| Atlantic Crossroads Festival Islands of Song Gala Newfoundland 2005 |
| Please enjoy the text account of my Newfoundland Adventures in 2005. I certainly did enjoy being there and writing it all up to share with you. Here is an index. 1. Traveling to Cape Breton 2. Cape Breton Square Dance & Ferry 3. Thursday & Friday in NFLD 4. Friday & Saturday's Festival 5. Saturday and Sunday 6. Signal Hill & Sunday Night 7. More Sunday Night and Monday 8. Monday Night & a bit of Tuesday 9. A Tuesday Night to Remember 10. Boat Rides and Rehearsals 11. Islands of Song Gala 12.Canada Day and Chicken and Chips 13. Gypsy Days - Sunday & Monday 14.Gypsy Days - Tuesday & Wednesday 15. A Friday Concert in the Park 16. Blackhead & Cape Spear 17. Newfoundlanders By Choice 18. The Trip Home 19. The End! I�ve always wanted to see an iceberg. Although I saw icebergs in Newfoundland in August a few years ago, I was told that it was very unusual, an anomaly. �The best time to see them is June in Newfoundland,� said everyone I talked to. �Hopefully I�ll get there someday in June,� I mused. The idea for this trip was conceived in Cork, Ireland, in March. Jim and Lillian Fidler had invited Vic and I to come to Cork and �cover� the Islands of Song festival there, where 6 of Newfoundland�s best singer/songwriters were performing. Jim had arranged to bring Ron Hynes, Pamela Morgan, Colleen Power, Darrell Power and Hugh Scott with him and Lillian to perform with some of Ireland�s best. You can read about that here. When that was over and we were ready to leave, Jim gave a compelling argument to come in June. It�s not like my arm would have to be twisted. I love Newfoundland any time of year. Yes, I�ve been there in February and came back! He told us that Newfoundland would be hosting the Irish songwriters and invited us to come participate in the putting on of this Atlantic Crossroads Festival and Gala. So I found myself on the road to Newfoundland four days after school ended. It was a miracle that I was doing this. A few weeks ago my car, my trusty road trip worthy van, Ira, had given up the ghost. My hopes of going to Newfoundland pretty much ended there, as I couldn�t afford to fly up and rent a car. Vic�s new job compelled him to stay home, as no work equals no pay. But someone up there likes me and I have a very understanding husband. Vic gave me his blessing to go it alone and a car (van) sort of fell into our laps! I christened him Brendan and off we went! In the weeks previous I had gotten an iRiver and Jim asked me to record my journey on it. So I found a condenser mic on eBay and was set up there. The last week of school, the computer teacher had come and handed me an iBook G4 so that came too, as a repository of photos. I tend to take a lot and was planning to offload them nightly. Worked like a charm once I figured out how to use the darn thing. Too many years working on PCs had made me forget a lot about Macs. Learning on the fly kept it interesting for sure! Online friends made from the GBS website make great contacts for road trips and lodging. Columbine in Somerville, Massachusetts offered a bed at her house on the way up to Sydney, Cape Breton. We had supper together at the Burren and I thought I recorded a great conversation about the moon. The haze around the full moon that night seemed to be in three stages. It was like a fried egg with an extra thin film around the outside. We even stopped people on the street and had them looking up! Columbine and I had traveled together before and we still got along famously. She makes the best breakfasts! Monday, June 20th I left Somerville the next morning at 11 AM because the Yahoo Maps directions said I could make it to Moncton, New Brunswick in 8 hours. Never believe what they tell you, it�s a pipe dream. Shortly after leaving Columbine�s house, my CD player broke. So I stopped at the local Radio Shack for another. Purchased a decent one and went to take off only to discover my remote CD player tuner thingy that I use to tune into unused FM stations had gone south too. And this Radio Shack didn�t have a tape adapter. But they directed me to the next Radio Shack over who did have one. I ended up not leaving the Boston area till noonish. The ride up was fairly uneventful till I got to Maine. I stopped at a rest area on the Maine Turnpike and had a little chat with Penny, who was going to Dingwall, Cape Breton for vacation. She and her hubby are from New Hampshire and his folks used to vacation there and he fell in love with Cape Breton. Not hard to do, I can tell you. They got married and bought a summer home in Dingwall and spend all summer. Lucky people. I had my music blasting on the CD player and the van on cruise control. The speed limit was 65 and there was no one on the road so I felt safe cranking it up to 70. Mace�s restaurant was a welcome sight when I was beginning to really tire of the ride. Great place for ice cream, decent food and cheap gas. I ordered a hotdog and it came to me PINK. Not raw � cooked � it was neon pink! �Is this supposed to look like this?� I asked. �She laughed and said yes so I ate it, trusting soul that I am. Unfortunately for me, shortly after I stopped at Mace�s on Route 9 for pink hotdogs, the speed limit changed to 55 mph. But I was in another world apparently and didn�t find that out till the flashing blue lights appeared in my rearview mirror. What could I say? I KNEW I was going 70! The state policeman was very nice as he handed me my $200 ticket. Boy, that was gonna hurt! The rest of the way was spent pretty much sticking to the speed limits. I filled up the gas tank in Calais (pronounced �callous� in Maine) for $2.25 a gallon. It wasn�t cheap but it was better than what I�d have to pay in Canada. There were the usual questions at the border � Where are you going? Why? How long will you be there? DO you have liquor, fruits or vegetables, guns? I was in like Flint, so to speak. Drove up the New Brunswick coast through St. Stephen�s (Chocolate Town), St. George�s and St. John. It was the first time I had approached St. John without fog! Yelled out the window to Margie (CeilidhCat) in Quispamsis. I have no idea if she heard me, but my thoughts were with her. Last time through, Vic and I had supper with her. I hit Moncton about 10:30 PM. The hotel I was aiming for was in Amherst, which is right across the Nova Scotia border. It was way longer from Moncton to Amherst than I remembered. The time zone had changed and I was aware I had been driving for over 12 hours at this point. Exhaustion was showing its ugly face, but Jim Fidler�s Musaik: In This World CD and Great Big Sea�s Great Big DVD concert CD was keeping me singing at the top of my lungs. �I wish I had never taken this excursion around the bay. HEY!� I had used Yahoo Maps to give me directions to the hotel in Amherst. They took me all the way around Amherst and out the other end! When I got there, I found it was actually right off an exit! Argh! Lessons learned. They were so nice to me at the Comfort Inn in Amherst. I spent a few minutes emailing Vic to tell him I had arrived and saying hi to several friends online. Then fell into bed and had a dreamless sleep. Tuesday, June 21st Breakfast at the hotel was filling and I was off to the local Atlantic Superstore to pick up a fleece blanket and fold-up chair on sale. I knew I�d have to sleep in the ferry terminal in Sydney tonight and didn�t know how cold it was going to be. Antigonish was my lunch stop and I enjoyed the garlic fingers at the Snow Queen. I drove around a bit, sightseeing in Antigonish Landing and discovered a wildlife preserve. A mother and daughter walking thru the preserve on their lunch hour recommended I go to Bayfield to see my beloved blue herons. She said she has seen muskrat, ducks, herons, rabbits, fish and raccoon on her walks. The smell of the pine trees was delicious but the caws of the crows unnerving. The Barras MacNeils �My Heart�s in the Highlands� went into the CD player on repeat as I approached the Canso Causeway. It is an important anniversary year for the Causeway and they are celebrating in August with concerts, demonstrations etc. Should be fun! Shame I won�t be there. I had time to kill and decided to stop in Baddeck. In addition to its being my favorite town in Cape Breton, there�s always some good music going on there. To my delight I discovered that Kyle and Sheumas MacNeil were playing at the Masonic Hall for a square dance. I ate at the Yello Cello and sat at the look-off across from the Alexander Graham Bell Museum., taking photos of my fave Cape Breton lighthouse. Got some great photos of the boats, especially the large sailboat tacking through the bay to their slip. It was an impressive sight to see. Then I moseyed on up to the Masonic Hall, paid my $8 and got ready for a great evening of music and dance. I tried to take set dancing the last time I attended the Gaelic College but couldn�t do the steps because of my injuries from my accident. So I�ve been content to enjoy the Cape Breton fiddle music (my favorite fiddle music!) and watching everyone have fun. Turns out the Gaelic College was having a Set Dance Week and there had been a different set dance presented every day to the students. At night, they had musicians from that section of Cape Breton playing the music that you�d normally hear with the set dance. Tonight was the Sydney Set and tea and oatcakes would be served. I was a tad upset to find out that I�d miss Mac Morin and Ian MacDougall two nights hence for Mabou Night. Mac owes me a t-shirt (long story) and Ian was my very first fiddle teacher. I wrote them a note and asked the girl at the merch table to pass it to them. She said she would. |