another heart.

They went looking for a piece of land where they could build a tent platform. What they bought instead was a three-bedroom, one bathroom house on almost 3 acres, located on the main road to the Cabot Trail. I’m not telling what they paid for it in 1995 because you’d cry. I did. Since then, golf and tourism have much improved housing values on the island. Today, a decent house with good land, say an acre, will cost between $200-300K, and can run a lot more with bigger acreage or a snazzy water view. However, with Canadian currency today pegged at $.76 to the American dollar, you can see it’s a whisker of opportunity. A $200K house on the island would cost around US$152,000. Not too bad if you’re selling your American home to finance a life here (once you can legally live here full-time, that is), but you probably want to keep your snow-blower!

Years ago, this house was a general store and even a post office and the locals still know it by the folks who built it a long time ago. About two-thirds is sloping lawn and the rest is spruce, birch, and maple forest, with no near neighbors except the main road, remarkably quiet in this COVID year. It’s a bucolic paradise in summer if you’re prepared for the bugs, a nice piece of land with a spring-fed well, lovely in spring and gorgeous in fall. Winter, the longest season (some locals say it’s spring), is for the hardy – the very hardy. Some older friends here flee to warmer climes in the worst of winter, others tough it out. And the islanders are tough. They have to be!

Tomorrow I continue this essay with a look at what it took Bob and Jay to establish themselves here as more than property owners, to become Canadian citizens. Bob has shared stories and facts and photos and proofread every word! 

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved

Today is another food story. I figured you’d want something yummy to go with Andrea Beaton’s coffee, so why not one of her talented mom Betty’s oatcakes?

One of the first things I learned to make when I came here was oatcakes. Bob loves them. We bought many different ones at the Co-op and I always picked up a bag whenever I found them. I relentlessly compared them, looking for that Cape Breton “je ne sais quoi” but no store-bought were ever as good as the homemade version. Luckily I had already made some friends here and Betty gave me her recipe for oatcakes. Bob no longer has to make do with grocery-store oatcakes. Hooray!

What are oatcakes, anyway? Well, they’re not a cake, they’re a cookie but they are made with half oats, half flour, and they can definitely sustain life. They are something like oatmeal shortbread, with no eggs and very little leavening. The hobbits could easily have survived a trek on this way-bread. Like shortbread is in Scotland, oatcakes in Cape Breton are a staple of life. Some folks use brown sugar, some don’t. I also sneak in a few non-traditional ingredients like a teaspoon of cinnamon or some minced pecans. This recipe is delicious in it’s basic form and with additions.

Betty rolls hers out and cuts them into rounds. I confess that unlike Betty, my hand with a rolling pin is pretty dang heavy and they came out tough as nails. I wanted that buttery crispness that dissolves in your mouth and not a tough cookie!

The secret for me was DON’T ROLL IT OUT FLAT. Instead, when the dough comes together, I form it into a long roll inside of plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge – sometimes overnight. It can also be frozen at this stage. Cut the log in half, make half a batch and freeze the rest for later when you need them in a hurry. Before COVID, when Bob and I would be separated for up to a month sometimes, I’d send him back to the island with a log of oatcake dough.

When I take them out of the fridge, I just slice rounds (or whatever shape they decide to be in), put them on a cookie sheet and bake them. The recipe below is Betty’s, with my variations noted. I include a gluten-free option as well. I’ve tested it and it’s downright delicious and doesn’t taste ‘healthy’ at all!

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved. 

Coffee. It starts many people’s day. If you live in a big city or a suburb, it’s easy to find on the way to work. In rural Cape Breton, however, that good cuppa joe is much more elusive. There is no Tim’s on every corner, no Dunkin’ and for sure, no Starbucks. So far, I’ve identified four places with good coffee on the west side of the island. One is 10 miles NE, another is 11 miles south, a third is 30 miles north, but my new favorite coffee vendor is 25 miles south of us in Mabou. So, how far would YOU go for a really good cup of coffee?

After the Mull in Mabou, a local eatery, closed recently, world-renowned fiddler Andrea Beaton was touring in the states with Troy MacGillivray, bemoaning the lack of fun little coffee shops along Route 19 at home. She joked about buying the recently closed Mull and opening a coffee shop – but it started to become real in her mind. She’d already bought a used commercial espresso machine and a few years back had been researching tiny houses. Turns out that was perfect for selling coffee, so she modified a tiny house design for an 8×5 foot trailer and had a contractor build it to her specifications. “Make something like this,” she asked, “and he did…. the rest is what you see!”

Beaton’s Delight Espresso popped up last year next to the Red Shoe Pub in Mabou when Andrea returned to the island from Montréal with her family and bought the house where her grandfather had lived, right next door to the legendary Red Shoe. Seasonal, of course, like many services here, Beaton’s Delight provides (and I would expect no less) world-class coffee and certainly the best cafe mocha I’ve had anywhere and I’m an American coffee snob. The maple latte looked enticing but it will have to wait till next time.

Yes, I love the Dancing Goat in Northeast Margaree and they remain my favorite lunch place and I always order their cafe mocha latte when I go there. I am a loyal Goat lover and I had and enjoyed their latte earlier this week but I have to say, Beaton’s Delight edges them out just a bit with a richer, deeper, more chocolatey mouth feel. Try the mocha latte at both and decide for yourself!

The whole time we were there, the line kept forming and Andrea had already run out of mini cinnamon buns, “minnie cinnies,” a specialty. I think everyone in Mabou can smell it on the air, like when I come downstairs and Bob’s made coffee. The smell of good joe lures them to her stand – old, young, in-between. Hot, cold, sweet, straight up, fancy, whatever flavor, they all want their coffee. Two young guys wait, jonesing for their espresso hits, while my latte is almost gone. The line never stopped, so I couldn’t grab a photo of Andrea. I ponder the wisdom of a refill while I wonder how many of her customers know her music.

Andrea Beaton is a truly amazing fiddler from Cape Breton who blew me away the first time I saw her perform. I loved her music but even more, I loved her style. She made me laugh. Years later, I was lucky enough to play music with her. It’s pure joy playing with others who give their all, nothing held back. Andrea is one of those people. That same sense of commitment is evident in what she’s done with Beaton’s Delight Espresso. I can only guess what the mini cinnies taste like because they sold out. But I know Andrea and only the best will do. Guess I will have that refill!

Beaton’s Delight Espresso
Andrea Beaton CD orders

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved.

As a child, one of my favorite activities was treasure-hunting all alone in the woods. I loved August, when I could find those elusive blue pearls hiding under a leaf on the ground cover. I often ate as much as I picked, coming home blue-handed to my mother. She froze them and made pies but it wasn’t until I became an adult that I discovered blueberry JAM.

My first summer here was 2017 and my blueberry obsession had finally hit the mother-lode. Nova Scotia and northern Maine are the blueberry capitals of the world and rightly so. The soil is perfect – sandy, acidic, rocky. Professional growers even burn the fields every few years to keep the forest from encroaching. That first year, I bought fifteen pounds of local berries in five pound boxes. You can freeze the berries right in the box – as long as you DON’T wash them! Then you get a five pound block of blueberry ice!

After several years of upsizing recipes unsuccessfully, I’ve finally succumbed to the logic of small batches. My earlier attempts were quite tasty but were closer to blueberry drool. It was awesome on pancakes but I couldn’t call it jam.

It’s another August and today is blueberry jam day. We’re freezing one five pound box and making jam with the other. Last year I combined five pounds each of blueberries and cranberries for a tasty chutney and used another box to add to a batch of our homemade applesauce. There is nothing like the flavor of little blueberries bursting in your mouth in January. Summer in a jar!

We’ve reached the point where we don’t buy many jars, just lids. Mason jars have become our go-to water glasses and desktop pen holders. Occasionally I think “hey, we should buy some glasses,” and then I remember we have several cases in the garage. Right now, Bob is immersing a dozen half-pint jars in boiling water, so I have to go do my duty. I’m the stirrer and bringer back to the boil, so I’ll be gone for awhile. Before I go, my recipe and the order of assembly are cribbed from Kraft Canada but of course, I’ve played with it, adding a whole grated Granny Smith apple, the grated rind of a half lemon. Some honey, maple syrup, who knows? I’m not done yet!

Blueberry Jam

In a large soup pot, assemble

• 7 cups whole blueberries – crush down to 4 cups approx. (If you don’t crush them, they’ll all float to the top of each jar.)
• Juice and zest of ½ large lemon
• 1 Granny Smith apple, grated (peel and all) (I think the lemon and apple bring out the full blueberry flavor.)
• 1 box Certo dry crystals – pectin (and here’s where I got lazy and let them all sit in a cold pot mixed up together for about fifteen minutes while I enjoyed a cup of tea – that really did the trick. It gelled from the start.)

Mix everything well, stirring all the time, and bring to a full bubbling/rolling boil.

• Add 5 cups sugar, mix well, add ¼ cup honey OR maple syrup (but not both!), stir that in. The mixture will begin to look glossy. That’s the sugar melting.

Bring back to a full boil (takes 4-5 mins on high), let boil for one minute. Remove from heat, stir a few times and let it rest for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Skim any foam if it appears. I filled 9 half pint jars with the first batch, made with honey, another 9 plus a half cup with the second, made with maple syrup. (photo on the porch, sunflowers from Miller Farms in Northeast Margaree). The blueberries are from Blue Pearl Farms in Strathlorne.

I close with a foraging memory from my young adulthood. My folks lived in Leominster, Massachusetts and we drove up to New Hampshire to buy cigarettes one Labor Day in the early 1970s . Driving back, I called out, “BLUEBERRY BOG” and my dad screeched to a halt. We all piled out of the car. Sure enough, bush after high bush of berries beckoned. Huge, beautiful, easy to find, the grape-like clusters just reached out for our hands to grab them, and we did. Turns out the only containers in the car were the cartons of bootleg NH ciggies, so we emptied them and filled those carton boxes with berries. We came back the next day with two five gallon Charles Chips cans, which we also filled. Good times!