Front Page News

What follows is my first front page story for our local paper:
The Guysborough Journal.

Billy Bond and crew land the big one

By Lois Ann Dort

CANSO- Living by the sea, we’ve all heard the story about the big one that got away, but have you ever heard a tale like this?

Bill Bond of Canso, skipper of the Melissa and Poppa III left last week for the giant blue fin tuna fishing grounds for the two-day season open off the shores of Ballantyne Cove, Antigonish County. He and mate Kenny Snow of Fox Island, set out at 6 am on Tuesday morning, September 28, not knowing the drama that would soon unfold.

About an hour after steaming out of Ballantyne’s Cove, the fisherman were baiting their hook with herring. The baited hook lying across the side of the boat was just too tempting for one fish. It pulled up alongside the boat and swiped the bait and the battle began.

Ken Snow manned the rod and played out the line to let the giant tire himself out, while Bill Bond commanded the wheel. “You have to be sure not to get the line nicked by the boat when you have a fish on; the tension on the line is so great that it will easily break and then you’ve lost your fish and a $300 spool of line,” comments Bill as he describes the one hour and 45 minute ordeal.

Although, the fisherman had seen the fish as it grabbed the bait, it wasn’t until they hauled it up alongside the boat that they knew the size of their catch. Bill Bond explains:

“It didn’t feel any different than any other fish we’d caught in the past. Sometimes a young fish will give you as much fight or more. We were surprised when we saw it.” And well you might be surprised to haul up a fish that weighed in at 1,110 pounds, the largest fish landed in the Gulf to date.

Bill Bond has been a fisherman all his life and has been fishing the giant blue fin tuna for the past eight years. He’s caught fish every season, most of them weighing, on average, between 500 to 600 pounds.

He’s seen some big fish before and heard of some fantastic payouts but things have changed in the industry in the past decade and he doesn’t expect to be buying a new truck on the back of this catch. “Years ago, in the heyday of the fishery, there was a father and son team that got 50 and 55 dollars a pound for their catch. Iexpect Imight get between seven and eight, it all depends on thequality of the fish and the quantity on the market,” says Bond. And the market is volatile.

Blue fin tuna caught in Atlantic Canada is sold by auction to buyers in Japan, where the fresh flesh of the big fish is a prized item on the menu of many sushi bars. This past spring, the market received a shock when the United States proposed a ban on Atlantic blue fin tuna exports to the United Nations wildlife meeting. The proposed ban was quashed but the threat to the fishery in Atlantic Canada has not disappeared. Fishing practices in the Mediterranean, where boats use nets that scoop up entire schools of blue fin tuna, have caused concern about the depletion of stocks globally.

Bill Bond describes the difference between the European fishing model and what happens in Atlantic Canada: Tuna fisherman in Nova Scotia pursue these gigantic fish with rod and reel alone, no wenches or other mechanical devices are used to haul in the catch, just pure sweat and blood manpower. The season in the Gulf is open for two days. In that time, the quota of 50,000 tons is met. We only fish mature tuna, although there appears to be more juveniles year upon year. As for the last of the giant blue fin-Ican’t see it. Everybody should be fishing rod and reel.

Atlantic Canadian fisherman can only hope that the rest of the world will adopt their fishing practices and conserve the giant blue fin while still prospering from it’s tasty flesh. This path will ensure that this is not the last big fish tale you read.

An Artist's Life

As I take these notes I am sitting in a chair watching Bruce Campbell
and Alan Syliboy create a new work of art; acrylic on canvas. There are not many other people in the room and it is as if I was their patron, scrutinizing the work in progress as it develops at my feet. Or it would be like that if I was not in awe of this collaborative painting process.

I first met Alan Syliboy's work when I was in University, the early years. I attended a talk he gave at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax and was smitten by his understated manner.

This evening was no different.

He was pleasant, unassuming and chatty. During a coffee break he sat beside me and discussed his work and reminisced about the talk he had given at the Art Gallery that I had attended so many years ago.

Bagpipes and fiddles came floating in through the open window where the blue base on the canvas stood drying before the next layer was applied. Beyond this room commenced the maiden voyage of the Arts event aptly named Antigonight.

This room, on the third floor of an empty downtown building, was the site for one of two painting exhibits in the show. The red and white diamond tiled linoleum was covered by a large drop sheet. Big jars of blue and yellow paint were open on the floor. The canvas, now standing, had been laid on the floor for the application of the blue base layer.

I talked with Alan about working in a new space and with an audience- he didn't mind. It was a new experience and he welcomed those.
In his studio he might work on the floor, a table, on an easel. He had no set parameters.

As he finished his coffee and got ready to paint some more he said, "Caffeine driven painting is always interesting."

Discussing paint and techniques, he said all his paint was bought on sale and as for technique, he used whatever was at hand including his own, to mix paint. Hands, fingernails, and plastic knives were a good means to create texture.

The blue background was still tacky but dry enough to add another layer and the two artist set to work once again. They smeared their hands with red paint and filled the sky with their imprints.

Next, Bruce suggested, they do a frieze of feet on the bottom, all pointing in one direction with one golden foot amidst a path of brilliant pink footprints.

Alan asked, "Why a gold foot?"

Bruce, alluding to a quirk in one of Alan's other paintings said, "It's like a caribou going backward".

The two painters sat and chatted about feet, positioning, colour etc. Then it was time to refuel: pizza.

Bruce kept looking at the painting and every few moments would interject into the conversation, " We've got to get the ground down. We've got to get the ground down." The painting, I will mention here, had a guiding theme of environmentalism and man's impact on the earth. Finally, I could stand to stay silent no more and said to Bruce, "Yes, but I heard that may take 6 days."

My Temple ....delayed

The day did not turn out as I had expected and the night is worse- 2 children awake and crying past 10 pm. But today I had a visit to the temple which I hope has revived my island of inner calm to some degree.

After a breakfast at the local bakery, without my children in attendance, I started down the road to the turn that brings me the always surprising view of Lion's Rock just past the mouth of Cook's Cove.

Well I was going to write what a zen like space this mornings' paddle had put me in but now the children are still awake and I must go kill them. ARGGGGGG

how in the name of god am I supposed to write

Oh, death.

We are born alone and die alone. This oft quoted axiom is so completely wrong that I wonder how it has survived throughout the years. Unless your name is Adam, having no mother and conceived from the earth, you definitely were not born alone. And if you have had love, a family, and good friends; you need not die alone either.

The most awe inspiring moments of my life have been those times when I have been present at a birth and at the opposing side of the scale, a death. Most people will surely recognize the joy that accompanies a birth but I felt it amidst the grief of losing the person I loved most of all in the world; my grandmother. It was an honor and a privilege to hold my grandmother's hand through her last hours and minutes of life.

My grandmother had always been the person I turned to most in my life, from childhood scrapes to teenaged heartbreaks and on into more adult troubles. I knew I had a faithful caring ear although not always a commiserating mind. She was strong and judgmental but kept her own council. She forgave and moved on in life with friends and family. She was truly the glue of our family. I loved and respected her and feared her death, knowing how much of a hole it would leave in my life.

Luckily, the end was quick. A stroke, a refusal of feeding tubes and any other life prolonging measures ensured my grandmother died as prudently as she had lived.

Her doctor conferred with me:
Did she really understand what refusing the feeding tube would mean for her health?

Without the tube she would die. I knew that, she knew that, and the doctor knew that but they usually choose not to use that word. Health care professionals prefer: expire, pass away, and other euphemisms that are all meant to avoid the word death.

I assured him that she was fully aware of her impending death. Several months before her stroke I had gone over to her house one evening specifically to talk to her about her death and if she was comfortable with it. Her only complaint about dying was that she knew how hard it would be on those of us left behind. I had this conversation with her not because she was close to death at the time, but because we all are.

In the days following the stroke she became less lucid and finally, on the 5th day of her hospitalization she was no longer conscious. That morning I had dreamed of my grandfather's face and although I am the farthest thing from religious, I felt it to be a sign that my grandmother would die that day.

I arrived around 6pm to find all of her living children and their spouses lining the walls of her room. Not one of them approached her bed. They were seated as far as possible from the soon to be corpse of their mother. She breathed strenuously and slowly, she looked like an old woman. I hardly recognized her as the person who had offered me cookies in the kitchen last week, last year, last life.

I went to her bed and took her hand in mine. I didn't let go.

At 2

There is a little creature that lives in my house. She's so unique I resist calling her human. She is much more animal in mind and manner.

The grace of her naked body as it gambols through the day fills me with joy and leaves me staring at her beauty as if she was a newly discovered Caravaggio.

The ticklish sound of her laughter creeps into my shielded body and infects me with it's untamed exuberance.

Her cry is full-throated and wide mouthed. It drills into my skull with a force only nature can exert.

Last night she awoke crying. Her words garbled in an attempt to escape her nightmare. After several minutes she quieted. We watched each other silently, intently-like a hunter does its prey. Finally she said, "I love you" and continued her vigilant stare. I stroked her glossy head and she fell asleep.

I have never been more loved.

Meet The Teacher

This evening, like many other parents in my area, I am going to Meet the Teacher. Unlike some, but surely not all, I am going toe to toe with my childhood nemesis.

It took over a year for me to process the fact that my child's kindergarten teacher was a woman who had made my life miserable in highland fling, brownies and grade 2. I'll admit, I am not sure it was her that taught the highland fling.

I had seen her at school the previous year but did not recognize her from those early days of animosity.

There were other teachers in my childhood that I did not always get along with but usually it all ended in some kind of mutual respect and tolerance.

I was not an easy child. But most grown ups got past that-not this one. We butted heads upon every meeting and never came to a truce.

Now I am about to step to with her again.

Hannah has been coming home spouting religious platitudes.
--"The Lord gave us apples."
-"No Hannah, the Lord did not give us apples. The farmers hard work and mommy's money at the store gave you apples."

I detest having my child's head filled with religious tripe. Believe if you wish but keep your myths away from my child.

If we are to designate ourselves as any religion it would be Buddhist and until the teacher includes the Lord Buddha in her praise for earthly delights I must insist she keep her comments to herself.

I am sure this will not be the only time I will come up against the cross; after all I do live in North America, but it will, by times, be difficult to live in a Christian country as a non-Christian.