New Brunswick September 17-20, 1978

On my last night in La Belle Province I decided to stop at a little motel – ‘Chaleur Chalets’, near Port Daniel, where I could look across Chaleur Bay towards the next province on my Canadian sojourn: New Brunswick.  Chaleur Chalets is run by a Quebecois fellow and his British Columbian wife.  Darci and Donna were teachers in Inukjuak, on the eastern shores of Hudson Bay.  It’s an incredibly remote, isolated and desolate kind of place with an almost entirely Inuit population.   And of course it’s cold and dark for much of the year.  They were there almost ten years, and had some interesting views on the life and culture, the many changes they witnessed, and some of the hardships and frustrations both they and the local residents endured.  Having now settled here in the Gaspe, they’ve decided to commit to full-time photography.  Their subject: Gaspesia.  As they did in the north, they have here immersed themselves in the landscape, people and culture of Gaspesia.  We talked well into the night.

The next morning I crossed into New Brunswick.  I had to stop at Dalhousie University to see an old photograph of my great grandfather, Richard Chapman Weldon, the first dean of Dalhousie Law School, from 1883 to 1914.  There was a recent story behind the reason I had to stop.  Just before this trip, when I was working as the editor of the digest of proceedings of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry, I noticed that one of the young lawyers taking part in the proceedings kept looking at me.  Finally during one of the breaks he came over and told me he was sure he knew me from somewhere.  As he was from eastern Canada, and I was born and raised in the west, it seemed unlikely.  But we got to talking, and at some point he mentioned that he’d gone to Dalhousie Law School.  So of course I mentioned that my great grandfather was the first dean of that school. “That’s it”, he exclaimed (with no small amount of excitement), “that’s where I know you from!  There’s a picture of your great grandfather in the main hallway of the school and you look just like him!”  So of course I had to see it for myself, and yes, I can see the family resemblance.  But still....




 Note:  Weldon was an interesting, and apparently ‘majestic and magnetic’ figure.   

 Here’s a bit of a blurb about him on the Dalhousie University website:     https://www.dal.ca/about-dal/dalhousie-originals/richard-chapman-weldon.html

 


We drove on, now along the southern coast of Chaleur Bay, where I could look across and almost see Darci and Donna’s place, until we got to another closed provincial park, Val-Comeau, near Shippagan.  The campsites are set in a fairly open forest of maples and pines (or spruce) with lots of yellow and orange ferns filling in the gaps. It’s close to a sandy beach, and there’s no one else here, so we’re free to frolic as we like, sans leash.  Dusty’s idea of heaven.  


 



 

Tonight by the fire I am thinking about the past several weeks of travel – my Canadian sojourn – as Dusty chases rabbits in his sleep.  The two of us have covered a lot of miles since Ottawa.  Have seen and experienced so much.  Sometimes I feel sated, almost glutted, with daily, hourly, even minutely (minutely?) sensory input: the everchanging colours and textures of the landscapes, the history and culture (or lack thereof) manifest in the many settlements, old buildings and churches, and the interesting people I have met.  I feel a strong desire to try to capture it all, or at least some of it, in words or images – to write, to photograph.  But it feels so inadequate. I’m not up to the task.  So I ask myself, why do I feel this need to capture, to record?  Why not just enjoy the moment, each moment?  What has become my mantra echoes in my mind:  “Discover Canada: Discover Yourself.”












Location: Shippagan, NB, Canada

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