wow b’y sorry i almost hit you. buddy says trying to turn into university.
but you didn’t and almost doesn’t count.

herman was chatting with his passenger when he started to turn. he was still distracted as here we were holding up traffic on a monday rush hour to talk. we made jokes about how his aim was awful if hunting only the target would be safe. he drives off almost hitting a couple now crossing.

-strike two.

i was ready to leave but had a few chores i wanted to do first one being find some decent pastry, i found that awful motel coffee filled me with enough anxiety for a good eight hours and i didn’t need the energy boost the double double provided until the afternoon.

i thought that circling the island might be a bit ambitious even if i didn’t take into account my constant stopping. i couldn’t decide whether the road not hugging the shore was a good or a bad thing. it meant being able to speed some distances -well not really as i was stopping at anything interesting not just what was along the shore - but it also meant risking a cul-de-sac hoping that there was something interesting at the end of it.

caught on pretty soon, if there was a provincial park at the end i gave it a miss, if there was a wharf, it was a definite trip. this decision did slow the trip a great deal as i started chatting with people along the way.

looking at a house across from deb who was born down the road but now lives in ontario, she told me that it was owned by someone who wants to pull it down as he wants to store his boats, the last person who owned, she said as she was leading in the house, kept racoons upstairs - she said it was their green gardens.

she was quite upset as it seems that someone had pulled out the bannisters.

remarked that i am surprised. the way that i saw the island going this would be some bed and breakfast or worse pulled down so that some resort village could be built. the owner had been approach but he wants it for his boats.

when she told me when she heard of my plans, that the area around cavendish is all tourist all the time - anne of green gables land. my resolve weakened. i had seen the wood islands ferry and it seemed that they was a place on the ferry out of north sydney.

the island was nice but as far as coastal drives it was pretty lacking - or it is my warped character for what they had annotated i had no interest in places of interest and their signs didn’t seem to show to points of habitation.

stopped again in annandale where craig saw me and stopped for a chat - even got out of his pick up so that i could photograph him. later he showed me a rarity - he says - a working fisherman. craig fishes tuna, crab, lobster. he also tells me to steer clear of cavendish but the rest of the north shore is ok. he also said when i leave the island take the ferry it runs every 90 minutes but wasn’t sure when.

one would think that i would become more adept at seeing and reacting to what i saw but the reaction time didn’t lessen at all. the working method was pretty much set stopped when i saw signs of sparse populations’ gathering points - ball parks out paced churches and community halls.

stopped at east point to add another eastern most point to the list of points made - passed mario lorde and his family on the way.

i had to stop at naufrage - simply because of the name - well worth it with the mix of traditional fishing village with tourist cafés and motels with a wind farm in the distance.

in saint peters after having a craving for a slurpee, saw an information centre - saw it as there was a house being launched but someone forgot about the power lines blocking all of st peters.

asked about the wood islands ferry she gave me a schedule it was leaving on the south shore in an hour - a bee line straight through the middle of the island - stopping only twice - making it with 20 minutes to spare.

at least it was a ferry i thought and it was the northumberland ferry lines was only missing a letter.

in the hotel in new glasgow phoned marine-atlantic about a space on the sailing to-morrow midnight.

sorry.

strike two.

wanting a coffee in the birthplace of confederation

-is that a mamiya 6 or a 7?
absorbed in my own thoughts it had to be repeated
-a 7 or a 6.
-a 6
geek boy seemed to be disappointed.
i had decided to stay in charlottetown, i was beginning to drive like an automaton, i would stop but there was this daze which was lengthening the already longish reaction time between sightings and reaction.

driving alone was good for thinking things through but i would have to spend extra brain cells remember my moments of brilliance.

i decided to stay to get some exercise walking, because the room was comfy and private and there was a washing machine.

i was out and about looking for a coffee that wasn’t from tim hortons. i had brought the globe and a series of postcards for things to do while having it along with a decent sweat roll. the search had become a wander as i making choices at corners not on which would lead to a possible outdoor café - did i mention that i had to sit outdoors?
instead i was choosing the way to go by which option would be more visually interesting. i realised this when i didn’t enter what looked like tourist land and instead decided to walk streets that were on the balancing point between rehab and the falling down. there were places that served breakfast - nice looking conveniences - but i only wanted a café au lait and some sort of pastry.

i had passed a place that held potential but there was only one table and two women were glued to the seats.

i prefer the six. i said as i collapsed the camera it is nice and portable. sam was drooling now, he wanted to handle it and i was teasing him. funny i had just seen this photo-imaging shop across queen street that made newfoundland imaging look like b&h in new york.

he wasn’t sure about the square, he is keen about photography to the point of calling himself a geek. his friends seem to sigh and they realise they are in for a long wait as we chat. i mention the joys of the 500mm lens which the seven doesn’t have in any useful way. i ask were he buys his film as he uses film and he points across the street

-they have three rolls of colour film.

we are standing in front of what seems to be a nice café where, i think, he and his mates were heading, in fact they have vegetarian items on the menu mention that i am looking for a coffee but although this seems fine there is no place outside to sit.

he mentions the place that i had just passed - ampersand - he works there. said that i was it but there were two woman out front in the only seat.

-one is probably my sister.

was going to show him what was done with the camera but it seems that i left my snaps in the room. we part and my search continues.

i think that i like the area that i am walking in, not the shops along richmond street which seems to be the fine dining ghetto. the street was closed and there were officially sanctioned musicians playing for the those dining al fresco.

a strange “fountain” from one of the sewer covers water is spurting up in three streams at first i wasn’t sure but i think that it was on purpose. there were also too many faux irish pubs.

did find the pizza that i was craving last evening. arriving and recovering from the shock of the room, i asked where i could find a pizza
-greco
-but isn’t that a chain?
oh well there is jake pizza by the needs convenience it is about a 10 minute walk
again i took the post cards and planned some quiet time having a pizza but while the pizza was good - it was decidedly for take-away and there were too many stung out teens wanting to use the toilets.

i was looking for a nice individual pizza with fresh ingredients and closer than than the suggested place.

but king street seemed to be this mix of live long residents coming up against the rehabbers.

ms. nichols comes out looking for her cat - and mentions the lovely weather. she has been in the neighbourhood since she was a child. she was born in the house in front of hers but her brother bought it - i think i passed it and it was now a bed and breakfast, a judge was buying a house around the corner.

we talked about sitting out front rather than out back,how neighbourhoods are safer. a white cat comes up who lives next door but is friendly enough to be picked up. it has an extra claw, she mentions the buddy across the street who when tired and the sun is on his side of the street comes over to sit on her chair.

her next door neighbour told her about people who were climbing on her roof. mentioned that this area looked more like the boston states than what i would find in canada, there seems to be this style of architecture that didn’t stop at the border. i remember seeing the same type of building in saint john.

under her siding the house was a log home, i was told.

she went in i went on still looking for a café

i was feeing selfish to-day as i didn’t bring out the digital much. i found that it is getting in the way more and more. i use it knowing how everything has to be instantaneous and thus it is used for the weblog.

while it works well with people i find more and more the almost invisible act an act that i was trying to make second nature has become a ritual.

now i am going to take two as i now i have to take the snap with both. they don’t keep the pose, i make an official one with ziquinho then bring out the digital to make snaps when we have started to chat again.

but to-day i was using the digital even more sparingly. walking i was away from photographing things and dealing more with situations. in cities without that infinite landscape situations are the norm but here i was making an effort to place the object in the formal integrity of the snap rather than allowing it the dignity when i am racing about in a machine.

i also was glad that i didn’t bring the deardorff, it is great for fixed photographs in a fixed place but in my indirect way of working of allowing things to happen. the initial photographs made would be the same but that snap that is around the corner, the chat with buddy who comes up would be lost. when a choice between the shortest and a more elongated walk would have to be made i would rationalise for the shorter. i had realised again that the best snaps that i make are around the corner from the one i was planning, not really 10x8 territory.

i head up king street bent on getting back to an place where i can find that outdoor café but still i divert. find a tim hortons, and its starbucklike alter ego - timothy’s head back to the room for more film then down university avenue and find beanz. i had made a direct walk i would have found the café in five minutes as it was the place was closing in 45 minutes.

-they’re falling apart, buddy says as i am watching the last innings of p.e.i. v. the ironmen from miramichi.

-yeah they should pull this pitcher also he is rattled now.
mentioned how i preferred this level of play as they are trying.
he mentioned hockey and how it wasn’t what it was,
- they should go down to twelve teams. buddy (forgot the player’s name) made eight million and scored eight goals, hell someone gave me a million a goal i sure enough would try and baseball is no better a winning pitcher who can only go five innings? the game is too specialised.

the stroll was turning into a loss i headed into victoria park to find a place to write the rest of the post cards but the benches were taken and the park itself didn’t hold any interest for me. did remark that there was a narrows but it was a pretty tame one.

-still using film? a park worker yelled out before he had to chase out some people who were in an off limits area.

i would walk back to the hotel, thinking the houses along brighton road quite respectable, but then at the sign that said i was entering the historic centre, i turned left to stroll once again.

-something smells around here are there any skunks.
-no that’s politicians.

splurged with hot and sour soup and stir-fried tofu with cashews at leo’s thai kitchen - quite good. then headed over to gahan house a brew pub that was well hidden in a restaurant. the beer was good but one should run when one has to wait to be seated at a pub. if not that the twee glasses should also be a signal. they are supposedly what is needed to savour the full bouquet but give me a pint glass.

at least it is an island

itinerary


canon or nikon? buddy asked as he approaches.
mamiya.

i wasn’t sure if i wanted to piss down rain so that i could get a good days driving in and make it to p.e.i in time to find a hotel before midnight - or not as i would miss another part of the acadian coast.

the weather couldn’t decide either as the downpour stopped long enough for me to walk around newcastle which it seems this part of marimichi was called.

there was a nice square but i avoided it deciding to head down a pleasant street for a bit then turn toward the river and head back then decide whether i should hit the square. it was an odd move for someone who was thinking of trying to make it to charlottetown.

buddy was nelson cloud mi’k maq photographer - meaning a photographer from the mi’k maq nation. we chatted on the street a bit then as he was heading to his favourite café, i joined him and like a great aunt i went to the machine and brought out not the small haiku that i show most people but just because.

sat and chatted with he and his friend drew who told me of the area - it seems that dick cheney was up last week to hunt. they gave me places to see, but wondered as nelson was a wild life photographer and as everyone does, they placed the fear of moose in me. they also said that moose were not native to newfoundland that they were imported for hunting reasons - thanks for that brilliant idea.

asked if i sold work.
i laughed.
the book he was holding cost $200 to make
-that’s not bad as he heads over to a shelf
who would bay a $400 book.

he was heading to a book by the sackville snapper and was surprised that i knew him it was his book on salmon runs in the province which opened more sore spots and this fear that i am falling through every crack possible. he is included in the show at the discovery centre that opened this week-end. he has published another book like the salmon runs that i have and this trip was supposedly an attempt to somehow crawl back into visibiliity - just because was to be left at the discovery centre to remind them that other photographers have been to gros morne, i was also heading over to rocky harbour to java jakes to see it they would be interested in allowing me to display some work since they had work of the great northern by that new brunswicker. so seeing nelson reach for his book as an example had me wanting something stronger than coffee.

the dissappointment this time wasn’t not making it to the rock but i had a definite purpose. from the last two outings there - heading down the burin then up the bonavista and then the french coast, i knew what i was trying to come to terms with.

the outings before this while there was a purpose it was more or less let’s see what happens even the residency was sort of spring training it was seeing how i would react to what was in front of me.

the more the little exercise of photographing people who talked to me became more about the conversation than some cross between a conceptual piece and a collection. the more i knew about the not so much the history but people’s relationship to the province.

i also realised that i was at the point where i could go two ways with this. i could be eternally working on this project in the manner of cbc presenters who seem to be eternally writing books, or coaches who are constantly adding to their notes so that when they edit they will come to it from a position of strength.

i finally realised that finishing what i wanted to do - notice how i don’t say precisely what it is - didn’t mean i was finished exploring not even exploring this but it was making a commitment to a thesis.

this trip was for that i knew what i was looking for - not specifically there were no specific photographs i was looking for it was situations - and this would have added to and completed the thesis.

even this jaunt around the coast was to be part of it not photographically but in comparison. there is a reason why i am heading to the tips of places - gaspé, in acadie, p.e.i., cape breton, it is to compare to get some perspective.

the original original itinerary was to more closely compare québec outports with those of newfoundland. beyond baie comeau beyond the end of the road on the north shore there are anglophone settlements.

i am getting ahead of myself but wondering why charlottetown was nice but wasn’t really exciting me i looked up the population 35 000 a third the size of st john’s. things fell into place.

but i hid my bitterness well to nelson and drew by simply mentioning that my camera was bigger.

again this was perfect, we chatted until the conversation waned i excused myself and got in the machine to head off. it was well past noon but now there really wasn’t a reason to make time and i knew that whatever timetable i set up no matter how loose, wouldn’t be met.

the drive was by far the most diverse to this point. rain then over cast skies, there were more oddities by the road than before, not quirky signs but simply strange things - the plot of and with a table a couple of chairs and an outhouse - photographed the usual suspects but also brought in pretty landscapes.

i still found that i would stop for one thing and find it something better because i did stop.
a barachois at eel river briidge where because a pick-up pulled out when i arrived on the bridge above him, i found a campsite that brought humanity to the pretty landscape - but i am sure that not even that would justify the image at the dukedom.

in baie sainte anne i stopped to photograph a closed gasbar mainly for the formal until i saw the dories behind it and then noticed netting set out to dry where the pumps used to be.

chatted with buddy who was protesting the government as it was taking his land for the national park at kouchibouguac.

made snaps of teens bored with life in richibucto village ironically hangin out in front of an old age centre.

photographed buildings tied to the fishery as it while making it down he coast. found that the rain didn’t stop me from.

was gobsmacked when i saw the confederation bridge, this line almost hugging the northumberland straight with a minor bump in the middle that stretched out sight. structure as landscape sculpture, earlier through the mauze i could see another wind farm on the tip of p.e.i. like the ones in gaspé they are beautiful. those wine sipping twees of martha’s vineyard are crazy worrying about their view, they look like giant sentinals slowly rotating. someone should tell them that it is a christo and marie claude project.

shocked at the toll for the bridge -$42.50. i stopped at the information centre to see if they take bank cards.

-hey how are you buddy says coming up to me.
don’t recognise him.
-we were in the same motel in marimichi i saw you check in.
still didn’t ring a bell i was still glad to not only find a place to sleep but to be through moose alley.
they were the lordes up from the gta going east this time, it seems that they had been to an artist colony in saskatchewan.
now i vaguely remembered someone asking about which way his room and i remembered his wife.

asked me what i was doing - brought the book and while i was photographing them he photographed me. this seems to be the trend as nelson did the same.

over the bridge into the strangest welcome centre i’ve been in a substantial shopping complex with quite a few buildings as if one could be lured into paying $42.50 if there were shopping on the other end - found out from mario that one only pays when leaving and they do take bank cards.

p.e.i. was yet another environment - heavy farming from what i saw potatoes everywhere. was worried though when i pulled into charlottetown - the outskirts looked like mount pearl with the walmarts, zellers, indigos, atlantic superstore, sobeys sears, winners. it seemed like the motels were clustered in the area.

headed into town hoping to find a place where i could walk instead of drive. after the price shock i was in the room in an annex that looks like a bed and breakfast - without the annoying people.

i felt like a pizza

if the world gives you lemons make lemonade...

itinerary
but what if you hate lemonade.
not being able to reach marine atlantic when i got into the hojo’s - it seems that unlike other transportation corporations they close at night, when there are ferry crossings, i rang the first thing in the morning to see if there wasn’t space on the ferry at midnight to-morrow on the first one out.

both were booked. in fact there was no space on the ferry until monday and i would have to buy a cabin.

am in shock. it looks like i will not be able to get to the rock at all. i cannot afford to keep staying in hotels here while i wait for i won’t have any funds to ramble the province heading down to the outports and spending time as i made my way slowly to the avalon.

it is my fault, i didn’t book, i knew that the crossing was popular but i also thought that marine atlantic would somehow know the popularity and thus have enough ships to accommodate the numbers. i didn’t want to rush, i am constantly rushing. i was driving i wanted to see what was in between, to stop at things that made me curious i didn’t want to worry about missing a departure. i am paying for it.

after the initial shock, i was fine, i would head down the coast to cape breton then wave at the departing ferry and head back along the southern shore. got in the machine tried to have a look at campbelltown stopped at a pathetic boardwalk to look north into the eastern time zone then headed out rationalising that so far it it has been a pretty good outing. major plans have been changed but serendipity allowed other encounters.

i didn’t know what the north shore of the st lawrence was like but i now have seen the southern one. not having to make time, i was able to stop and in stopping run into people where once again - stumbling to communicate in french - i get some personal idea of what life is like here. while it is more subtle in gaspésie the thesis is the same. people choose to live here, why - not asked in condescension but in curiosity.

simply, the outing would be modified again. but after a while it wasn’t the same. i would be constantly wandering - right now the tiring part of the day is having to move on by 11 when i have to be out of the room this goes against my work habits of working late into the night. the rush comes in packing and quitting the room. it is things minor that take up an inordinate amount of time. since i don’t know how far i am going to go in a day while i usually pull up to a town at 9PM it is more like 11 before i am settled.

there was no destination. no place to sit, relax and digest what has happened. pouch cove is that. it it the quiet time. the working late into the night with only the sound of the waves. it is getting up and heading out slowly and calmly in the morning. it is means rituals by will. the ending of the day by actually making dinner rather than going out. there would be none of this.

there would be no meeting up with friends no amount of time so that a visit becomes more than that. more and more i realise why i prefer winter when time isn’t so expensive that one feels that it has to be used efficiently.

the back of the machine was packed with books and snaps to drop off. i had planned provisionally to be taken to some resettled places along the great northern. there was an opening at the discovery centre in bonne bay with the sackville snapper in it.

it was sort of the feeling that one gets when there is a break in, after the initial shock things seems fine until one starts to itemise what was lost.

this was the tenth year of me going to the rock.

i stop at community centre by someone having a garage sale, mary comes over wondering what i am doing, i show her my book of snaps what i am doing and she tells me of the area. i always wonder what people consider important about where they live and what they want from aways to see. she got it after seeing the work she mentioned an unused ball park, mentioned how all the little towns across the area were consolidating but did mention making sure that i see acadie - shippagan and miscou. left when someone stopped that actually wanted to buy something, knowing full well that the day would be like the others a lot of stops and u-turns.

i was keeping to roads that were closest to the coast as i realised that every crossroads brought potential with it and i couldn’t deal with such decision making. experiences come from choice, the choice would determine the experience but there would always be one.

walked around dalhousie - photographed a city gardener but found that i couldn’t function in cities, to many corners meant too many choices. didn’t bother to leave the machine in bathurst which seem fine but again i was freezing up from the choices and stimulation overload.

stopped again to photograph the arts motel sign and saw a table outside the motel which looked like people actually used it. rang the bell to talk to the owner to see if i could photograph the table.

the owner looked at me as if i were completely stupid, staring at me then the table then me, after a while i stated that it was ok if she said no i simply liked that it looked like someone just left. i showed her my book of snaps, still unimpressed she allowed me thinking that it would be the best way of being rid of me.

then i asked to make her snap.

with someone to divert her attention - the coca cola delivery had come - she consented.

with the arrival of the delivery man came again the reason of my thesis of the rock, in large populations we are used to have things there. we theoretically know that someone delivers it or if it is the case of - say cable or electricity - see the lines that connect to the house. since there are many options that connexion is pretty much hidden. looking up one sees waves of wires. trying to trace any of them is nearly impossible.

during the parks canada residency talking to pete, i remember him saying that something would be in in a couple of minutes as the delivery person was at the 3Ts now. it occurred to me that everything came down route 431, one could trace the progress of everything that was supplied to the communities of bonne bay. ed said the same about the beer van, it would make the rounds on certain days the driver would ring when he was a stop away.

i am sure that the coca cola delivery was the same he had a route that route had a schedule but to most of us it was invisible.

this is what i wanted to see in the big land outing, in heading down the burgeo road, etc. the road wasn’t there for my sight seeing but for the distribution of goods. ironically that link has curtailed my outing but if i could be rational about it, it is fitting.

it seems that new brunswick gets little respect. it is called the race through province as people are racing to halifax or the ferry. i tended to like it as it was secure in its francophonie, most people would glide back and forth between english and french, unlike québec it was truely bilingual.


i also found that racing through the maritimes i was aware of divisions but not how the geography changes. in new brunswick there was the stunted growth of trees and at times the hint of pine that is a trait of the rock. but there were farms.

where on the island there would be the pink white and green of a wish for a past, here there was the blue white and red with the yellow star of acadie celebrating their present.

having no place to be meant slowing down even more. i was only trying to get to marimichi so i was diverting from the road even more. i was stopping to eat.

stopped at a ball park and made snaps under the observations of two lads, one who didn’t want his snap made.

at the t ho’s in petit rocher, took the egg salad sandwich and the double double out back to eat on a bench in buddy comes up with a bonjour, then says the same to a woman who arrives after me she launches into english and he follows suit.

it seems that i was at the smokers bench. grace would be glad to see the back of 2009, two machine accidents etc. she also lost feeling in her hand which meant she was on disability as her hand was so weak that she couldn’t lift anything. she asked what i did and when i was going to retire. again thought that if i had chosen the other tim’s in town...

i started to find that my assumptions were incorrect when it came to the buildings that i was photographing. what i thought were vacant sometimes weren’t they had simply changed use - a building in salmon beach. the meanings of the images were modified yet again. it was still about those around them but now the complication dealt with what those in the area felt was important some façades were in terrible shape but the insides well appointed. there seemed to be two societies those whose places looked like everyone else in north america - well tended lawns, nice siding etc. and those who i mistakenly thought as abandoned. i’ve seen this before but usually the two types keep a good distance between them.

continued to photograph minor churches which again seemed to bring things full circle - most of the anglican and united churches were not in the towns. they were modest structures - almost generic in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. i think back to what is happening in the states now with mega-churches like mega-malls being built along the highway with ample parking the main difference being that these churches could contain a dozen of the ones i am seeing now.

with time i stop again for some frites which - i am sorry to say puts ziggy peelgoods to shame, these weren’t dripping in grease and one could eat them in a teepee.

another new subtext was now to get to the edge of the land whenever possible here it would be miscou island and again it was duckish when i was made the turn on to route 113, of course when it tends to happen that when it gets dark i see more potential snaps.
more conveniences, more shops, more formal situations.

raced out to the point which was a mix of the tourist - a souvenir shop and light house - with the commercial - a parked tractor trailer. while the sunset was less to be desired there were people flocking out to see it.

i was racing back to get the images in the waning light - it didn’t help that there were signs warning of moose along the road.

it was dark at tracadie sheila, i had to fixate on the road, but what i saw of the places seemed to have potential for snaps in some town there was a night baseball game, in another a soirée, but the constant moose warnings made me nervous and for some reason i was the only heading to marimichi.

white knuckled i pull into town and cannot find a hotel. drive around town for an hour retracing steps start to head out of town but turn back as it looks like there is no accommodation. ask at a gasbar but the clerk seems baffled.

i go over to the strip mall section and still nothing until there is a small sign on a lamppost for a motel down the road. it seems that while the map has scrawled miramichi over a large area and the road looks like it takes you to the centre - the “real” centre is newcastle.
get a room at midnight in the rain too far from the wireless hub to use it. luckily there was an unprotected weak wireless connexion that made using it like listening to short wave.