Chapter 7

Eastern Passage

Phew! Québec was behind me.  I was raring to get to Halifax – but that blind enthusiasm had been with me virtually unabated since we left Ridgeway.  In New Brunswick, it turned me into a restless stop-and-go picture-snapping tourist.  Having a thing for waterfalls, I couldn’t resist stopping at Grand Falls for a few shots, getting two shirtless men in blue jeans who looked so tiny in comparison as they clamboured through a wide deep cleft in the barren gorge with the white froth before them.

I was following the course of the St. John River, described in brochures as “the Rhine of North America”.  I thought, I'll see about that.  It was beautiful as it wound south and then east through the thick forests and hilly farmlands of its valley.  At Perth-Andover, I switched over to 105 to follow the river’s easterly shore.  Passing through Bath and Bristol only reminded me how eager I was to reach England. 

In my time, I had eaten a lot of McCain’s frozen foods, so, at Florenceville, named for the famous nurse of the Crimean War, I pulled over and photographed the company’s headquarters.  There was just a simple pole-mounted sign with an orange arrow pointing to a wide squat plant nestled cozily along the river with green forested hills beyond.  In Hartland, I drove the 1,282 feet across "the longest covered bridge in the world”, and back, just to say I had done it.  I noted that the stop sign read both STOP and ARRET.

I spent the night at campsite 65 at Mactaquac Provincial Park, New Brunswick’s “super park”.  Mike, the attendant at the gate, gave me camp for free.  But I wasn’t there for the golf course or the boating or the fishing for small-mouth bass – I was tired.  The season was just beginning and I was the only tenter among ten or so RV travelers.

The next morning, Melawend and I rode into Fredericton, the provincial capital, to see if the local daily newspaper would pay me to write a story for them or perhaps be interested in taking one.  I met Lori Redding of The Daily Gleaner.   No sale.  She told me no photographers or reporters were available – most of them were at the forest fires that were raging in the province.  Indeed all of the Maritime provinces were tinder-dry from lack of rain.

About 25 miles out of Fredericton on highway 2, I saw what Lori had been talking about.  I parked Melawend beside a steel guardrail along the riverbank.   Behind me was a clear blue sky; ahead there was an immense brown cloud.  I began to feel acrid air burn in my nostrils.  I drove on and saw dark palls of smoke slowly rising, fingering the sky.  I saw a water bomber fly low over the river and into the brown cloud.

Further on, I saw only the blackened aftermath of a particular battle – I did not see any of the valiant crews in action but I later read that there had been thousands of fire fighters out there, all over the Atlantic hinterland.  The plumes of the distant fire I saw might have been the one near Gagetown that had apparently been ignited by a stray artillery round fired into the brush when the army practiced gunnery.  The five-story high fire had consumed homes, cottages and 15,000 acres of forest.

I read that near the Acadian fishing port of Tracadie, 50,000 forested acres had been ravaged.  On Prince Edward Island, as four fires were contained, three more were born and in Nova Scotia, where I was heading, thirty-six blazes would cause the province to ban open fires.  There would be no campfires for me.

About fifteen miles onto route 112, a secondary road through an empty wooded area, a drive that would otherwise have been boring, I parked.  The left side of the road was green.  The right was black with trees scorched and naked and the ground cover burned up to the edge of the road.   It seemed fires left tragicomic ambiguities in their wake – like the charred sign for Black’s Take Out which looked promising of fried food very well done, while the remains of another sign suggested that Timberline Lodge was the hot place to be. 

At Moncton, Melawend and I finally turned east again.  We rolled through a flat, almost treeless area that reminded me of the Canadian prairies and there we came upon the last border.  The sign read: "Welcome to Nova Scotia and Its Scenic Trails".  I could almost feel the Atlantic!  England, here we come!

But not today.  It was late afternoon and I wanted to go through the hometown of one of Canada’s internationally acclaimed superstars.  I picked up the Glooscap Trail, named for the god of the Mirmac Indians.  I drove through mostly forested land and come upon Springhill.  The tourist in me was looking for a sign, perhaps like the billboard outside Parry Sound, Ontario, that I use to see as a boy on trips to the family.  It proclaimed the town as the home to hockey great Bobby Orr.  But there was no such sign in Springhill, no image of its smiling blond-haired girl, only the modest sign that read: ”Welcome to Springhill  Incorp. 1889  Po. 4896". 

I was on a gentle uphill grade that had older modest homes on either side, semi-rural, typical of the outskirts of small-town North America.  I rode to the top, went left, passing homes that had nice views of fields and forest, wondering if one of them might have been the home where a teenage girl once plastered her walls with pin-ups of Tony Dow (of TV’s Leave It To Beaver)

I would like to have meandered through the streets of the town and gone through the museum of Springhill’s tragic mining history but I had to find a campsite closer to Halifax.  I saw only the quiet outskirts of the place that Anne Murray called home.

I made my way to Minas Basin, site of the world’s highest tides.  The area was mostly forested, pocked with the small yards of humble homes, not promising of a campsite.  I was leery of camping in the woods.  It was nearly dusk when I reached Bay Gardens Campground at Lower Five Islands.  I was just too cold and tired to check out the tides that ebbed and flowed from the Bay of Fundy.  Bev Gerry kindly checked me in at the office-store and I hastily set up on the treeless grounds.  I slapped a peanut butter sandwich together and wolfed it down.  I bundled up and drifted off, listening to the wind, happy in knowing that I would be in Halifax tomorrow.

The next morning was warmer but dismal under dark overcast skies.  I donned my banana and marshmallow rainsuit and hit the road.  At Truro, I left the Glooscap Trail in favor of the fast wide swath of highway 102.  It began to rain steadily.  It would help the firefighters, but the rain rekindled my anger over Chernobyl and I wondered if the rain was radioactive, or merely acidic.  I soon discovered that the rainsuit leaked badly.  I felt water running down along my back and soaking into my briefs.  This also made me nervous that the rain might damage my masculinity.

I had not yet ridden in rain and just when it occurred to me that this could be dangerous, Melawend slid.   Her rear wheel cut under, to the right.   I froze, braced for impact.  I’m not sure what I did right, perhaps I turned in the direction of the skid, but Melawend straightened up.  I slowed to gridlock speed.

In the opposite-bound lanes across the grassy median, I saw a couple dressed in thick matching riding suits, riding a big touring motorcycle.  I could see helmet antennae which meant they had a head-to-head communication system.  They looked warm and comfortable and unaffected by the rain as they cruised swiftly along.  I wondered: How do they ride so easily in the rain?  They waved at me.  I was warmed and waved back.  I relaxed and gradually throttled up.  Melawend seemed more stable, or was it just me?  I rode confidently, in the rain, all the way to Dartmouth where the rain stopped.  I had a phone call to make.

“Tom?  Where are you?”

This was Kathy Pooler speaking.  I gave her my location at a phone booth at the edge of town and she gave me directions to her apartment on Cole Harbor Road.  I would be staying with Kathy, the daughter of Dad’s fiancée; Kathy's husband, Geoff, who was an aero-engine technician with the Canada Air Force; and their infant son, Danny.  I rode to their apartment building and in their small two-bedroom unit, I had, for a time, a sense of family and of home.

Life with the Poolers quickly settled into routine.  Geoff was tall with black hair in a military crew cut.  Kathy was slim and winsome.  Blond-haired Danny was cherubic.  We would pile into their compact car for tours of the area.  We passed by the oil refinery, CFB Shearwater where Geoff worked, the Autoport with its legions of parked imports ready for domestic deployment, and on through Eastern Passage to Lawrencetown.  We crossed the two bridges over The Narrows into the city of Halifax and toured the main streets, Citadel Hill (photo) and Point Pleasant Park.  When Geoff was working on aircraft engines and Kathy was working at Shopper’s Drug Mart, I babysat Danny, feeding him his Gerber foods and changing his full diapers.  In the evenings, we watched TV shows or looked at photo albums while I sewed crests onto the Odyssey Jacket, or played euchre with Geoff’s mother, Mary Grace, who came by for visits.  I helped them celebrate Danny’s first birthday and I helped Kathy shop for groceries.

I also helped Kathy and Geoff celebrate their second wedding anniversary.  Their special day was also Memorial Day in the U.S., the day that five and a half million people joined hands in a 4,152-mile line across the U.S. in “Hands Across America”, singing “We Are The World” – a campaign to raise money and awareness of hunger and homelessness in the U.S.  The line had gaps but the spirit was united.  It was also the day of Bob Geldof’s “Sport Aid”, which drew 20 million people in 78 countries to run 10-kilomter “races against time” and such events to raise funds for hunger and poverty in Africa.  The highlight was Sudanese runner Omar Khalifa who carried a torch from a refugee camp in his homeland through 12 European capitals to the UN headquarters in Geneva, touching base along the way with France’s President Francois Mitterrand and Britain’s Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.  I took care of little Danny while Kathy and Geoff went out.

I made my own explorations on Melawend.  But I was in Halifax mainly to get out of it – to get passage to England.  What came as no real surprise was that while high hopes and made me think of Halifax as my Port of Great Departure, reality had made it my Great Wall of Canada – I could not get beyond it.  For three weeks, I pestered the administrators of the Port of Halifax, the general managers and secretaries of containership lines and Canadian airline companies for onward passage to England, sponsored or as a workaway.  I even approached the military.  I would call them, leave messages, drop in unannounced (or if I was lucky, by appointment).  I would bombard them with ideas and plans and thinly disguised pleadings.  I dropped off typed proposals of photography and publicity in exchange for passage.  Melawend and I zipped up and down Barrington Street I don’t know how many times.

And I waited.  I would sit on Citadel Hill near the famous town clock and watch my time passed away.  I sat at he base of the A. Murray MacKay Bridge, hopeful as a huge ACL container ship passed under it – certain there was room aboard for me and a little scooter!

I often met with Ian Spencer of Burgess Travel, which was also an American Express outlet.  I got my mail from Ian.  Ian was about 60, an Aussie expat and a kindred spirit and we would chat.

I spent hours reading form a paperback I had bought for 25 cents at a yard sale years ago – By-Line: Ernest Hemingway – a book that I planned take around the world.  I had often turned to Hemingway's writings and found inspiration for my own.  To myself, I referred to him as “Hem”.

Photo: Ernest Hemingway in the courtyard of 113 rue Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, 1924.  Inscribed to Sylvia Beach: "To Sylvia, With love, Ernest Hemingway".  This image of Hemingway was the basis of part of the artwork on the cover of the above-mentioned paperback: Bantam editon, July 1968 from the original edition published by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967.  THIS PHOTO MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED.  It is used here with the permission of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library - Ernest Hemingway

In a true way, Hemingway became my writing mentor througout the journey as I would often turn to his words in this book for inspiration and guidance.   You will meet Hemingway again as we go along.  Here is what was said of this by Josh Silverstein, Hemingway scholar and webmaster of TIMELESS HEMINGWAY (featured on CNN and USA Today) - look for Josh's entry in Reader Reviews: http://www.melawend.com/reviews1.htm

What I really wanted was to work my way across the Atlantic on a ship, just as Jimmy Bedford had done almost thirty years earlier.  But before I even heard of Jimmy, I had read a book by Alistair Boyd about his journey: Royal Challenge Accepted: Around the World on Five Pounds.  Boyd had worked his way around a little after Jimmy’s time.   Boyd wrote: “No longer can you approach the master of a vessel and persuade him to take you on a workaway.  His hands are tied by laws, regulations and union protocols.”

So I had been forewarned.  But I believed that rules could be bent, so I had decided to go for it.  And now, someone in Halifax had even advised me to check out the bars where ships’ crews hung out to see if I could sneak aboard with some of them and plead my case to a captain.  But I found it was not worth the effort: it was true – I was told the shipping company would fly in a union mate to fill any gaps in crew.  Consortiums, mostly based in Europe owned the ships, and without their permission, which was unlikely, there was no way.  There would be no paintbrush and passage for me.

I sought passage – I collected rejections:

“These things are an administrative nuisance,” an airline executive said.

“We like what you are doing.  Why don’t you try (a competitor)?” said the dock-office manger of a shipping line.

“I can’t justify the expense,” said the district manager of an airline.

“If you had come to us a month ago…” These were words echoed by another manager and the local representative of one of the shipping consortiums (but the latter was pessimistic).

“Where did you get my number?” snarled another dock-office manager.

Everyday life in Halifax went on around me – well-groomed people shuffled between office and stores and restaurants and there was lots of traffic in the city.  But this had also been a city of disasters.  In 1917, it had seen the world’s largest man-made explosion prior to Hiroshima, after two ships collided in The Narrows and touched of an explosion that obliterated the northwest part of the city.  A few years earlier, it played a grim role in the Titanic tragedy (the Titanic sank just south of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, 600 miles southeast of Halifax). Shortly after the Titanic sank, the White Star Line chartered four Canadian vessels to retrieve bodies and wreckage.  (Halifax was the closest major port.)

"... as far as the eye could see, the ocean was strewn with wreckage and debris with bodies bobbing up and down in the cold sea," said Arminias Wiseman aboard the Halifax-based Mackay-Bennett of arriving at the site of the Titanic sinking.    (Of the 328 bodies recovered, 119 were so badly damaged or deteriorated that they were buried at sea, 59 were ultimately shipped home to relatives and 150 were laid to rest in three of the Halifax's cemeteries.)

 

(Just as a side note, later on in this story, you will share a meeting with Douglas Kirkland who did still photography on the sets of James Cameron's Titanic and produced the best-selling illustrated book, James Cameron’s Titanic.  The book was on the Best Sellers List of the New York Times, for over a half a year, selling more than a million copies in the United States alone.    Doug would send me a hand-written letter from Halifax while he was working on this project.  I'm mentioning this simply because I'm proud just to know Doug and because of Halifax's links to human tragedies of such wrenching magnitude.)

 

Against the backdrop of just those two tragedies, the personal disaster I felt coming on in Halifax was nothing beyond disheartening.

Things got hectic in the city when a NATO conference was held there, especially around guarded areas.  While Geoff tended the aircraft of the foreign ministers, I sidestepped armed motorcades.  The group of 16 ministers, which included Canada’s Joe Clark and America’s George Shultz, had a broad agenda.  They debated the U.S. decision not to abide by the second unratified Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), having charged the Soviet Union had repeatedly violated the 1979 agreement.  They discussed potential sites for a new fighter training center for the Alliance.  And trained dogs sniffed rooms before the closed meetings began – terrorism was also high on their agenda.

My agenda was falling apart.  My last hope seemed to be with a military flight.  Major Lison of CFB Shearwater had said that only Ottawa could authorize a “flip” for me to Europe.   Bruce Sherry of Girve Fretz's staff laisoned with the Department of National Defense on my behalf.  I sent of a proposal and waited.  I later learned it had been reviewed by Erik Nielsen himself, our Minister of National Defense, who also happened to be our Deputy Prime Minister.  In a personal letter to Girve, Mr. Nielsen explained that transatlantic flights had been reduced because of “priority assignments and major aircraft overhaul work” and that remaining flights were booked for months.  He said that to give me passage “would displace a duty passenger for whom commercial transportation would have to be purchased using Departmental funds.”  So be it. 

(And I do thank you for your consideration, Mr. Nielsen.)

In the eleventh hour, I was befriended by Tony Edwards, a producer of Motorsport Atlantic – a TV show that aired Wednesday nights.  We met at the studio.   He was enthusiastic about raising local interest.  But I thought, why would Haligonians or Maritimers be interested in helping the son of a distant community?   (This sentiment that had been echoed by a local newspaper reporter.)  Tony was a nice guy, making my enterprise seem so worthwhile, and a TV spot would have been a fine opportunity to shed some inhibition and talk about the journey, but hope seemed too remote.  And I could not go on maybes anymore.  I had already decided to return to Ridgeway.  I would sell my car and get Melawend and myself to England.

 

There was a little finger of land that jutted from the area known as Eastern Passage into the channel known as Eastern Passage between the mainland and Lawlors Island.  I thanked Kathy and Geoff for their kindness and support and drove fully laden Melawend onto that open spit of sand and stone and grass for a parting view of the Atlantic Ocean.  The sea was fittingly gray under brooding skies.

“We are going to cross it,” I said to Melawend. 

She groaned over the stones on the way back to the road, then jauntily bore me west, homeward bound.  I backtracked the whole way: to Mactaquac where I listened to two girls who had camped near me go on ad nauseam about being hit on by guys whenever they went camping; to Leclercville where Rose Bellarance kindly let me camp on the front lawn of the rectory where I had a splendid view of a ship making its way up the St. Lawrence toward the Atlantic; to Rigaud where I again found solace and solitude at the shrine; to Ottawa where I met Bruce Sherry and bought provincial crests for the Odyssey Jacket; and to Diane’s home where I rested up for the home run.

(PHOTO: Sainte-Emmelie Church of Leclercville - where I had initially been turned away, I was later welcomed to camp.  Photo below is Tom at his camp at the church, looking out at the St. Lawrence River.)

  

“What are you doing home?”  I thought you’d be in…” was said by surprised Fort Erieans.

I kept to myself.   Dad was supportive.  I checked into fares for flights and freight charges to England while I advertised to sell my car and other items.  There were no buyers.

Finally, in my calling for airfreight charges, I tried a local freight forwarding company, Peace Bridge Brokerage.  I wasn’t looking for sponsorship when I called; I was shopping for prices.  I talked Ed Freeland, PBB’s founder, chairman and CEO.  Dad and Mr. Freeland had once served together on a local industrial commission.

“Come in and let's talk about your trip,” Mr. Freeland said.

I drove to the company’s newly built corporate headquarters on Walnut Street in Fort Erie, across from the truck freight lot below the Peace Bridge.  I was escorted to Mr. Freeland’s lavish office where I sat in an upholstered chair in front of his wide desk.  He came in.  He was bald with a fringe of white hair.  He was a solidly built man of average height.  He wore glasses with thick lenses and an expensive beige-color suit.   We exchanged some pleasantries and he sat down behind his desk.

“How may we help you, Tom?”

I told him of my project and that I was simply looking into prices.  Silently, I hoped he might offer a discount.  He had already read the first story it the Times-Review.  Just two minutes after we met, he called the company manager, Mike Carroll.

Mike seemed too young to be a manager, with his boyish face, his ready smile and the simple straight style of his hair.  He looked like a university student who just finished his exams and this was his first day of work.   But he was corporate office manager of the company Ed Freeland had started from a single local office, turning into a corporation with offices throughout North America and with affiliates in 38 countries.

“We’re going to underwrite the air-freight of Mr. Smith’s scooter to England, Mr. Freeland said.   “Please show him around, Mike.”

I felt flushed.   From then on, it was truly “magic carpet service” (the slogan of the company).  Mike gave me the grand tour.  I was introduced to cordial administrators and staff in rooms that still reeked of fresh paint, new carpeting and state-of-the-art business machines.  I saw the immaculate cargo bay and the friendly crew that would be handling Melawend.   Mike shook my hand and turned me over to Mary Mattiazzo, the manager of the company’s own travel agency, Freeland Travel Services.   As she told me about her travels in Europe, whetting my wanderlust, she booked my flight to Gatwick Airport, London.

When I stepped back into the hot busy streets of Fort Erie, I felt like a credentialled traveler, a bona fide man-with-a-mission.  I could not believe my good fortune!

(PHOTO:  Ed Freeland, CEO and founder of Peace Bridge Brokerage and head office manager, Mike Carroll with Tom and Melawend.  This photo was taken after the journey - note the duct tape on Melawend's right signal, applied after the spill on Tir Mawr farm in Wales... but I'm getting ahead of myself...)

I took one last long solitary walk along the abandoned railway line west of Ridgeway.  Once again I felt alienated – but sanguine because this time the leaving was assured and there would be no turning back.

 

A week later, almost two months after I had scooted out of Ridgeway for Halifax, I was sitting at window seat on Quebecair Flight 558 out of Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport, bound for England.  Cramped into the two seats next to me were the Madon’s, an African-Canadian couple who lived in Mississauga.   Shavak was an accountant who was originally from Zanzibar (an island, now part of Tanzania). Frenny, his friendly wife, snuggling at his shoulder, was from Mombassa, Kenya.  They were one their way to the wedding of a friend or relative in London where the Madon's had lived for five years before coming to Canada many years ago.   From London, they would be going to Africa to visit family.

I left the Madons to their affections.  Their warmth was reassuring in a world that could be cold.  I felt hopeful.  I thought, Maybe I’ll even find Her out there, somewhere.  But their lovey-dovey ways made me feel my aloneness and this increased my apprehensions.  I became nervous.   It did not help me to listen to Neil Diamond’s “America” on my walkman when it would be so long before I would see North America again, if I did.  But I took comfort in knowing that my journey was finally, undeniably underway and that Someone was watching over me. 

As the Madons snuggled, I drifted off to sleep.

 

PART II

Great, Great, Great Britain

 

Chapter 8

White Cliffs and Castles

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