Family Day Adventures

In our family, Sunday was usually the only day when we got to do something all together. Dad worked at the fishplant five and a half days a week, (they only worked until noon on Saturday), and also worked Monday to Saturday evenings in the store, so that left only one day for family activities.

Usually our family outings involved driving somewhere. Sometimes it was just around the Island to see the sights, sometimes it was a drive to the lighthouse or Pond Cove or Scattaway Cove for a wiener roast or picnic. We seemed to go on a lot of picnics, I guess it was an economical way to entertain and feed a large group of kids.

My father used to own a piece of land half-way down the Western Light road. The part nearest the road was a sort of gravel pit, but farther back there was a woodlot where Dad used to cut firewood when we still had a woodstove at home. In this area in a small clearing among the trees, Dad had built a little picnic area, complete with a fire pit, a swing suspended between two of the trees and a teeter-totter and picnic table made out of boards and logs. Many of our drives ended up here; on days when the beach was too cold or windy or foggy (sometimes all three at once), it was often quite pleasant in this place in the middle of the island.

I remember one Sunday when we had set out specifically to visit our forest picnic spot. We hiked in loaded down with hot dogs and marshmallows and a whole variety of picnic goodies. After some time spent swinging and teetering and running around gathering up twigs and sticks for the fire, we were ready to start roasting some hot dogs. Then Dad discovered that he had forgotten the matches. To hike back out to get matches would take a lot longer than we hungry hot dog craving kids could bear, so Dad came up with a solution to our problem. He had carried in the supplies in an old orange crate which was made out of strips of some type of light, thin wood, he broke off a couple of pieces of this wood and began rubbing them together.

Now, I had seen Tonto make fire like this for the Lone Ranger dozens of times on TV, but I had never seen it done in real life and wasn’t sure it could really be done; maybe it was one of those things that only happened in the movies, like shooting ten shots from a six-shooter or cowboys playing guitar while riding their horse and singing a song at the end of every adventure. After several minutes of trying to produce fire with friction the only thing heating up was Dad. The beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead and I was thinking that unless Tonto showed up, we weren’t going to be roasting anything today, when suddenly a wisp of smoke curled up from the piece of orange crate under his hand. Dad increased his efforts and now I could see a tiny glowing spot on the wood. With a little gentle blowing and the addition of bits of dried moss and some shredded birch bark, the glowing ember burst into flame and within seconds we had a real fire going. I was very impressed and spent the rest of the day thinking that I now had something in common with the Lone Ranger.

Not all of our Sunday drives were restricted to the Island, we sometimes ventured up the Neck to take a dip in the usually frigid waters of Lake Midway or maybe all the way out to South Range and Porters Lake where a couple of friends had cottages where we could enjoy the exotic experience of playing in water that didn’t turn you blue after five minutes. Occasionally Dad would combine business with pleasure and load up the truck with kids and fish and head up the Valley to do some trading for apples, berries or whatever was in season (he just traded the fish, not the kids).

For many years a truck was the only vehicle we had, so except for the two youngest, who got to ride in the cab, all us kids rode in the back. On long trips it wasn’t all that comfortable, although we did have an old tarp for protection in case of rain or snow. It also tended to get kind of boring back there looking at where you had been instead of where you were going. We passed the time by trying to get the people in the car behind us to wave back or by trying to think up other things to entertain ourselves. On one trip down Digby Neck, Dad became a bit annoyed when he looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed that we were pelting mailboxes with the apples he had just traded his salt fish for.

When I was eleven years old in June of 1960, we left home for a trip up the Valley. We travelled through Digby and Annapolis Royal, crossing over the Annapolis River on the Granville Ferry bridge. That afternoon we were on our way back home and stopped at a roadside park just past Bridgetown for a bite to eat (another picnic). My father got chatting with some other people in the park and when they heard we were heading toward Digby they told us we wouldn’t be able to get there on this road because the Granville bridge was gone. Apparently, just a couple of hours after we crossed it, the bridge had collapsed into the river. I remember feeling cut off from home and stranded at hearing this news, I guess I thought the bridge was like a ferry, if it wasn’t working, you were stuck where you were; of course all we had to do was go back to Bridgetown and cross over to the road on the other side of the river.

Another Sunday pastime we used to enjoy was going for hikes along the shore. On one of our walks, Dad invited Sidney Melanson along. Sydney was from the Meteghan area and worked for Dad in the fishplant, he was a good worker but didn’t seem to be the type who would look at any form of exercise as entertainment. However, he agreed to come along and we set out for Pond Cove. The plan was to walk from the Point d’ Field across the pond wall to the camp road. Ordinarily this would be a fairly easy walk, but we were in late September, there was a strong wind blowing with big rollers breaking onshore and it was almost high tide.

Hiking across in front of Big Pond, we were able to stay back from the water and, except for the occasional scattering of light spray, all went well. The pond wall in front of Little Pond was a lot narrower and closer to the water, here we ran into a bit of a problem. By the time we got to it, the waves were breaking right over the wall into the pond. We considered turning around but by now the tide had come up farther and it was just as bad behind us, plus it was farther to go back than forward. After hunkering down behind a big log for a while, Dad noticed that it was only the third wave that was big enough to come right over the wall, if we timed it right we should be able to run across before the next wave hit. Dad would go first, then Sydney and I would go together.

Sydney was looking kind of scared and didn’t appear to be too sure about this plan, but as soon as the next wave withdrew, Dad took off running and he made it to the other side just before the next big breaker hit. Now it was our turn. I waited for the right time and then made my dash with Sydney right behind, part way across Sydney decided he wasn’t going to make it and turned back. I got to the other side just in time to see him disappear behind a wall of foaming spray. When all had cleared he was nowhere to be seen and we were starting to think he had been carried out to sea when his head popped up from behind the log, he was soaked, but safe. But now he wasn’t going to move from that log, no amount of yelling could convince him. Finally Dad had to run back and get him. It wasn’t all that dangerous, it was just a matter of timing, but Sydney was convinced that he had barely escaped with his life. For some reason he never took us up on another offer to go hiking.