Three Cheers For Antigonish
There are lots of obvious family-oriented reasons for us to love Antigonish. The seat of Turner's mom's side of the family, Turner's family arrived in the Antigonish area long long ago and (thanks to several sleuthy and talkative family members) the whole history of everyone since the ancestors' arrival from Scotland in the 1800s is well known and documented with the beloved "Dead Relatives Tour", available via Uncle Ron.
Margo and John retired back here two years ago, to a house they built on Margo's parents' old property, atop the Hawthorne hill overlooking town. Margo's siblings and their kids (Turner's cousins and their children) come "home" to Antigonish nearly every year - but even the most distant of the relatives make the tri-yearly pilgrimage back to Nova Scotia for "THE REUNION", an inviolable tradition among the far-flung McConnell diaspora and their married-in kin (like me!).
[Note to wannabe-McConnell gate-crashers, the next Reunion is scheduled for July 2007.]
The McConnell homestead, 109 Hawthorne.
I'd never been to Nova Scotia before I started dating Turner. I was pretty sure I'd like Eastern Canada, being the rabid nationalist I am, but as it turned out, I REALLY liked it.
The first time we came out here was about three weeks after we started dating. Turner was working for Via Rail in 1997 and got an first-class private cabin all-expenses-paid trip out east by train from Toronto to "test the merchandise"... and brought me, his new girlfriend, along. At that early stage there was no inkling we'd end up married, and I'll admit that my main thought about the trip prior to departure was, "Score!!". But then we arrived. And even my earliest impressions were that I could happily live the rest of my life in the Maritimes.
I remember waking up on the train, somewhere in eastern New Brunswick, and pushing up the window blind to see where we were. At that moment we were rumbling through a small town, everything bathed in golden early-morning light. There were ditches instead of sidewalks, and most houses had clotheslines flapping underwear and socks and sheets - and a flagpole flying the Canadian flag. And then we passed over a rail crossing. Kids and parents were lined up at the striped bar across the road, waving at the train going past. It was 7:15am. ...I think I cried.
Celtic language blinky sign on the TransCanada through town.
I discovered only a few years ago that I truly adore fiddle music. Certainly the first and only live music performance I've ever really enjoyed was Ashley MacIsaac's 1996 tour, when I caught his truly splendid show in Kingston. I went mainly to hear "Devil In The Kitchen", which everyone with half a heart across Canada had come to worship, that year. But the whole show was fabulous. I gave serious thought to taking step dancing lessons in order to bring jigs and reels into my body. Although many "western" (which includes anyone from Montreal & Toronto and points further west) implants to Nova Scotia eventually earn raw nerves when it comes to the constant "fiddley-diddley music" being played in public places throughout eastern Canada, it turns out that the musical common denominator out here suits me just fine. ...More than fine. Yesterday Margo and I took in the twice-monthly Saturday Ceilidh at Piper's Pub downtown. It was absolutely splendid. If I lived here, I've be front and centre for every ceilidh, one foot bouncing madly under the table and a grin on my face above. Might even try my hand at the dancing!
Two of The Barra MacNeils from Cape Breton rocked the ceilidh casbah here at Piper's Pub, Saturday August 26th, 2006.
Antigonish is known as the "Highland Heart Of Nova Scotia", and brings all kinds of sincere homage to the title. There's a giant Highland Games every summer, complete with pole-tossing and pipe bands and what have you. The photos are really magnificent: terrifyingly hairy and sweaty men in kilts straining to throw some kind of giant rock on a chain, lines of ladies in full gear, dancing in formation. People come from miles around to see the spectacle and hear the music, so I hear. You can buy all manner of trinkety shit (magnets! hair bows! dog treats! teapots! licence plate surrounds! ETCETERA!) with the Nova Scotia tartan on it here in town - I have no idea who makes it all, or where it all goes once it's purchased. If you want a sporan (the fur-covered male purse-thing worn with a kilt), Antigonish can set you up. Bagpipe lessons? Sure, some of the most authentic dead-animal-gut music outside of Scotland, bye. I's the b'y that builds the boat? Maybe not so much anymore now that the fisheries are all collapsed, but certainly most Antigonishers (and that is, by the way, what you are if you're from Antigonish. An Antigonisher) would be able to rattle off every Stan Rogers song you never knew about, if you're not afraid to ask. I'm not saying it's a town of caricature borne, but if you let your western Canadian imagination get running wild, you're sure to have one or two beers more than necessary (beer's $2.50/pint at the local pub - cheap at twice the price, anywhere else in Canada) and start humming to yourself in public: "...I wish I was in Sherbrooke nooooowwwww... Shed no teeeeeeaarss!" ...And the Antigonishers? They don't mind.
A suncatcher in Margo's livingroom window. The thistle figures prominently in Nova Scotian Scottish descendants' iconography. Turner has one aunt (whose pronounciation of "shooooooes" is to my eternal delight) that chooses jewelery exclusively on the basis of whether it features a thistle.
Antigonish town at 5000 residents is technically small, but it punches above its weight for community goings-on and cultural happenings. Why? Partly because of where it is. Halfway between Cape Breton and Halifax, the county might be a drive-by for RV-hauling Americans, but it does have some great restaurants, and an established and thriving Acadien community. Although the county couldn't manage to keep Wal-Mart out, the downtown and local businesses still manage to keep their doors open and their smiles wide. The kiddie playground has this fantastic waterworks area with a giant dragon head spewing water, water cannons, a water rainbow and dancing fountains. There's an acclaimed summerlong theatre festival every year, and the gold-medal-three-years-running champion l'Acadie Blanc Jost wine is grown on an acre of hillside just off Southside Harbour road. Though it doesn't have a sushi place (despite being on the ocean, and even though some of the finest toro tuna belly in the world comes out of the water not 30 km from town at Boyd's Harbour), the town is a surprisingly cosmopolitan and diverse place.
And let me be the first (in this posting, anyway) to credit St. Francis Xavier University for its amazing and lovely impact/presence on the overall milieu. As someone who spent seven of my prime years at various levels of university study, I am unqualifiedly thrilled to find a spirit-fuelled undergraduate population in a place I spend part of the summer every year. There is no question that St. FXU (or, if you prefer, just "X") has a huge influence on the vibrancy of the town. In a province where you don't have to knock on more than two doors before you find a relative Gone Away to Alberta's oil sands for financial reasons, St. FX adds a youthful boost to a community that would otherwise feel emptied out of young people. It's a huge boon, the school.
Another thing is the cathedral. Sure, the Respect Life Centre on Main Street (a store which sells garage sale stuff and presumably gives out anti-abortion literature... though I wouldn't know - I've never been in) irks me with its location and philosophy, and LORD KNOWS (in fact, the Lord definitely knows better than anyone on this count) I'm no fan of some of the details of Catholicism proper. But I will say there's something grounding and lovely about everyone going to church here on Sundays at St. Ninian's cathedral. Go ahead and get pissy about me thinking it "quaint", but it's mainly that I appreciate the Sunday service appeal as a measure of community cohesion.
In Antigonish many excellent aspects of church are on full display every Sunday, with people yelling out hi to each other on the steps, sitting together and greeting their neighbours during the service, talking about the sermon in town later that day. People here still say, "God love 'er..." and they really mean bless you when they bless you after a sneeze. When it comes right down to it, even as a Protestant-raised-agnostic-islamist-buddhist-type person it's nice to visit a spectacularly gorgeous local church that keeps its doors unlocked, and doesn't make you pay an entry fee just to come in, and as a photographer you're never asked to get out when you're wandering around taking arty photos of the pillars and stained glass windows in the middle of the day.
And there are churchbells that ring. You have to be dead inside not to appreciate the charm of churchbells.
Looking up the left aisle, St. Ninian's Cathedral. The ceiling, domed and painted light blue, with frescoes, is spectacular (not shown).
But it's the everyday, commonsense, that's-the-right-way-to-be stuff about Antigonish that really wins my heart. Nobody loses their mind about bylaw regulations if somebody wants to bring their kid into the bar to hear the music. The guy who walks his pugs through town every day will tell you (without prompting) all about how his wife's peach-mango pie crust - which used a combo of Crisco AND butter - will never be duplicated, yes-yes. There's usually a bunch of kittens, "free to a good home", at the Saturday Market down at the Ex grounds - and they'll let you hold them as much as you want, even if you're not going to take one. Every ditch and vacant lot is full of Queen Anne's lace and goldenrod, and the municipal government lets it all stay. There are swimming holes alongs the rivers, and warm lakes with leafy bottoms, and long messy seashores with washed-up jellyfish to poke with a stick.
And - this is the thing, the amazing and magical gem that I had to save for last because it's so, so, so fantastic... and yet now so rare - kids still say hi to random adults (i.e. me) walking past their house.
Ponder that. When was the last time you saw that happen, on a regular basis, where you live? Might've been about 25 years ago, and the kid saying hi might've been YOU, hmmm?
Damn, it gets me every time. Kids calling out, "hullo!" to me, a total stranger. Unafraid to talk to me in a random store, un-over-chaperoned at the park. Kids, being kids. Just kids saying hi. About Antigonish, and perhaps eastern Canada in general, THAT'S saying something.
Kids jumping from the Arisaig pier docks... and nary a legislator salivating about the 0.00001% possibility of litigation if there were ever an accident. The pervasive phenomenon of "goddamn lawyers ruining everything" hasn't yet infected this sane coast.
Yep, I could live here. (...Did I mention the real estate prices?)
Categories: Canadiana | Nova Scotia