Monday, 10 October — Whycocomagh

Je souhaite à tous mes amis et parents canadiens un joyeux jour de l'Action de grâces! Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and family members!

I arose this morning well after 9h to moderate rain and drove to Judique. The Whycocomagh Port Hood Road was an even worse mess along the guardrails on the Whycocomagh end than last night and had become a mess beyond to the bridge over the Indian River; potholes were starting to form west of the Indian River bridge, but the road was still driveable at 60 km/h (35 mph); water was running down the road on the way up the mountain above the Kewstoke Bridge and in lots of other places; the Glencoe Road was in excellent shape, but a few potholes had appeared on the Rear Intervale Road. The colours in the backcountry were very good: it looks like the peak of colours there will be this week. There were some nice reds, even in the rain and some fog.

This week, the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre offers instructors’ cèilidhs at lunchtime; unlike the normal lunchtime cèilidhs throughout the regular season, these have a modest admission fee and feature the instructors who are teaching that day at the Buddy MacMaster School of Fiddling. Today’s instructors, Shelly Campbell and Dara Smith-MacDonald, are both public school teachers, who had the holiday off from their regular school classes but, like the dedicated teachers both of them are, chose to spend their holiday teaching. When I arrived, Hailee LeFort and Allan Dewar were playing. As I had lunch, Shelly took Hailee’s place and gave us some fine sets, including the tune Keepers of the Northeast that she wrote, which was new to me. Then, Dara took over the fiddle and gave us more fine sets, during the second of which Hailee and Shelly step danced. It was then time for the Buddy MacMaster School of Fiddling classes to resume, so Hailee returned to the stage and played more sets with Allan and, when he left the stage, with Kevin Levesconte. It was wonderful playing by all, a fine cèilidh indeed. I also got the chance to chat with some friends from PEI, who regularly come over for Celtic Colours week.

I got soaked in the hard rain that was falling when I went to the car after the cèilidh, even wielding an umbrella—the wind had become very strong and pushed the rain horizontally beneath the umbrella. I worked on my trip notes until it was time to go back in for a showing of Ron MacInnis’s 1971 CBC documentary The Vanishing Cape Breton Fiddler, the reäction to which did so much to revitalize Cape Breton fiddle music; Ron spoke about his work, still incomplete, on a follow-on documentary revisiting the state of the music today and both Ron and Frank MacInnis (no relation) fielded audience questions. After it was over, Ron and I had a good chat. I stayed on for the community seafood choices dinner; I had the pan-fried haddock, which was scrumptious. During the community dinner, Shelly Campbell and Allan Dewar provided tunes, with Marion Dewar taking her son Allan’s place for a couple of sets. Lovely music and a lovely dinner!

When I left the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre for the short walk over to the Judique Community Centre, the rain had stopped, but the wind was still gusting strongly and it was very cold. Tonight’s concert was entitled Master and Apprentice, a show honouring mentors and those who have carried on the skills they learned from the masters. First up were Rodney MacDonald and Glenn Graham on dual fiddles with Jackie Dunn-MacIsaac on keyboard and Sandy MacDonald on guitar; they gave us three sets: one from Rodney and Glenn’s Traditionally Rocking CD; an air/strathspeys/reels set including Anna Mae’s Reel and Joan’s Reel; and a set of reels preceded by the Kennedy Street March, during which Glenn and then Rodney step danced in turn. Lewis MacKinnon first gave us a a Gaelic song with Brian England on backing vocals; next, Lewis’s father recounted a humorous tale; to end his set, Lewis then sang a Jacobite incitement song, with guitar accompaniment he supplied and piano accompaniment and backing vocals Brian provided. When they had finished, Joe MacMaster came on stage accompanied by a gentleman I did not at first recognize, who sat down with his back to the audience at the real piano; Joe played two very fine sets, one on highland bagpipes and one on fiddle, and it gradually dawned on me that the unknown pianist, who was not introduced, had to be Ashley MacIsaac, as no one else I knew of his physical size could have done such a fine job on piano! At the end of his set, Joe said only “This is the guy who got me started” and are we ever grateful that he did!

After the break, Mary-Janet MacDonald with her daughter Kelly sang You Are My Sunshine. They then gave us a “rocking chair” song and followed it with A Mother’s Love Is a Blessing, with Kinnon Beaton on backing fiddle; the three songs were each very well done. Fin Moore on bellows pipes, Sarah Hoy on fiddle, and Allan Dewar on keyboard gave us a set of jigs, including Portree Bay; with Hamish Moore also on bellows pipes, they played a set of reels and then other tunes, during which Kelly and then Mary Janet step danced alone and then together; grand performances from all! Kinnon and Betty Lou Beaton were next up, but Betty Lou was unable to attend due to a badly broken ankle (she was also supposed to play with Joe, which is why Ashley took her place), so Jackie filled in for her on real piano; Sandy accompanied on guitar. Kinnon’s first was a slow air he learned from Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald; his second was a set of strathspeys and reels, ending with Andrea Beaton’s King Arthur’s Reel; Jackie switched to keyboard and Rodney and Glen joined Kinnon for another strathspeys and reels set and they concluded with yet another; grand tunes and lovely playing by all! For the finale, all the performers took the stage and began with a song I know best in John Allan Cameron’s version, Heading for Halifax, and continued with fiddle tunes, during which Lewis gave us a puirt a beul and Kelly, Lewis, Rodney, Glenn, Fin, and Ashley all step danced. It was a great concert and I was very glad I had chosen to be there.

Before the concert, I learned from friends attending the Celtic Colours concert in Eskasoni that they were stranded there as the roads into and out of town had been washed out and they were “guests of the village”, being fed and kept warm at the venue (they got back safely later that evening). I was unaware of any advance warning of severe weather—the forecast I read mentioned the offshore passage of the remnants of Hurricane Matthew, but nothing about gale-force winds, just fairly heavy rain, and that not even beginning to approach the more than 220 mm (8⅔ in) of rain that fell on the east side of the Island, causing serious flooding in the Sydney area, where a number of roads were under water and homes had to be evacuated, and serious infrastructure damage all over eastern Cape Breton. I learned from friends at the concert that some roads were washed out or flooded in other areas as well. I had intended to attend the Brook Village dance after the concert, where Ian MacDougall on fiddle and Mac Morin were to provide the music, two of my favourite players, and, in any case, needed to get back to Whycocomagh where my room for the night was. When I went outside, it was blowing furiously, but the rain was minimal. Heading off through the backcountry was one option, but gravel roads wash out earlier than others; going back to Port Hawkesbury and taking the Trans-Canada Highway was another, and likely the safest, option, but that meant missing the Brook Village dance; in the end, I decided to try to make it to Brook Village, in spite of the Mabou River often flooding Highway 252 after heavy rains such as we had experienced today, but knew enough not to try to drive my Prius through water of any depth on the road. (Another option would have been the Rankinville Road between Mabou and Glendyer, but that requires one to climb the gravel road above Murrays Bridge, which would likely be one of the first to sustain damage from the rains.) So, off I went towards Mabou from Judique on Highway 19; it was one wild and wooly drive, with the winds buffeting the car and moving it on the road. Some branches were down, a couple protruding out into the road, but I slowly made it to Mabou and stopped at the parking lot at the Freshmart to consult the latest information on the internet, including the provincial road conditions site. Finding nothing about the local area, I headed off to Brook Village, descending Exhibition Hill with great caution. Although the river was nearly even with the road through the Landing, it was not on nor over the road and I had no problem making it through Glendyer and Hillsborough and on to Brook Village, where I arrived at 23h30 in the third figure of a square set. (I later learned that 15 cm (6 in) of water had been on the road a half hour previous, when some friends drove through it in their larger vehicle anyway.)

Given the conditions of the night, I was surprised at the number of folks in the hall; 27 couples danced the third figure of the next square set, during which the power went out. The emergency lights came on, Mac abandoned the keyboard for the upright piano at the right side of the stage (one of the few times I have ever seen it put to use), and Ian moved to centre stage beside him, and the dance continued! No mere storm was going to stop the last Brook Village dance of the year! Fin Moore arrived after I did and joined Ian and Mac on stage, playing bellows pipes to increase the volume of the now unamplified music for the dancers. A long pause ensued after the end of the next square set, danced by at least 27 couples, as the batteries powering the emergency lights ran down (they only last for about twenty minutes), but few if anyone left the dance. Eventually, various portable lights were brought into the hall and beamed onto the white ceiling for maximum effect, so the musicians played for the step dancers: I didn’t recognize the first lady, but the second was Kimberley Wotherspoon and the third, I think, was David Rankin. The music ended at 0h58 and, after thanking the musicians, I left.

The drive back to Whycocomagh was uneventful, with the winds having abated somewhat. When I got to the motel’s driveway, though, I found a large branch laying across it; I got out and, with some effort, was able to drag it off the driveway far enough I could get around it. Once in my room, it too was without power, but I was more than ready for bed and quickly got between the covers. The wind continued to shake the building, but I was soon fast asleep, oblivious to the last throes of Hurricane Matthew.