Notes from Cape Breton

© 2020 Donna Hébert. All rights reserved.

This is a peaceful place 96% of the time. The other four percent can be noisy what with cars, motorcyles, and the occasional grumbling semi hauling stripped logs. Doesn’t bother me much, though. It seems a small caveat to the relative peace and quiet here. Also, in the winter, when that quiet seems to last forever, it’s good to be on the main road and only a mile from the power station! 

Speaking of peace and quiet, I refer only to man-made noises. It’s a blessing to hear no leaf blowers, lawn mowers, or loud music. That’s a heavenly absence, but the roar of the wind, which we get two days out of seven on average, is another matter. Inland, it gets to 50 kph regularly, rushing through all the trees. Last year one of the derelict spruces toppled, luckily falling uphill away from the house. Along the coast, in Chéticamp, le bon vent gets up to 90 kph, with little or no tree cover for a mile or more inland. Sometimes the wind wins.

On mild days, when the breeze is still strong enough to foil the bugs, we’ve been making music on the back deck. The front porch is screened and we often eat there but the back deck is for sunny mornings and coffee and for music after the sun is over the roof when the bugs aren’t too ferocious. 

Bob set up the video camera to catch me playing a few tunes this week. I’ve been teaching these in my weekly Fiddling Demystified classes for the Philadelphia Folksong Society’s Folkschool and I told the class I’d post some tunes here for them. The class has run from April 15 and I’ll continue as long as people keep showing up, since all I need is bandwidth and a reason to talk about fiddling! We meet Wednesdays at 5 pm EDT for an hour and we welcome new class members. It’s not expensive and since each class is separate, you can take just one or as many as you wish. The signup form is online at https://folksongsociety.wufoo.com/forms/virtual-fiddling-demystified/. If our class time is inconvenient, all the classes were recorded and archived and you can order them for streaming on the same signup form. 

I’m always looking for new perspectives in fiddling, so last April, I started an ‘upside down’ fiddle class, looking first at theory. Most players have some reading skills and as fiddlers, we focus primarily on melodies. Instead of doing that, I started off with the most common minor chord progression in fiddling, E Dorian, with an Em and a D chord. You already know a dozen tunes in this pattern if you play fiddle. We progressed to other common chord patterns in different regional styles, learning to follow the chords and try out harmony under these patterns rather than learning the tunes themselves. 

After several months in the harmony sandbox (Dorian, Mixolydian, Diatonic, and Pentatonic), we moved on to creating rhythm with bowing patterns in jigs, reels, marches and waltzes. Then, we began looking at tone production – the art of sounding the way you want to sound. At this point, I still wasn’t really teaching tunes and I was amazed that folks stayed with me. These fiddlers are as obsessed as I am! Some of the melodies I used were familiar to class members and others were new but all were chosen to illustrate the techniques being examined rather than being taught as melodies themselves. 

I don’t know about other fiddlers but tone production wasn’t something I even thought about until I was in my thirties. A series of lessons with Boston Symphony violinist Mary Lou Speaker in the 1970s taught me bow techniques for enabling expression and emotion but, to this day, I continue to chase my ability to express what I feel in the music. Some days what I play is sublime, others, it’s just a bunch of notes. The elusive perfect tune always beckons. It’s what keeps us playing! 

These are not perfect tunes I’m playing here but they are tunes that I love to play. When we got around to learning melodies in class, I started with (big surprise!) the music of my French-Canadian ancestors. While recording one of these on the deck, my loud feet also made the camera wiggle a bit, so I’ll put a pillow under my feet next time. C’est la vie!

Four of these tunes are from Louis Beaudoin, one of my mentors in the 1970s. He taught me my first crooked tune, Isidore’s Reel in G.

Here are two other crooked tunes from Mr. Beaudoin, both in D: La Grondeuse/La Grande Gigue Simple. The bottom (G) string is tuned up one step to A. Remember to compensate – for an open (tempered) tuning, I tune the E string down a smidge and raise the D about the same amount. The fiddle should ring when any pair of strings is bowed.

Here’s another of his: Fireside Reel in G. 

Here’s a march, L’air Mignon, by Simon Riopel, in G.

The last piece is one of my favorites, La Valse des Jouets in D, by Québecois composer, singer, and songwriter Michel Faubert.

Video links are from my new YouTube playlist for the Fiddling Demystified Class. Enjoy!

© 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved.

It’s amazing how quickly I adapted to being in what I perceive as a safe place. I could feel my shoulders drop down to normal from the moment we pulled away from Canadian customs. Now, for the first time in many months, I could breathe freely. It was a seductive feeling – one that disappeared yesterday in the Margaree Forks Co-op. Waiting in line for checkout, I noticed that BOTH cashiers were wearing their masks so loosely and under their noses that they were essentially unmasked. 

I remarked about it to others waiting in line, who’d also noticed, then got through the checkout and, returning my cart, mentioned to the woman sanitizing the cart that the cashiers were not in compliance and I would not be returning until they were properly masked. “Oh, but it’s so uncomfortable for them,” she said. Ummm . . . wrong answer. Hard as it was in that moment, I didn’t raise my voice (for one thing, she was properly masked) but I still said, “I don’t care how uncomfortable it is. People in medical jobs wore them all day every day even before the virus. This is a pandemic. If the cashiers won’t meet the legal requirements of their job, they should find another one.” Then I asked her, “How many people do you know who have died from or contracted this virus? You know, there are people I will never see again.” 

She wanted to take me to the manager but I was upset and I didn’t trust myself to maintain my cool (read burst into tears – don’t you hate that?) and of course, I’m a come-from-away American and this is the only grocery store in town. I was planning to call them when I got home. I scurried out, feeling my shoulders going up again, and was getting into the car when another employee came up and knocked on the window. It was the nice lady who’d taken my quarantine orders last month. She was masked and so was I so I rolled the window down and we had a conversation about what had just happened.

I told her that when people walk in and see the staff not in compliance, it gives everyone else permission to do the same. I reminded her that we had quarantined in our home, not leaving the property for two weeks, in order to protect Canadians from a possible infection we might be carrying. Then I asked her what Canadians were doing to protect us and themselves. “Please don’t get complacent here,” I begged her. “You don’t want to live like we are now in the States with the virus spiking everywhere. It’s a horror. I know people are tired of this but it’s not going away and you have to comply, no exceptions.” 

She took me seriously and promised to act on it. Today, I called the manager and had a great chat with her. All employees will be in full compliance from now on. Done, dusted, and solved. My faith in Canadians holds true but the lesson is that even though I feel and am really safer here, I still can’t let my guard down and I need to listen to my gut when it talks to me, especially when it shouts. 

I must note that this is the only time I have found sloppy compliance (and now I’m starting to hate that word) since we got here. Eating at the Seafood Stop,  The Dancing Goat and the Glenora Distillery, I felt completely safe, with tables distanced and everyone masked for a trip to the restroom. Restaurants here get your name, phone number, and email address to allow for contact tracing if necessary and hand you a sanitized pen to sign their book. The pharmacy in Inverness was also good and I felt fine in Antigonish both shopping and eating out. That’s why I was so shocked yesterday at the Co-op. It felt like I was yanked back into a battle zone. If I can get my knickers in a double twist over something this minor, imagine what my re-entry into the Untied (sic) States will look like in a few months.

Can I please, pretty please, stay here? I’ll play tunes for my supper!

 © 2020 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved

My Nana made sweet pickles, not sour ones. Until I was at college and ordered a sub, my taste for pickles ran sweet. Truth to tell, it still does. It has to be a really good half-sour to grab me and forget those deep-fried dill pickles. Ummm . . . why would you take something already crispy and fry it flaccid? Food fail!

There was nothing improvisational about Nana’s pickles or piccalilli but they were delicious. There were no fancy flavorings (she was Acadian – we’re lucky they were salted). She used just the basics – sugar, salt, vinegar and pickling spices – but hers were the pickle I judge all other pickles against, even my own. 

I hadn’t canned anything in years but my first summer at Bob’s homestead, he had a large cucumber, green tomato, and pepper crop at the end of August. I put on an apron, dug out Ball’s Blue Book from his cookbook shelf, channelled my Nana and went to work. We just finished the last jar of those 2017 pickles, the one with the hot peppers. Good thing we’re making more. This year there will be a whole batch of hot pickles!

(Bob Hartman-Berrier photos, above, the flower garden at The Farm, and the breathtaking view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence; below – Looking up the hill)

We had planned on a big garden this year but of course, plans changed, we just got here, and it’s too late for a garden. We looked around to see what was available for produce. Russ Daigle’s produce at The Farm in Terre Noire is all organic. Even in a lean year, this is a very impressive garden, especially as it’s perched on a rather inhospitable slope south of Chéticamp right on the coast. The wind she blow, you know? If we’d arrived just a day earlier, the ferocious winds wouldn’t have allowed us to stand up straight on his hill. If you know the island, you know I’m not exaggerating. Russ’s corn hadn’t quite broken but it was growing sideways.

Russ saves his seed for The Farm and doesn’t use starter plants, even for herbs or flowers. Given our six-month residency here for now, starting plants indoors won’t work for us but I can ask and maybe he’ll sell us a few plants next year when we arrive. With his land sloping uphill from the ocean, I also wonder if he’s figured out which cultivars will grow best under a strong west wind!

Bob and I spent an hour or so washing, slicing and brining the veg, listening to my buddies from Barachois sing and play Acadian music – in honor of Nana, of course! This year’s pickles have cukes (seeded – look at the size of those puppies!), onions, green tomatoes, yellow zucchini, and red pepper for color. You understand that cooks always use what’s at hand. The pickles have brined for about two hours so it’s time to drain and rinse them a few times. 

Bread and Butter Pickles 2020

A batch = six-seven pounds of processed veg – sliced, mixed, salted, brined, rinsed, rinsed again, and drained.  There was almost a gallon of brine left from a double batch. Weigh the processed veg and set aside in a bowl. It’s easier than you think and Bob showed me how. Weigh yourself and a large-enough container, then add the veg and weigh again until the difference is six-seven pounds. 

In a separate large pot – bigger than you think you might need, bring 3 cups of sugar and 4.5 cups of white vinegar to a rolling boil, adding 3-4 tablespoons of pickling spice (I always add extra mustard seed and this year, a teaspoon of red pepper flakes for zing) stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the solution bubbles up.

Add the veg you rinsed, drained and weighed, and mix well, getting the spices into every corner. If, at this point, the liquid doesn’t cover the veg, add more sugar and vinegar until it does. I had to do this so I increased the amount of vinegar in my recipe, adding a proportional amount of sugar, but not more spices. My proportions were 1 cup of vinegar to ⅔ cup of sugar. Cover, bringing it back to a rolling boil (this is why you use a larger pot – it won’t boil over) for long enough to make the pickles translucent but not have them fall apart. Mine took about 15 minutes. That was a lot of veg, around 15 pounds, cooked in two batches and canned in three.

Pack the hot pickles in sterilized jars. Make sure the liquid comes to 1/2 inch from the top and push any stray veg back down. Shake the jar gently to remove air bubbles, wipe the rim clean with a damp paper towel, cap the jar and process for 10 minutes in boiling water. Here’s what today’s sweet and hot bread and butter pickles look like – 18 pints, 2 half pints and one quart!

We still have enough cukes for another big batch of just cucumber pickle and enough beets for who knows how many batches of pickled beets. Russ (Bob photo) wanted to give us the food and Bob wisely wouldn’t let him. We want to come back and savor his bounty at The Farm again next year. He’s 76 and when people ask him how he can do this at his age, he replies “because I do this at this age,” a slogan for all of us, right?

© 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!