November 1994
By Barry Stagg
AUGUST EVENING
This time of the year there are still evenings when it is warm and the wind dies down. In the gathering dusk the berry patches and the marshy grounds and the stands of dry knarled fir are absolutely silent. There is no sound of wind nor are there even any sounds of cars swishing by on the road a couple of miles away. There is absolute, eternal silence. The land is in the silent decay that comes in late summer when the bushes and plants have stopped growing, but are still green and hanging ripe; waiting for the inevitable fall and waiting for the cold and chill and mist. I put my hands on an old crooked spruce tree that is warm from the day's sun. The warm feel of the tree is like a sweet kiss from the land. A firm but gentle hand saying you belong, we belong.
This is the bond with the land that we have achieved over the centuries. I can move for hours, especially as the sun gradually sinks and after a while there is just the after light where the sun is long behind the hills, but a light is lingering as if a memory of light is still in your eyes and the land is somehow reluctant to descend into night. This is a time of stillness and a time when we who have been here for the eons feel most with the land.
These days most of us who tramp the back woods and the bogs and marshes have agreed to leave each other alone. We all know about the all terrain vehicles and even the jeeps and other nasty and smelly contraptions that can invade the privacy of what we have known. Most of us agree that the tangle of broken trees and wonderfully convenient mud holes have done a lot to discourage our neighbours and ourselves from penetrating into what are really private, if not, sacred lands. I wonder some time if we have really not become displaced European Aborigines. We really behave toward the land as our brothers and sisters must have felt back fifteen centuries ago when they were trapping the wilds of Devon and Cornwall and finding various and sundry berry bushes and trout streams to their liking.
Its really dark now and my only way of getting around really is just by memory of the paths. Little nooks and crannies of the berry patch. Blueberry picking is at full out overdrive for everybody and the paths have plenty of boot prints from the past few days. All of this reverie about the past scores of years has left me floating a little bit in the darkness. All of a sudden I am brought back to earth by a small plaintive meow. Our little cat has followed me in determinedly for all of three miles and is now growing increasingly concerned about the darkness and my questionable behaviour in lingering in what would appear to be an inhospitable part of wilderness. She catches up to me and expresses a certain amount of consternation which she exhibits by numerous furry caresses of my left calf.
Obviously I now have to deal with this feline dependant and off we go tramping over the warm bogland down to the roadside.
Warm and silent, dark and broody: These are all things that the August night has. The cat is silent. She is able to pick her way home with confidence now that her larger pack leader has decided to turn his compass to the north. The absolute black stillness of the night is broken by the eerie calls of the snipe yipping along at ground level and the lonely call of the loon piercing the darkness from the horizon. These are trips you must make alone. Other human contact somehow chases away the mood. The atmosphere somehow is broken. There is a contact, a linking with the land that can only take place in private, in a respectful privacy between bogland and you.
The cat is getting busy keeping its paws free of the sticky black earth and the lights of the first few sheds come into view as the line road brings itself out to the asphalt that winds through the Cove. There aren't many people on the road these days as most have taken up car riding as the best way to move around. Seems that a lot have lost the sense of smell since they started riding around with the windows up. I like the smells of the earth. It is a way that we can link up both with land and sea and the animals that live there with us.
The cat has a great sense of smell and right now she is picking up on the scent of that large mutt that is tramping down the other side of the road. What was a passive and friendly companion of a few moments ago, has now become a large ball of stiff and hissing fur that is taking cover between my ankles but with every sign of doing battle to the death. Dog thinks the better of any altercation and bolts off down the pavement with a few obligatory grunts. The old wooden bridge with five gallon pails of sticky blueberries is in sight and we mount the platform and go into the brightness of incandescent evening.