LES ILES DE MADELEINE “THE NECKLACE”.
_Having met some...._
[Illustration:
THE WOOL FOR THESE HOMEMADE LOOMS IS GROWN ON THE
SHEEP GRAZING ON THE SLOPES OF LES DEMOISELLES.]
[Illustration:
SEUMAS O’BRIEN. AUTHOR AND SCULPTOR.]
Having met some notable woman, Queen or Court lady, and been charmed by
her graciousness, and having recounted some of the qualities which are
component of that grace, one’s thoughts turn naturally to memory of her
adorning jewels. It is like that with Quebec.
Quebec’s outstanding jewels are _Les Iles de Madeleine_ in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence. The earliest French navigators seeing the islands for the
first time were so impressed with their beauty, they called them, in the
poetic language so natural to those gentlemen-explorers of the sixteenth
century, “The Necklace”. Time has substantiated the courtly compliment.
For that is just what they are--Canada’s “Necklace of Pearls” on the
bosom of the Gulf.
The pearls of the Necklace are small, and there are not many of them,
only six or seven in all, but each is of the finest quality, handsomely
strung together on long threads of creamy sea sand--embryo pearls-to-be
perhaps--circling to partly enclose an indicated rather than attained
roadstead where navigation may find a little shelter from the fury that
at times strides about the Gulf.
The Madeleine Islands, though in the path of passing ships, are seldom
approached directly except by the staunch little seaboat of the “Pro
Patria”, “Lady Sybil”, or “Amelia” type, that once a week brings and
takes the mails, freight and such passengers as chance affords.
The “Amelia” is a rugged character, a wayward “bird of passage”, at one
with the unbroken spirit of the Islands she serves. We do not know what
Madeleine would do without her. Variations which she chooses to make in
the matter of “first ports of call” on the weather wisdom of her
skipper, but add to the charm of voyaging in her to these remote
objectives.
Coming thus to the “Magdalens” from Pictou, it is in the early morning,
when the summer sun tips above the Eastern horizon of waters, that one
beholds the first speck of land. Unfolding before you as the Amelia
proceeds, a curiously-rounded beehive hill appears above a stretch of
land tapering to a long sand-spit edged with curling sea-wrack.
Approaching yet nearer, other fair, rounded, treeless hills complement
the first. These hills, exclamatory remarks of fellow passengers soon
enlighten one, are “Les Demoiselles”. They, with the sand-bars, miles
in length, are the chief physical characteristics, as it later turns
out, of these remote islands.
Then, after coasting miles along, the Amelia picks up an opening between
a sand-bar and an island and comes alongside the Government pier at
Havre Aubert on Pleasant Bay, Amherst Island.
Of course, we “put up” at Shea’s Hotel. It sounds very commonplace, as
names go, but Shea’s is the heart of the Madeleines. The proprietors are
three, (or is it four?) unmarried sisters of what may be briefly summed
up as “the land-mark type”. Their father before them kept a cottage
boarding-house, so the past is theirs as well as every detail of
present-day island life. In addition to her work at the “hotel”, Miss
Mary keeps a little shop on the shingle between Mount Gridley and
Amherst and Miss Johanna, beside bringing the palatable food from the
kitchen to the table, is the telegraph operator.
“Shea’s”, too, is the rendezvous of all the “drummers” of Canadian trade
on these islands. So that although the Islands have no newspapers, one
is here in daily touch with a remarkable ebb and flow of world news, all
the more vivid and impressive because of the dramatic, human touches
which each raconteur puts into the telling.
But the Madeleines are places where the out-of-doors is constantly
offering attractions to win one to wander near and far. The views
everywhere reward one’s walks. There is, too, a daily excuse to hunt
mushrooms on the smooth rounded hills and grassy cliffs which few find
themselves able to resist. In this intimate way one comes to know La
Demoiselle.
La Demoiselle appeals to the imagination. It is one of those rare spots
which remains a high-light of memory. One never forgets climbing over
it, following the sheep-paths, feasting on its insular and marine
outlook, or watching the rare sunsets, almost tropical in their
richness, which are the lord of the day’s parting salute to these sea
children.
“La Demoiselle” was the expressive name given this hill by those same
early French adventurers who first called the whole group the
“Necklace”. They had the imagination and fancy which pictured the land
as a woman, and these fair hills, as the pulsing breasts of the
sea-maiden sunning herself, with her sand-spit body awash in the waves.
O Canadian sculptor behold a “figure” to hand in Les Madeleines.
Not the least attractive feature of the scenery are the ashes-of-roses
colours acquired by some parts of the cliffs, especially those west of
la Demoiselle. These colours are wonderfully effective when contrasted
against the gray sea, or the velvet greenness of the cliff grass. It was
while rambling along these cliffs a few summers ago that Seumas O’Brien,
author and sculptor, happened by chance upon an outcropping of clay of
so fine a nature that he later took some back with him to “Shea’s” and
there, in a little studio improvised in the vacant cottage that was the
former hotel, he soon had several charming “figures” to his credit,
among them, “The Head of a Child” and “An Irish Troubadour”, one of
those quaint Irish figures of village and road who entertain with
stories to the accompaniment of an old fiddle.
The inhabitants of the Madeleines are of Acadian-French descent. The
life which centres in the scattered cottages reveals unspoiled the
Acadian spinning-wheel, the ponderous loom, and handicraft that takes
the raw wool direct from the sheep’s back grazing out in the eye of the
wind on Les Demoiselles, and converts it into homespun garment, sock, or
_tapis_.
The handiwork of the Madeleine spinners and weavers reaches its highest
achievement in the _catalogne_ or bedspread. Not alone is the work fine
but the favourite white ground forms just the right contrast needed to
bring out the sweet colours employed in the motif. Not even in the heart
of Quebec have we seen any weaving to compare with these _catalognes_ of
the Madeleines. They catch added character, it often seems, from the
looms on which they are made. At Havre Maison, on Alright Island, we
once happened on a Madame weaving at an old loom made from the flotsam
and jetsam pieces of wood which had at different times been salvaged
from the sea--here an upright out of an old mast, there a bar from a
broken oar. Madame, with shuttle from the same source, rudely shaped, in
her hand, was working as under the fire of inspiration, her bobbins and
wools all scattered about her on boxes and on the floor, the while the
attic window by which she sat looked out upon the barachois or lagoon
enclosed by sand, and beyond that to the far-stretching gray waters of
the Gulf.
In _Les Iles de Madeleine_, _catalognes_ and _tapis_ are heirlooms. Once
at Grindstone Island an old gentleman seeing our interest in these
fruits of the Island looms, bade his daughter take us into the attic and
show us those which his mother had made. There were several sea chests
full. And each was of sufficient beauty to justify the old gentleman’s
pride in them.
Wool is an indispensable raw material in the home economy of the
housewives whom circumstances have set down on these islands so far
removed from marts of the “ready-made”. That is largely the reason why
so many sheep are seen everywhere, there being seldom a family but owns
one or more. And what fine, clean wool it is! And what excellent
flavoured mutton comes to the Shea table via a boat-market from Entry
Island.
The chief industry of the Madeleines is mackerel fishing, with cod
running it a close second, and lobstering employing a number of
old-timers whose day of fishing is done.
The waters about the Madeleines are the magnets of sealers in the
Spring. But it is mackerel which chiefly magnetizes the life and
sketches the characters especially Madeleinian.
Sprightly white, clinker-built, skiff-like boats are here, boats with
long and graceful lines, eager in sailing but of sufficient “beam” to
carry the “catch”. These harbour in haven-pools which seem to have been
scooped out of the waves for just such a purpose. One of these little
harbours is called La Bassin, a name which speaks for itself.
The waters about the Madeleines have a curious way of throwing up a
sand-bar some distance away from, and parallel with, the beach itself,
between the bar and the beach there being a long strip of water of
differing widths. This lagoon is called a barachois, and each island
seems to have at least one of these. The mackereling appears to centre
around the Barachois, perhaps because there is something in the set of
the Gulf currents which brings the marine food of the mackerel in their
direction, or because the mackerel-boat, with the Barachois behind her,
is never without a way of retreat in case of being overtaken by a
squall. So, wishing to catch the atmosphere, one has to go down to the
Barachois at dusk when the boats begin to come in. Then are seen women
coming from all directions in their two-wheeled island-carts with
flashing lanterns casting a flare and flicker of light, now brilliant,
now dim to extinguishment, as the horses step into a rut or sink in the
yielding sand.
The boats, one or two at a time, come hurrying in from the Barachois,
unstepping their masts and sails and simultaneously burying their bows
in the wet and heavy sand of the landwash. Then is witnessed, a spirited
bit of action to be seen nowhere
[Illustration:
THE SAMPLER.]
[Illustration:
THE LASSIE WITH BRETON CAP.]
else in Canada. The women pass the supper they have brought to the men,
and while these hungrily consume their evening meal on the sands,
Mesdames having taken the horses out of the carts, hook the traces on to
the boats and before M’sieu can come to their aid, first one and then
another has “clucked” to her horses, the reins in the strong hands are
taut, the horses are straining and floundering in the shifting sand,
madame or sturdy demoiselle skillfully keeping her own feet and
admonishing “_les chevals_” with a commanding “_Marche donc!_” “_Marche
donc!_” which would make any horse obey. Thus is attained the lively
progression of the boat up the beach, to the appointed place of safety
above the reach of the high tide, however angrily, through the night
waves may curl and foam.
If you come here in the early morning, as many as sixty or seventy boats
stand gunwale to gunwale on different parts of the long beach, answering
the roll call of a great industry.
But it is on the north shore of Amherst, about the sand bar joining
Amherst with Grindstone and partly enclosing Basque Harbour, that one
sees still other groups and figures essentially of the Madeleines. Women
and children, horses and carts, and dog-carts here appear far out from
land, afoot in the low water that washes for miles the undersea
sandbanks. Women and children and lassies with Breton caps, stand
ankle-deep in the water with hand-made three-pronged forks, like the
trident of a sea-god, in hand, digging and digging clams for bait,
piling them into the receiving baskets and pails, and thence into the
waiting carts--the carts in which island horses doze between the shafts,
the rising tide lapping their fetlocks. It is a rare sight this
clam-digging in the Madeleine barachois! And so far as we know one not
duplicated anywhere in America. It occurs only at low-tide and it is
therefore possible to pass any number of times at full tide and not see
anything of it. But should it once be chanced upon, it will never be
forgotten. Never was there a “piece” with so much atmosphere and action.
While the tide is still ebbing the women wade far out to the edge of the
clam line and begin their uncovering of the mollusc harvest. Even after
the tide turns and begins to come in, they still hold their own with a
bold front, retreating a few inches only, at a time. Atmospheric indeed
is the effect produced by all these people, the horses in the
two-wheeled carts, and the tiny dog-carts, when they are half shrouded
in a soft wet fog creeping in from sea. Then it is as though Nature
wished to reiterate that ’tis she who is the Great Artist, composing
Aquamarines that no mere human artist can ever hope to touch.
Sometimes the low tide happens at night. And at dusk one meets the women
driving in their carts, the lighted lanterns beside them, lanterns which
later in the evening will appear to one looking off to the barachois
like so many amphibious fire-flies dancing above the waves and lighting
up the restless waters and the night gloom with a ghastly flare.
This night-scene is of even rarer quality than that screened by the day.
Certainly this is exclusively a Madeleine canvas.
But the clamming is a serious industry. On it hangs the success or
failure of the mackerel-fishing. Only so can M’sieu start out in the
little boat early in the morning to fish. Only so can the “Mackerel from
the Madeleines” arrive in Halifax to keep busy caulkers and brine-boys,
and keep flowing the stream of Canadian export trade in fish.
But not until one passes on the highway at Grindstone some morning when
it is too rough for the “Amelia” to make her call at Etang du Nord, and
meets the procession of island-carts with their loads of barrels going
overland to the public wharf on the lea-side of the island, does one
carry any idea of the vast number of “Number Ones” which actually go out
from here to Halifax, and thence, to the tables of the world.
It is on “shipping days” that one realizes that Madeleine, no less than
Evangeline, is a sport, risking all her business success on the turn of
the “barrel”.
But fish is everywhere--a summer trade. And summers pass all too
swiftly. It is in winter that Madeleine is thrown in upon herself; cut
off from the world by the ice for six months of the year.
It is then the Mesdames of the islands--Amherst, Grindstone, Alright,
Coffin, Grosse Ile and Entry--settle down to the loom, take the old
spinning wheels between their knees; and make the Catalognes, the
Catalognes, the equals of which are seen nowhere else in all Quebec. It
is in winter the island-artizans choose and blend the colours that make
the prettiest “couverts” to use and to lay away in the old sea-chests.
In winter, spinning by the window, madame looks out upon long endless
stretches of ice-imprisoned sea, solid masses of the Gulf ice that
closes navigation and separates herself and family from habitant
families ashore. Yet because “the Sea” is in their blood not one of
these Islanders would change places with the people ashore. “What of
adventure,” inquire they, “is there in inland lives compared with ours,
literally held in the sea’s hand? _Mais, non._” The Amelia makes her
last trip a few days before Christmas. But even so, although no one can
get off the islands after that, news still comes and goes by way of the
Telegraph Cable and “Miss Johanna” becomes a figure in the limelight, as
operator.
* * * * *
Lying to the North and somewhat apart from the main pearls of “The
Necklace” are “The Bird Rocks”.
On the largest of these a lighthouse stands, an aid to navigation. It is
a very lonely spot and no one except the lighthouse keeper and his
family live there. But these desolate rocks have a claim on Romance
through the thousands of wild sea-birds, who in summer make them their
habitat and nesting-place. These sea-birds, chiefly the beautiful cafe
au lait coloured gannet, have three major haunts in the Gulf of Saint
Lawrence, at these “Bird Rocks”, at Percé Rock and at Bonaventure Island
off the Percé-Gaspé shore.
The first signs of human life the lighthouse keeper sees in the spring
are brought by the Sealing ships coming into the Gulf after seals that
frequent the ice pans.
Usually the keeper of the Bird Rock Light is a Madeleiner from
Grindstone or House Harbour. Once, spending a week at Havre Maison we
boarded with a widow whose husband had been a keeper of this lighthouse.
Graphic indeed were her tales of the weirdness, loneliness and yet
fascination of the life. She told, too, what happiness was theirs on
seeing the first birds coming in the spring.