For Her Home

After our weekend at the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival, we took another “downtime” day at our cottage. I promised myself that I would open up my watercolors and do a bit of painting. Art helps me stop and really look at light and shadow, at color and movement. I lugged my chair out to what we called “The Point” and began.

Whenever I paint or draw, my inner critic is at the ready. I told myself, this is for me, no one else. I swirled my paintbrush in a teacup of water. Dabbed into a blue and then a bit of red. Not quite right? Dilute the color a bit. Absorb the previous attempt with a paper towel. See? No big deal. This is for me.

Painting is more meditative than taking a photo. I really look at the shape of the shadows, and how the sunlight plays on the grasses. I notice the variation of color among the wildflowers. I watch the sea breeze lift the spruce boughs.

Journaling is another way to pause and capture, especially emotion. Here is an excerpt from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journal, written when she was 17 years old. In this entry, she shares her emotional response to the natural world.

A glorious day this-mild and sunny; moreover it has been one of those rare ones when everything goes exactly right and life seems bright and serene. This morning I took a walk through the woods down to the spring-the loveliest spot. Oh, it was all so beautiful! The calm fresh loveliness of the woods seemed to enter into my very spirit with voiceless harmony-the harmony of clear blue skies, mossy trees and gleaming snow. All the little fears and chafings shrank into nothing and vanished. Standing there beneath that endless blue dome, deep with the breathing of universal space, I felt as if the worlds had a claim on my love-as if there were nothing of good I could not assimilate-no noble thought I could not re-echo. I put my arm around a lichened old spruce and laid my cheek against its rough side-it seemed like an old friend.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900, entry dated March 16, 1892.

Lucy Maud Montgomery is speaking to my heart. My home is on a wooded hillside in Massachusetts. After spending hours with my face in a computer screen, I am grateful for the chance to rest my eyes on acres of green. Our time on the Island gave us an opportunity to gaze at the endless blue dome of the sky (not as visible in the woods) and vastness of the deep blue sea.

My little painting of the Cape Bear Lighthouse.

We timed our trip to Prince Edward Island so that we could partake in the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival. This is a small, family-centric festival. One main stage meant no running from stage to stage to catch the next act. The workshops are aimed to raise up generations of fiddle players. The festival featured minimal vendors for food, drink, and musician merch. Less distractions, more focus. In short, this was my scene.

On Friday night, we were welcomed by the Chaisson family. The Chaissons are hugely influential in the Prince Edward Island music scene, so I am surprised to find little online information about the family. Here is an article on Kevin, co-founder (or son of the co-founder?) of the PEI Fiddlers’ Association. Tim Chaisson, Darren Chaisson, and J.J. Chaisson were especially visible during the weekend. Yes, they led various fiddle sessions. And, they did the grunt work as well. Guided vehicles through the muddy parking areas, shoveled gravel to aid the stuck RVs, and made emergency runs for toilet paper.

As indicated by the mention of mud and stuck vehicles, rainy weather impacted this year’s festival. The weather held on Friday night, but the skies opened up on Saturday. The festival grounds were sopping wet. Fortunately, the afternoon sessions took place in the ceilidh barn. Ed and I settled in for the songwriter circle.

The circle included Andrea Beaton (Cape Breton), Laura Cortese (San Francisco, CA), Shane Pendergast (Prince Edward Island), and the indomitable Liz Carroll (Chicago, IL). Liz was the obvious Queen, and rightly so. Her skills are impressive. The layout of her website is a little crazy. Nonetheless, it is a good starting point for learning about her. These fiddlers spend more time on their craft than their online presence! Again, less distraction and more focus.

After the songwriter circle, we purchased warming soups from the Ladle and Loaf food truck. I got a luscious butter chicken and Ed got the corn and bacon chowder. Sitting under the beer tent, we decided to forgo the evening sessions and head back to the cottage. Driving through sheets of rain and puddled roadways in the daylight hours was preferable to leaving in darkness and fog.

We returned to the ceilidh barn on Sunday. The Rollo Bay Kitchen Group (pictured above) kicked off the sessions. This is a group of beginners lead by Darren Chaisson. Fiddlers are encouraged to join in at increasing levels of difficulty.

The afternoon had a recital atmosphere with J.J. Chaisson as the master of ceremonies. Queens County Fiddlers were next. Prince Edward Island has three counties: Kings County, Queens County, and Prince County. Each county has fiddle sessions.

The primary function of the [PEI Fiddlers] Society is to preserve the music by encouraging future generations to take up the fiddle, and exposing the music to as wide an audience as possible. 

Queens County Fiddlers website

The Fanø Fiddlers hail from a small island in Denmark. This group of youngsters and their instructor completely charmed us. The brother-and-sister duo James and Sara Nelson (New Brunswick) talked about taking lessons at Rollo Bay as children. They finished their set with step dancing.

The Receivers likewise shared their gratitude for instruction. This tune, offered to Koady Chaisson whose untimely death shocked all of us in January 2022, brought joy to our hearts and moved us to tears.

The sun shone on the evening sessions. During the 6 Hearts session, Tim Chaisson and Jake Charron (from the East Pointers), and Emmanuelle LeBlanc and Pascal Miousse (from the band Vishtèn) invited the seated crowd to get up and move toward the stage. We joined in the joyous celebration with commitment to return next year for Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival #48.

Next year, I will be on the floor for the “Here We Go Barn Dance.”

We live in Montague, Massachusetts, so we were tickled with the idea of vacationing near another Montague. This Montague is larger than ours. Two grocery stores, hardware and liquor stores, and several restaurants. This is where we did our grocery shopping.

Montague is on a branch of the Confederation Trail, an extensive rail trail that runs nearly 170 miles from Tignish to Elmira. There are multiple branches to small towns where long distance walkers and bicyclists can find restaurants and accommodations. In Montague, the trail runs alongside the Montague River pictured above.

I have baking in my blood. My maternal great-grandfather and his sister were bakers in Ireland, and he continued his craft after emigration to the United States. I love freshly baked breads-who doesn’t? During our vacation, I enjoyed purchasing bilingual ingredients to make these cream biscuits one morning.

I had one bread failure from accidentally turning off the oven after preheating. The loaf rose and then collapsed. Determined to redeem myself, I baked another loaf several days later. I did miss my bread knife. The knives in rental kitchens are always dull.

We discovered several “home cooking” style restaurants. I wrote about Home Plate in an earlier post. We joined our friend Louise, her friend Beth, and her cousin Leo at local favorite Harbourview Restaurant. I had the award-winning seafood chowder and Ed had pan-fried scallops with mashed potatoes and peas. Later in our trip, we ate at Our Family Traditions in Tignish. Again, the sides were mashed potatoes and peas. So, I guess that is a P-E-I thing?

Local fiddlers provided a different style of home cooking. The night before the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival, we headed to Hillcrest United Church to see Fiddlers’ Sons with guest fiddler Cynthia MacLeod. The church pews were jam-packed. Cynthia is a lively performer with “crackerjack” fiddling skills. Her albums, including Crackerjack, are available for download at Bandcamp.

Here is a pandemic era virtual concert that features Cynthia with Brent Chaisson. More about the Chaisson Family in my next blog post!

Lucy Maud Montgomery loved walking in the woods. We are forest-dwellers ourselves, and our time on Prince Edward Island gave us ample opportunities appreciate natural beauty of this place.

Those dear, old woods down there are so pretty-all shadowy nooks, carpeted with moss, or paths with ferns or wildflowers nodding along them. We sauntered down under the trees and flung ourselves down on a mossy bank by the brooks. And there, fanned by the cool breezes, we lay and gazed through half-shut-lids at the blue sky, smiling through the traceries of the spruce boughs, or explored by the eye the intersecting glades and dreamed idly of long, delicious summer days to come, when we might wander at will through those ferny depths and gather all the joys of Nature’s bridal hours.

From Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journal, dated May 6, 1890 when she was 15 years old.

The ferny depths.

And nodding wildflowers.

The beach roses!

And shadowy nooks.

This mysterious red berry. So brilliant in the sun.

On December 11, 1890, Lucy Maud Montgomery writes from her father’s home in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan:

I’ve been very lonely and homesick of late. Oh, for one glimpse of Cavendish [her hometown on Prince Edward Island]! Of course I know that it is winter down there now, just as here, but in thinking of it I always remember it just as I left it in the prime of summer with buttercups and asters blooming by the brooks, ferns blowing spicily in the woods, lazy sunshine sleeping on the hills, with the beautiful sea beyond, blue and bright and far-reaching. There is no spot on earth more lovely.

From Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journal, newly 16 years old. Her birthday is November 30, 1874. Her mother died from tuberculosis when she was barely 2 years old. At that point, she was placed in the care of her maternal grandparents. Her father moved to Saskatchewan when she was 7 years old. As a teen, Lucy Maud Montgomery spend one year with her father and his new family before returning to the Island.

After our visit to the Green Gables Heritage Place, we took a short drive to Rustico. Peter LeClair, Ed’s great-grandfather, was born in Rustico. The bay is the traditional and unceded territory of First Nations Mi’kmaq (pronounced mi’kmaw). The two arms surround a bay noted for oyster beds. Tabooetooetun is a historic site for seasonal Mi’kmaq camps.

Colonization of Rustico occurred when the British sought to expel Acadians in 1758. Original settlers seeking refuge included French-speaking families Blanchard, Buote, Doiron, Gaudet, Gauthro, LeBrun and Martin. 

The current name of Rustico comes from one of the first French settlers, René Rassicot, originally from Avranches (Normandy) facing the Mont-Saint-Michel bay, who arrived in Port-LaJoye in 1724. He then settled in the Wheatley River estuary which flows into Rustico Bay. The first spellings “Racica” and “Racico” (used by enumerator de la Roque in 1752) gradually evolved into Rustico.

website Acadie created by Jean-Marc Agator and Jean-Pierre Bernier.

Arnold Smith (featured in the video below) was eager to tell us the history of Rustico. After we toured the museum and Doucet House, we popped into the Genealogy room. The museum holds church records and other historical documents. We were not prepared to conduct research-during this visit! Maybe another time.

On Wednesday, July 19, we visited the Green Gables Heritage Place. I am nostalgic for Anne of Green Gables. I read aloud several Lucy Maud Montgomery books to my daughters, and together we watched the 1985 miniseries with Megan Follows. Ed and I were ardent followers of The East Pointers #Annedemic readings on Facebook Live during the pandemic. I am not a fan of the Netflix series “Anne with an E.” Like most Netflix series, this interpretation is too dark and disturbing for me. I much prefer the original text and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television series.

This Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it here already, and I am so glad I’m going to live here. I’ve always heard that Prince Edward Island is the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine that I lived here, but I never really expected that I would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?”

Anne Shirley, Chapter 2. Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised, in “Anne of Green Gables” by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Parks Canada preserved Lucy Maud Montgomery’s inspiration for Green Gables-the farmhouse of her cousins, the Macneills. The inside of the house is arranged to mimic the fictional home of the Cuthberts. Pictured above is Matthew’s room and Marilla’s room.

The bedrooms are small, but sweetly decorated. Above is the fictional Anne’s room. The Heritage Place includes walking trails, named Haunted Woods and Lovers Lane. Anne fans will recognize those references. We visited on a rainy day. The scent of spruce was so Christmas-y and lovely! I took this photo to remind me, as there is no way for me to capture that heavenly olfactory experience.

The Cuthbert dining table. Notice the blueberry pie? Not unlike the pie I baked earlier in the week.

Thanks to Ed for capturing this. Unwittingly color coordinated with the Green Gables gardens.

Who is Maurice, you might ask? I am not sure, but please play the video at the end of this post to lift your spirits!

I can tell you about Meals by Caroline at the Home Plate Restaurant and Bakery.

Caroline earns her rave reviews in Murray River. My favorite reviewer says “My mom hasn’t laughed that hard at a restaurant ever. So fun and great food!” I certainly laughed while trying to do justice to the huge pot of tea I was given, alongside the large plate of fish and chips. Ed enjoyed the maple bacon on his burger, despite the fact that Caroline herself does not enjoy the taste of maple.

We needed a walk after that lunch, so we headed to Poverty Beach. The beach was not the best for strolling-lots of rocks and seaweed. But, we put our feet in the salty sea and marveled at the rusty-colored stones and pebbles.

We spent two glorious “downtime” days to recover from our two travel days. We made plans for daytrips to further explore the island.

But, oh, what a blessing to simply take in the beauty of this place!

As promised, Meals by Maurice.

The good stars met in your horoscope/Made you of spirit and fire and dew ~Epigraph in Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

From the poem “Evelyn Hope” by Robert Browning

Honestly, I was stunned by the beauty of Prince Edward Island. We arrived on Sunday, July 17 after a two-day drive from Massachusetts. I felt blessed by all the stars in the heavens.

Prince Edward Island is the birthplace of my husband’s maternal grandmother Olive Gaudet. Ed and I had several excellent reasons to visit PEI. Genealogy is one reason. Another relates to our experience of the global pandemic. The East Pointers, a roots music band from Prince Edward Island, launched a nightly reading of Anne of Green Gables in April 2020. Every night at 6:00pm ET, we set our laptop on the table with our supper. We listened to Koady Chaisson, Tim Chaisson, and Jake Charron (and their many friends) read a chapter and play a fiddle tune. #Annedemic was a bright spot in an otherwise confusing time, and the readings united us with people from all over the globe-literally.

The drive to Prince Edward Island is long. Long and beautiful! Up through Maine and across New Brunswick. Our travel day was rainy, and the mist hung in the evergreens along the highway. We stopped in St. John, New Brunswick for coffee and tea. This port city is where Ed’s grandmother Olive Gaudet left Canada for Boston, according to her naturalization papers.

Our first meal on the Island was a Bogside Brewing in Montague, PEI. Yes! Another Montague. Not only that, but Gone Coastal was on tap! An obvious cousin to Ed’s Gone Postal. I went for the Belgian Wit, and we both scarfed down burgers and fries after our long drive.

Our sweet cottage. As lovely as the place is, there was a plague of mosquitos. Seriously. Swarms of them. The screened porch helped. We stayed for two weeks (aka, a fortnight).

On our first morning on the Island, we headed into Montague for groceries. Our first supper on PEI-mussels, new potatoes and blueberry pie. I love having a kitchen when I travel. A relief and yet another blessing to have home-cooked meals and freshly baked treats.

Every night, I read a short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Chronicles of Avonlea was published in 1912, and gives a nod to Anne Shirley. The spunky orphan is mentioned in several stories, but is the main character in none. One of the more humorous stories involves quarantine during the smallpox epidemic.

“Now, now, don’t quarrel, my good people.” interposed the doctor seriously-but I saw a twinkle in his eye. “You’ll have to spend some time together under the same roof and you won’t improve the situation by disagreeing.”

While listening to the doctor I had been thinking. It was the most distressing predicament I had ever got into in my life, but there was no sense in making it worse.

“Very well, doctor,” I said calmly. “Yes, I was vaccinated a month ago when the news of the smallpox first came.”

[She’s told this isn’t enough protection to ensure that she won’t spread the disease.]

Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s, short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery