As we come to the end of August

Tags

Beach, Charlottetown, Europe, Food, Parade, PEI, Restaurants

In PEI after Old Home Week 15 August, the last week of August feels like the end of the tourist Season, families disappear over night replaced by older couples with no kids. Motel and camp grounds empty and you know that as of 1 September tourist spots and restaurants catering to them will start to close. We will still have Cruise ship traffic until November but there will be less to do for the tourists.

The PEI Tourism Board has tried to lenghten the Season into a shoulder Season at least until mid-December but that is very difficult, the merchants are not interested for the most part. They made their money and now they move to Florida for the next six months. In the Spring we would benefit from early opening of tourist restaurants and bars around 15 April because the first Cruise ships do arrive on 1 May. But no, that again is difficult to do, many businesses open around 1 June, this makes for a very short Season.

Despite promising myself I would go to the beach this Summer we never went, until 15 July the weather was cold and miserable and then it became hot and unpleasant. We are both busy with volunteer work and one thing after another and we stayed in town.

We did go to Rustico to the Watermark theatre and discovered a new restaurant with very good food owned by a Portuguese couple. We also attended our friend S.D. Summer party in New Glasgow which is always fun. We went to Victoria by the Sea to see our friend J.D. at his antique shop. The Landmark Café has a new owner and it is great food and service as always. There were some other social engagements but other than that not much really.

On Monday we travel to catch a flight to Amsterdam which will make for a complete change of venue. Our friend B.P. is coming from Ottawa to babysit the puppies.

In the meantime here are some photos of our Old Home Week parade which is such a tradition here in Charlottetown in August.

The Royal Canadian Navy from HMCS Charlottetown

Lots of ACADIAN flags since the World Congress was taking place in August.  Looks like the flag of France but it has a Yellow Star on it.

The Lieutenant Governor of PEI with her Aide de Camp in the carriage.

The Belfast PEI, Bag pipes, they practice in the park across the street from our home. Nice group.

The Canadian Army PEI Regiment with their regimental flag (Black and yellow)

The float of the Mayor and City Councillors in a canoe no less.

The Royal Canadian Air Force Band

The Mi’kmaq of Abegweit (AKA PEI)

And the best band of the parade bar none, a group of music teachers and professional musicians including the Green Party Leader, who is also leader of the Official Opposition in the PEI Legislature plays the trumpet, talk of versatile politician. This group is known for its zany costumes, always a big hit with the crowd.

 

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Gold Cup and Saucer Parade day

Tags

Bloody Cesar, Canada., deportation, genocide, PEI

On 15 August 2019 we celebrate the 135 th Anniversary of the Acadian People celebrated at the World Congress right here in L’Acadie known today as the Maritimes. The flag is based on the colours of France with a yellow Star symbol of the Virgin Mary patron of the Acadian people (Stella Maris). Thousands of Acadians were violently deported by the British in 1755 from what is today the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. An act of ethnic genocide on a people who lived peacefully and did not want to get involved in Imperial wars between Britain and France.

But the Acadians came back, the World congress celebrates their presence today in Canada. Here in PEI we are having an Island wide cultural festival with many Acadian Artists.

 

At the request of many I am publishing here the recipe for Canada’s Official Cocktail, the Bloody Cesar.

DID YOU KNOW

To commemorate the inauguration of an Italian restaurant in 1964, Calgary bartender Walter Chell created Bloody Caesar. Chell took his inspiration from the Bloody Mary, but added clam juice to the mix, he spent a few weeks crushing some of these molluscs, until he managed to achieve the perfect balance with the tomato juice. More Bloody Caesars are sold in Canada than any other cocktail. A wonderful picker-upper in the morning.

INGREDIENTS

45 ml (1 1/2 oz.) vodka
120 ml (4 oz.) Motts Clamato juice
5 ml (1 tsp.) Worcestershire sauce
A few drops of red Tabasco sauce
1 lemon wedge
Celery salt
Ice cubes
Salt and pepper
A fresh sprig of Celery

DIRECTIONS

Frost the rim of a highball glass containing a few ice cubes with the lemon and celery salt.
Add all the ingredients.
Stir using a mixing spoon.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Garnish with a fresh sprig of celery.

Canada’s drink. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Ferragosto

Tags

Ferragosto, Italy, Le Marche, Old Home Week, PEI, Pesaro

Ferragosto 2019 is upon us, in Charlottetown it’s Old Home Week with harness racing and parades, my neighbour already reminded us to not forget to come over for a stiff drink usually a Bloody Cesar, Canada’s Official Cocktail and food at 10am an old island tradition, no one misses the parade. It will be our fourth, yes 4 years already on the Island, time flies. This is also the peak or height of tourist season and signals also the end of the Season, after 16 August suddenly tourists vanish.

In Italy Ferragosto is the beginning of the Summer vacation for everyone, I mean everyone. It is pretty much the same in other European countries. Time to pack up and leave the cities for the beach, the mountains, the countryside. Leave the towns to the tourists. Everything shuts down and if you decide to stay in town better plan ahead because shopping is restricted and difficult to manage. ATMs machines run out of cash and gas stations are only open for a few hours if at all.

For us it was the best of time of the year, we would travel to Le Marche region on the Adriatic for spectacular towns, food, wine and festivals. A relax quiet time by the seaside and evenings at the opera.

We would stay in Pesaro, visit Rimini and Urbino a few minutes away.

Since Seafood is important on PEI, it is equally important in Pesaro and our favorite restaurant was Ristorante Bristolino “Lorenzo e Bibo” which use to be on the sea front at the Bristol hotel. However in 2015 it closed and just re-opened to the delight of its many fans on Via Mazzolari 54 in the centre of the city. Incredible quality of seafood and dishes so well prepared and presented with flair. So happy to see them back in action. Will wrote about this restaurant and so did I in my blog.

We came of course to Pesaro for the yearly Opera Festival to its most famous son, Gioachino  Rossini. We would drive from Rome on excellent Italian roads through scenic and dramatic at times, mountain views.

City centre park, Piazzale della Liberta, the Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro has left his golden sphere monuments all over the world. One of them has become the symbol of Pesaro in Le Marche. Tell any person from Pesaro that you’ll meet them at ‘la palla di Pomodoro’, and they instantly know where to go.

Wishing everyone a Felice Ferragosto!

 

PRIDE PEI

Tags

Canada., Charlottetown, LGBTQ, PEI

Well today was the 25th edition of the Pride Parade and it was big. Everyone is in it, families, grand-parents and grand-kids, politicians of all stripes, the Armed Forces, the RCMP, the local police and just plain people, all celebrating and having fun. The parade is one of the events of the week of celebration all around the Island and here in Charlottetown.

The parade snakes around the downtown core through residential areas and people are 5 row deep. Remember this is a town of 36K, so not a big place but PRIDE makes it big.

We had a great deal of fun at the Parade today and saw so many people. At the end of the Parada there was a party in one of the city square and the Premier of the Province said a few words. Live music with local artists and just a nice time in the shade.

This Island has come a long way in 25 years and it is amazing.

PRIDE Flag at the PEI Regiment base

The Haviland Club

The Canadian Navy with their float

The orange theme float of the NDP (political party) the leader is holding a Pride flag with the smily on it.

Some young conservative who had T-shirts with the letters PC (progressive conservative) in rainbow colours.

Lots of Unicorns at this parade.

Green Party Youth group

This is S. my videographer during my campaign with his girlfriend dressed as Ms Kitty, she has a big following on YouTube, such nice people.

Grafton Street, it was 27 C in the Sun today but a nice breeze was blowing.

Everyone wearing are with the Green Party, the Official Opposition in the Provincial Legislature. The Greens have had a pretty good start since the election passing some important bills on reduction of Carbon emissions to 1.2 megatons by 2030 instead of the Paris agreement of 1.4 megatons. This is why a minority government is a good thing, gets things done.

The parade certainly had all the colours of the rainbow and then some. There are no big floats like in other cities, it is just local people celebrating, all ages and backgrounds. Which makes it fun.

Tonight there is a huge party at the DELTA Hotel in the ballroom. Seems like everyone is going.

 

 

Listening

Tags

Crisis, doom, fishkill, Oil, PEI, plastics, pollution, the end

This week CBC radio host Paul Kennedy retires from Ideas after many a years. Ideas as the title indicates is about discussing topics about our world, it is well done with many scholars, writers, philosophers who present their views based often on books or research they have done for years on a topic which affects how our human society functions and evolves. Paul Kennedy has a relaxing, pleasant mature voice, easy to listen to.

Today the topic was Climate Change and was part of his acting as moderator of the Muskoka conference in Ontario. The question was: Are we doomed?

Currently, if several polls are to be believed, some 84% of Canadians are very concerned about Climate Change and what is happening all around us. Here in PEI in the last 12 months we have seen changes with rapid erosion of the soft coast line, projection show that in 50 years the City of Charlottetown and surroundings will have disappeared under water. The Island at most stands about 30 feet above the sea level in some areas and as little as 3 feet in others. The Winter started early in November and ended late towards end April, the Spring Fishing Season was delayed 2 weeks due to storms and the planting Season for agriculture was also delayed to mid-June. The Summer so far has been cool and rainy. This has an impact on fishers, farmers and the tourism industry. The Chamber of Commerce says that tourism is down 50% this year due to poor weather. I believe it, it is abnormally quiet.

All around the world, if you care to read, it’s one big heat wave and huge storms, more unusual than the next. Nature is dying all around us, it is much more than melting ice caps or rising water levels. Entire species have disappeared, over fishing has depleted the oceans, plastic pollution everywhere. The statistics are frightening and still politicians and the public dither.

Despite all this, most people pretend it is not happening or simply cannot cope with the magnitude of the crisis. Some experts in the field believe it is too late to save ourselves. There is no Planet B.

On Ideas, some of the speakers said that if extreme measures are taken we  could slow down the process or reverse it, an example the town of Sudbury in Ontario, pop 164,000 where 100 years of nickel mining had by 1960 transformed the entire area into a moon scape with a strong odour of sulphur, people still lived there. However in the last 40 years an aggressive program of cleaning and reforesting involving intensive action by several groups with the support of the local authorities have turned the tide and now despite having some 50,000 hectares still to be rehabilitated, Sudbury has been transformed for the better. The City has 300 lakes over 25 acres within city limits, natural beauty which is being brought back.

But is is not the case everywhere, in most places there is resistance to doing anything at all. Here in PEI constant resistance against electric cars, the City of Charlottetown turned down the opportunity to develop a bike path through the city core, bought diesel buses instead of electric, allows cancer causing pesticides to be spread to keep lawns green, City Councillors cannot see the importance of saving bees, are putting an asphalt plant in a semi rural residential area, etc.. The easy justification is jobs, it seems that jobs trump every other concern, obtuse thinking rule.

How do you educate a population who refuses to listen, should we just let the crisis take over, it seems human nature learns better when a catastrophe strikes.

Last Thursday the Legislature of the Province passed a bill to reduce CO2 emissions by 1.2 megatonnes by 2030, instead of the Paris Accord agreement of 1.4 megatonnes. Still 6 conservative members of the government refused to go along, they collectively simply do not believe in climate change, it’s a hoax. The majority in this case got its way, now we have to figure out how to achieve this target, won’t be easy. How do you bring on-board towns and settlements when our politicians don’t understand the gravity of the problem.

As it was pointed out on Ideas,  you can build infrastructure to stop flooding and erosion, you cannot save nature when irreversible trends are happening, this we do not control. So maybe we will avert the worse but there is no guarantees and I am not hopeful.

At my age this is not really a concern because if I have 20 years to live, I will be dead and gone by the time the crisis is irreversible. What is sad is for children or anyone under 40 they will live through it.

Photo; Alberta Tar Sand exploitation and the environmental disaster it creates. Yet some people see nothing wrong with this picture. A picture of death near Edmonton.

PRIDE

Tags

Charlottetown, Gay, Japan, LGBT, Parade, PEI, Tokyo

June was Pride month and in PEI PRIDE week is 20-27 July with the usual big parade, everyone joins in, it’s the thing to do.

I was in the Parade here in Charlottetown last year and we had a lot of fun. Come and celebrate PRIDE in PEI,  www.pridepei.ca

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first pride parade on P.E.I. Pride P.E.I. is planning 12 days of events and learning opportunities for Islanders, beginning on Saturday, July 20.

The theme of this year’s parade is ‘shapes + forms’. The organization says love comes in many different shapes and forms. Inspiration for the theme comes from the vibrant spectrum of gender and sexual diversity visible in the province.

For something completely different here is PRIDE TOKYO. Japan has a lot of Festivals and Pride is another one. I love Tokyo, visited the city on 2 occasions for several days each time and travelled in Japan also. Very impressive place, just love it.

Things in life

Tags

AGCC, art., artists, Charlottetown, life, PEI, Summer

The old song says “The best things in life are free”, I wonder if many today still think this way in our hyper consumer society. This song was very popular back in the XXth century written by the songwriting team of Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown (lyrics) and Ray Henderson (music) and published in 1927 but it continued to be popular up to the 1960’s and you can still hear it today on some radio stations, a classic you could say.

This week was the opening of the Summer show at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre and since I am a guide there, as always I make a point of attending all the lectures with the curators and artists.

This year the theme is about life and its transitions from birth to death. The artists are all emerging young artists funded by the Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) for the last 10 years. This program in cooperation with the Curator of the Art Gallery gives an opportunity to young artists to work with a gallery and curators in a professional setting, organize an exhibit and get exposure. In PEI  the Art Gallery is the only venue offering such an opportunity. All the art is Canadian as per the mandate of the Gallery.

The funny thing is that people are not always comfortable with the idea that we all die one day, it is the human condition can’t escape it. We have two solo shows one by Philippa Jones (Perpetual) of St-John’s, NFLD. Perpetual brings together a selection of recent work by Philippa Jones that explores ways of dealing with loss and mortality through the neutralizing effects of preservation, aesthetic arrangement, immersive ritual, and ultimately recognition of a natural continuum, the temporal cycle that encompasses all being. Catalyzed by the untimely death of close friend and collaborator, Newfoundland curator Mary MacDonald, the artist’s explorations of the processes of extraction from the everyday world, common to art and science, take on a heightened resonance.

The other solo show by Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona (Mapping Worlds) from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Nunavut which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year as an Inuit territory in Canada. This gigantic area of Arctic Canada is 1500 miles North of PEI with a population of 33,000 mostly young people.

The other shows are group exhibits and explore the transitory aspect of life, Split Images: Truth and Fiction,  something that also disturbs a lot of people.  

In the concourse of the Centre is the exhibit of Ian Funke-Mackay: Serpentine Signs, an artist from Halifax, produces images and signs for a new visual field in which past energies resonate within the present. His colourful and faceted arrays and forms echo the worlds of computer-generated imaging and video-game animations, aspiring to fuse the future-oriented legacies of abstract painting.

 

I do like Philippa Jones work because it is challenging and offers a chance to listen to what our visitors have to say and see their reaction. So this is the show for this wet and cold Summer so far in Charlottetown. Let’s hope it warms up!

In closing I have added this video of a favourite singer of mine Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman sextet and the famous song On the Sunny Side of the Street. Right now we have no Sun in PEI.

 

 

485 years ago

Tags

Canada., Fête, French, Gaul, nationhood, PEI, Quebec, St-Jean

Today 24 June is the National Day of French Canada also known previously as La Saint-Jean Baptiste. A very old holiday which goes back to ancient times in Gaul, a feast day relating to the worship of the Sun. Today one tradition that remains is the huge bonfire lit at night. PEI was known before as Saint-Jean Island until the British got here.

I remember from my childhood the parades, concerts, bonfires and fireworks on 24 June in Montreal and in Quebec City, huge crowds everywhere. The French presence in Canada is 485 years old and still dominates our National politics to this day.

On this day I remember my own ancestor Nicholas Beaulieu dit Lebel who came to Canada 357 years ago on a troop ship part of Le Régiment de la Reine, something I am very proud of and of all that he accomplished.

 

La Saint-Jean is and has been the French Holiday for millennia, it is certainly older than any other holiday in France and it resonates with French speaking people because of its origins in ancient Gaul.

Here I present songs from the 1970’s which have a special place in my memory and that of so many French Canadians and/or Quebecois. The words and the music have such meaning to me.  One by Claude Dubois about people in Montreal belonging to a certain economic strata and social class and the other by a famous group Beau Dommage about Ginette a girl in the popular imagination.

 

First roll of the Summer

Tags

Beach, lobster, PEI, Richard's, Summer, tourism, West Cove Head

Today finally we had some nice weather which was inviting enough for us to go to the beach at Cove Head. We are only 20 minutes away from the beach and the drive up is quiet usually alone on the road. The beach at Brackley is part of the National Park and so it is forested with maritime pines and sand dunes, marshy land and tall grass, beautiful and quiet. There are also some small harbours for lobster boats like Cove Head and a simple shack like restaurant called Richard’s which only serves seafood and lobster prepared very simply like you would have in your kitchen at home. You place your order and pay at the window then you are given an electronic device the size of a small phone and when it beeps your order is ready, you can sit at one of the simple wood tables looking out to the sea and beach or you can sit in your car to eat. The parking lot is small about 30 cars.  Richard’s has become very popular and it is best to go between 3 and 4pm to avoid crowds but still today we waited 20 minutes for our Lobster roll and fries.  It is a generous portion of lobster, I would say half to a full one pounder, chopped up and mixed with celery, salt and pepper and mayo on a hot dog bun. It was delicious. Having lunch late meant no dinner tonight, we are too full.

This being the long weekend of two in a row, June 24 Quebec St-Jean Baptiste Day and then 1 July Canada Day, schools are out for the Summer and so family vacations should start. But where are the tourists? Last night at the Summer Opening of the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre, a person I know who is well connected to the business circles told me that tourism is down 50% so far this year. There are no tourist, I am not making this up, since May 15 we should have had droves of them all over the place, no what we have is lots of vacancies and half empty flights in and out of the Island. Cruise ships come but passengers do not get off. They are usually in port from 9am to 5pm. Last week only 20% got off a ship carrying 2600 people. The only reason I see so far has to do with the terrible weather we have had in April, May and June. Too many days of heavy rain and blustery winds with well below average in temperature. Even today with a lot of sunshine at the beach is was around 16C and in town it was around 19C not exactly Summer weather. The wind is still strong and cold.

Going to the beach so close to our home is pure luxury, it is so quiet, all you hear is the wind, the surf and the birds.

 

Cold weather and travels

Tags

Charlottetown, Festivals, Franconia, Germany, lobster, Moncton, Moose, NB, PEI, Petitcodiac, Reykjavik, Travel, wines

I am constantly amazed at the amount of people who simply do not believe anything is wrong with the climate. Winter started in PEI in early November, it was not a snowy Winter, it was mostly ice rain and high winds. April was rain and more rain, May not much better so far with one warm day. The Weather is so out of wack that farmers cannot plant anything the fields are mud, big sticky red mud. Tourists are staying away given the cold around the freezing point and rain weather. Of course the joke is that PEI only has 2 Seasons, Winter and Summer, in Quebec its Winter and Construction.

So last week I decided to travel off Island to Moncton, New Brunswick which is all of 2 hours away by car and across the Sea bridge of 12 Km. Going was not bad in terms of driving but coming back 2 days later the wind was high so crossing the Sea bridge, you are 350 feet above the Sea, I had both hands gripping the steering wheel and all the big transport trucks 18 wheelers were in convoys. It is a 2 lane bridge and you cannot go any faster than 80km  per hour, but with high winds around 60 miles per hour you do not want to go fast.

Moncton is poorly planned or not planned at all, shopping malls everywhere, a new COSTCO by the highway, a very beautiful river crosses the city with lots of marshland all around, because of the muddy banks it is called the Chocolate river or by its real name Petitcodiac river and it has a very powerful tidal wave coming all the way from Shepody Bay (Bay of Fundy) some 52 Km away. Moncton also has 2 Universities so lots of academic stuff and students. I stayed in Dieppe a suburb of Moncton but you could confuse the two since only a street separates the two cities. Also a large airport serves the area which is handy if you want to fly to other large Canadian cities and cannot do so from Charlottetown PEI.

I saw friends in Moncton and went for lunch to a very nice Café called Tony’s, tonysbistro.ca the food was excellent and they have the most wonderful French pastry shop. I really do not know anymore if COSTCO is all that worth it, I cannot say I saved much money. The real bargain is cheese, for the quantity and price it is unbeatable. Cheese in Canada in general is so expensive that I wonder why they do not have armed guards in supermarkets. After 30 minutes of shopping I had to get out, I was feeling tired by the place.

Chocolate river or Petitcodiac river.

Since I was staying with friends, I brought them Lobsters, now of course you will think don’t they have lobster in New Brunswick, of course they do BUT it is coastal lobster fished in the Strait whereas my lobster is fished in the Gulf on the open sea side of PEI. The taste fishermen tell me is different because of the salt water content. I am not a big lobster eater and will have one per year. However I bought mine at the Water Prince restaurant across the street from my home and Shane and his son Cody sell wonderful seafood. The lobsters were each 2 pounders, the meat was rich and creamy, very good and at $11. per pound well worth it. Now I bought them cooked because I do not know how to cook them in Salt Water and you have to know how to do it. Salt Water in the cooking is very important, many people make the mistake of cooking lobster in unsalted water, big mistake as it changes the taste and the quality of the meat. The best way is to take the water straight from the Sea.

This was my lobster, please note the long antennas which indicates that this lobster was well fed and very fresh. If the antennas are damaged or missing, that is a bad sign, lobster if they are hungry and have no food, will eat their antennas.

Going to Moncton was fun and seeing my friends was a nice brake from the Island. We will be travelling again in June but this time to Ottawa for a week. A first return trip since we left 3 years ago. We are driving 14 hours, but we will need the car in town anyways. I also visited Memramcook (Micmac language meaning Crooked river) which is the birthplace of the first French Language University in the Maritime Provinces, U de Moncton. The Eudistes Fathers opened the university in 1864, the village of Memramcook is ancient, the Micmac indians have lived there since the beginning of time and the French speaking Acadians arrived in 1700. They were deported by British colonial troops coming mostly from the Boston area in 1755. However those who survived the ethnic cleansing returned after 1765. It remains an important historical and cultural site for the Acadians.

Whenever you travel on the highways in N.B. you have to be mindful that the vast forests all around you are full of Moose, you do not want an encounter with one of them, they are very large animals weighing often for a full grown male around one ton or a little more. There is a special number to call if you see one near the road and it is important to remember to stop if the Moose is on the road and stay well away from it. They can charge your car and will injure or kill you in the process if it is mating season.

Monument Lefebvre, first French speaking University in the Maritimes, now known as the Université de Moncton. These buildings are part of the National historical park now, the University moved to Moncton some years ago.

Coming back to Charlottetown, we had tickets to go to the Wine Festival held at this time each year. This year was featuring German Wines, we bought a few bottles mostly of dry Rieslings and met with the owner of a winery in the Franconia region of Germany, Regina ZenZen (from the German word for Licence collector) a very nice lady and in her presentation she paired her wines, in this case a wonderful Silvaner with raw Tuna in a light acidic vinaigrette, the chef was Mitchell from Claddagh Oyster House in Charlottetown, one of my favourite restaurant. Mitchell is a great guy only 28 but talented.

We are also now booking a 7 day cruise with Holland America from Amsterdam to Norway, we will spend some time in Holland, I want to re-visit the Rijks Museum now that the renovations are completed. We will also fly first to Iceland for a few days, there are direct flights from Montreal to Reykjavik on our way to join the cruise in September. Other than that we lead a dull life.

Reykjavik, Iceland