CCN Back Issues Vol 5 Issue 6

"Head – Heart – Hands – Health." Both children and adults recite these four words many times a day across Nova Scotia. They constitute the pledge of an organization that has been here since 1922. Known since the early 1950s as "4-H," membership through the years has largely been made up of rural farm children. Today, 4-H offers its members in Canada and abroad projects and activities that help them become responsible, independent, and well-rounded citizens.

My first contact with 4-H came in the early 1980s when I was a librarian in a Cape Breton high school with more than 1,400 students. As I got to know many of them, it soon became evident that there were certain students who stood out from the others, who were most confident and self-assured among their peers. I noticed one girl in particular, and inquired about her to another student, who indicated she was a member of the local 4-H Club. I approached this petite young lady, a cute girl with an impish smile, and her vitality sparkled as she answered my questions: What does '4-H' mean?" "Can anyone join?" "Where do you meet?" I listened as this young lady of about sixteen spoke of the wonderful things she was doing through her 4-H Club. As she told me about her various projects, camping experiences, and other Club activities, I realized there was something very valuable in this organization that my own children should experience. Although my son and daughter were too young to join that year, they both eventually joined 4-H. The family hasn't looked back since.

Today, both my husband and I are 4-H Project Leaders, and our children have discovered new friendships and learned much that would have remained unknown to them without the 4-H movement. I, too, have learned through 4-H. One of its mottoes is "Learn by Doing," and that's exactly what I've done. When my daughter joined, she wanted to do the "Rabbit Project," so we went to the local rabbitry and selected a pedigree mini-lop. The following year, I was astounded to be asked to become the Rabbit Project Leader. At the time, my only knowledge of these animals was that they breed very rapidly! I knew nothing about rabbits but was willing to learn. Today, there are several youngsters involved in our Rabbit Project and we've made several trips to Truro to take part in the annual 4-H Provincial Show in the fall. Last year one of my Rabbit Project members placed first in her class, a rarity for Cape Breton rabbits. After three years as a Leader, I have, in addition to the Rabbit Project, instructed youngsters in paper tole and initiated a Computer Project in the Northside 4-H Club.

One of the greatest things about the 4-H movement is its commitment to community. By instilling community-based values and beliefs in members and Leaders, 4-H contributes to community life in a positive manner. It is giving back to the community the good in our youth. Its focus on the positive helps young people become responsible Nova Scotians. Though activities vary from club to club across the country, it's always "kids" helping out whenever and wherever needed. Whether it be a food drive, making quilts for the homeless, sewing turbans for cancer patients, or donating items to a local youth homeless shelter, 4-Hers – young people 9-21 years of age – and their Leaders devote many hours of volunteer time and labour to help others.

Recently, my thirteen-year-old was given the school assignment of writing her resume. We were both quite surprised when she completed it: her involvement in 4-H was a recurring theme. Her experience in community events, her success in public speaking, her participation in various projects at County and Provincial exhibitions, her degree in St. John's Ambulance training – all of these things are due to her 4-H involvement. She will carry all these positive experiences with her as she grows into adulthood. She owes much to 4-H, and whether or not she appreciates its value today, her parents certainly do, as will she as an adult.

Although 4-H has its deepest roots in farming communities, many urban children also become 4-Hers and learn about the wonders of agriculture while growing up in town. Urban members can witness first-hand the processes involved in food production. In Nova Scotia, 4-H has encouraged many non-farm youth to pursue careers in agriculture.

This is clearly evident at Graduation Day at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro. Browsing through the names of the graduates and their hometowns, one sees that they include people from Halifax, Dartmouth, and Sydney, as well as from places like Wallace, Mabou, and Canning. As 4-H members learn about agriculture, they also become more educated consumers. Rural communities become stronger as their youth take advantage of opportunities to develop skills and reach their full potential in their own settings, and non-farm youth are given these same opportunities. All members, urban and rural, learn together.

All 4-Hers gain skills in decision making, self-esteem, cooperation, and responsibility. Technical skills, such as map-reading, gardening, judging, and communications, help members become more effective in the "real" world, whether they are conducting a meeting, speaking in public, or operating a business. Four-H isn't just about raising farm animals and learning crafts: it's about succeeding in life and developing tomorrow's effective leaders.

As a 4-H Leader, I get to see children succeed. The sight of an urban 4-Her trying for the first time to hold a cantankerous duck can be a precious one. Then in time, there's the same child handling the same duck like a pussycat!

Practice and determination allow 4-Hers to overcome even the most difficult challenge, even if that challenge is only an un-cooperative duck. Watching the eyes of these children as they learn and succeed makes all the time and effort more than worthwhile. Last year, a first-year child in the Rabbit Project had her rabbit win first place in one of the competitions at Provincial Show in Truro. When she won, she came running to me, gave me a big hug, and said, "You're the best rabbit Leader ever." I didn't have the heart to tell her that the rabbit's success had nothing to do with me: it had won solely on its merits as a rabbit.

Besides all the learning and development of life skills, 4-H is also an excellent avenue for fun and friendship. This was very evident at last fall's Provincial Show in Truro. For three days, hundreds of 4-Hers, Leaders, and parents from around the province met at the Exhibition Grounds for competitions and socializing. One very interesting event is the "mud stomp," which is really a sort of dance. The floor of the arena is covered with earth and the 4-Hers gather near the end of the weekend to dance. The mud stomp is a time to meet new friends, have some fun, and develop lasting memories. By the end of the evening, mud certainly is evident in the clothes of the participants, yet no one seems to care! Everyone has a feeling of unity in the 4-H movement and its celebration of youth.

One local teen has taken the 4-H experience to an amazing level. This Grade X student has a flair for public speaking, and she decided this year to write her 4-H speech on the Holocaust experience. She researched the topic and delivered a rather complex and moving speech, recounting the experiences of Holocaust children and survivors. She relates experiences of the Holocaust that make us think about ourselves and how we might have survived the terrible atrocities. Her prize-winning speech has been delivered to local schools, service clubs, and various Jewish groups. She has used her speech, as a non-Jewish child, to open the eyes of many around her. One Holocaust survivor has called her an "angel."

On June 25, at the Beth Israel Synagogue in Halifax, the Atlantic Jewish Council honoured this sixteen-year-old. The Council's Jerusalem Award is given annually to a Maritimer who, according to Council Director Jon Goldberg, "best exemplifies a concern for the human condition both past and present, and also expresses by deed, by word, or in print, the concept of social justice for all mankind." This is only one recent example of a 4-H member using her talents and skills to assist the community in understanding the importance and complexity of life in today's hectic world. Her message was clear. Her platform was the 4-H movement.

The 4-H movement is a success in Nova Scotia, and across the country. Four-H alumni are prominent in our communities: in fact, 60 percent of them hold executive positions in community organizations. As well, 4-H alumni earn about fifteen percent more income than their neighbours do.

Such success needs no further explanation. In the eyes of children, 4-H is fun. In the eyes of parents and leaders, 4-H helps to assure the future for our children, and for our communities.

Along with her involvement in 4-H activities, Sydney Mines resident Carmelita Cousins works as a System Library Tech-nician at the Teachers' Resource Centre in North Sydney. For more information about the 4-H movement in Nova Scotia, contact Elizabeth Crouse at 893-6585 or E-Mail 4h@nsdam.gov.ns.ca.

4-H Breeds Success

During my eleven years as a school librarian at one of the province's largest high schools, I got to know many 4-H members who excelled both academically and in extra-curricular activities. Last year, at this same high school, two of the top three students in a graduating class of more than 300 were 4-H members. (Together, these two young ladies received more that $30,000 in scholarships.) I expect that similar stories could be told of many other schools across the province.

The 4-H experience has helped shape many successful people across the province. Today Sarah Bowers and her husband run a veterinary practice out of Fall River, near Halifax. She was born into an Ontario farm family and joined 4-H as a twelve-year-old. When the family moved to rural Hants County when she was fifteen, she became involved in the local 4-H club. "Being involved in 4-H helped build my confidence," she says. "It taught me a lot about responsibility, exposed me to different aspects of life. It even helped with scholarships and summer jobs when I went to university. Four-H had a lot to do with the person I've become."

David Jackson, a provincial reporter with the Chronicle Herald , has similar recollections of his 4-H experience growing up in the Annapolis Valley. "It taught me a lot about working with others as a team. The public-speaking and other skills I learned through 4-H have proven valuable later in life." – C.C.

Many Peanuts, Many Nutshells

I'm, well, let's say, comfortably over 30, so perhaps I can be indulged a little rambling. Time was, the rule was simple: "Don't trust anyone over 30." A simplification, sure enough, but one that had a lot of meaning to many people of my generation as we were growing up. "You can't trust older people, because they're part of 'the system.'" They were just that, we were sure, while we, most certainly, were not .

The years flowed by, and they flowed by some more, and something happened to most of us who, in our wisdom, had not trusted all those people who were part of "the system." Inevitably, we became a part of it.

Sure, some of us more than others: there's some comfort in that. From the high moral ground a minority of us like to think we've maintained, we can look down at those others who embraced with open arms the '80s and '90s culture of personal enrichment – those who, without reservation, jumped squarely on the political, corporate, or stock-market roller coasters that in so many cases became roads to great personal wealth. Today, they are the key political, corporate, and financial players who, in essence, are the system. What they want to happen in our society is, generally, what unfolds.

Others of us might think ourselves a bit purer than those of our generations (yes, generations, plural — a generation, it seems to me, doesn't span as many years as I once assumed it did) who "grasped the golden ring" and rode to personal wealth and power. After all, we can puff our chests out and congratulate one another: "We never sold out our principles." Sure, perhaps we embarked on a career, took a job – maybe teaching school, maybe as a tenured academic, maybe as someone fortunate enough to get paid to be a key player in an environmental, community, or social activist group. Maybe as an editor and writer, or as a plumber, auto-body specialist, doctor, priest or minister. Maybe, even, as a lawyer ! Some of us like to say we are still loyal to that common flag we pledged ourselves to so long ago: social justice. And, if younger folks come along and want to share the cause, we'll gladly take them under our wing.

But there's something essentially flawed with this picture. The snapshot of one generation never shows the same image as that of another, and those who are arrogant enough to think that's not so are just the people we didn't trust all those years ago. And, the thing is, it was so long ago. A new generation – no, new generations – have indeed grown up behind us. Many of them are as dedicated to the cause of social justice as we ever were, and it's not a lot easier for them than it was for us to trust us old folks, even if we claim to have the same goals. And there are a lot of real differences. We've established relationships, are well along on the process of building families, have kids to raise, mortgages to pay, and... oh yes, injustices to right. The young have, first and foremost , injustices to right.

Reflections similar to these may have been in the minds of the people at the Extension Department of Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, who organize every year a conference named in honour of Father George Topshee. He served for many years as Director of both the Extension Department and the Coady International Institute , also located on the Antigonish campus. This year's Topshee Conference , held the second weekend in June, was titled "Social Justice: A Dialogue With Youth." The idea was to bring together people of all ages who are dedicated to the cause of social justice, to talk about our experiences, and our perceptions of ourselves and one another, as both individuals and generations.

The unofficial "dividing line" between "young" and "not young" for the conference was set at 30. (Actually, us old farts weren't referred to as such in either the literature or the discussion during the weekend. Instead, we were called "traditional constituents," and, I suppose it was meant to be a comfort to us in our declining years!) On Saturday morning we all gathered in an auditorium to hear first a "traditional constituent" and then a young person talk to us about their sense of social justice and what it means to them.

Dr. John Kearney, who has worked for several years with the Extension Department and currently heads up the Centre for Community-Based Management, was the first to speak. He related his personal experience as an eighteen-year-old in the anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States. The police monitored his activities, then arrested him for hitchhiking. He was sentenced to two weeks in jail, and found himself surrounded by Black prisoners, many of them followers of the radical Malcolm X. While behind bars, John reflected on his Catholic upbringing, and on the life of Christ in his own time as an organizer of the hungry and landless, as a fighter for social justice. "In prison," he told us, "I was faced with the choice of either embracing or abandoning my faith. I chose to embrace my faith, but knew that my faith would for the rest of my life be linked to the cause of social justice."

The second speaker was 22-year-old Arciris Garay. Her parents are from El Salvador, and they studied at the Coady Institute in their earlier years. They returned to their homeland and became active in social justices issues, and although civil unrest soon forced them to flee to Mexico as refugees, they remained active in grass-roots community development work through the Catholic Church, whose "liberation theology" tendency taught of the importance of empowering the poor and dispossessed.

Arciris's parents came to New Brunswick in 1984 but are now back in El Salvador, still working for social justice. "My parents, and my commitment to liberation theology," she told us, "made me a social activist before I ever made a conscious decision to become one." She then described how her analysis of globalization and trade issues had made her recently re-commit herself to social-justice issues. She also told the conference that people involved in social justice have to be aware that there is a power struggle going on in today's world, one that involves money, capital. At the same time, young people have to overcome great obstacles to make their voices heard.

Arciris concluded her talk by urging young and old not to be complacent and to take heart. "The youth movement for social justice is full of energy! Yes, there are differences in the ways younger and older people think, so we must learn to appreciate and learn from those differences. And remember: youth makes up the largest part of the world."

After a question-and-answer session and lunch, people broke into ten different small discussion groups to explore a wide variety of issues affecting youth and others interested in social justice. Then, we all gathered for two video presentations. I found their differences, and their similarities, interesting.

The first was called Mouseland, an animated parable about politics and power, about cartoon mice and dogs and cats, based upon a speech given decades ago by famed Saskatchewan social democrat Tommy Douglas. I found it a cute telling of the tale of how politics has traditionally worked in this country, and of how things might be changed. It was told, I guess, in the language of us "traditional constituents," and I felt as comfortable with its language and imagery as I might find myself comfortable in a broken-in, faded pair of jeans. The other presentation was a pair of brief clips by Rage Against the Machine , a young, radical, Los Angeles-based group of musicians and videographers. The first of these dealt with Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist unjustly imprisoned since the 1970s for imagined crimes. The second was about the struggles of peoples in Mexico for self-determination, economic security, and freedom. Rage Against the Machine's complex blend of musical, video, spoken, and written imagery was very different from the simplicity of Mouseland's cartoon animation. One of its messages, bluntly stated, was "Anger is a Gift."

As a "traditional constituent" interested in social justice issues, I'd long been familiar with the story of Leonard Peltier, as well as with the struggles of people in Mexico against oppressive power structures. The images put before my eyes and ears, however, were jarring to my senses. My comfort level with this presentation was not at all in the fashion of frayed and faded jeans with which I'm most comfortable. The realization of that very fact was a sort of revelation, leading me to an understanding that, though we have common goals, we do, in some ways, speak different languages. (Watching Rage Against the Machine also made me feel again the anger I'd once felt at social injustice, made me recognize that in many ways the anger I once felt has been to some degree nudged out of my consciousness and replaced by a jaded knowing-ness of how power works. The very awareness of this made me again realize, as I had years earlier, that anger is a gift.)

Others who watched these two video presentations, the one from then and the one from now, also sensed, I think, the different modes that give us comfort, that are our own generational fashion. And, I think, it made us all realize the need to connect with one another across generations, to identify and nurture the values we hold in common, despite our differences of expression, our different "comfort zones," our different fashions and cultures of comfort.

The entire weekend was filled with dialogue aimed at overcoming these differences and limitations. I hope I learned some valuable lessons. And I hope I was a part of a process that helped others learn, that helped others to broaden ways of thinking and, in the case of us old farts, helped us shake off some of the complacency years can sometimes taint us with.

I went to "Social Justice: A Dialogue With Youth" hoping to learn from and share common experiences with people of different ages working for social justice. I think I did that. When I set out to write this article, my intention was to give a sort of "blow-by-blow" description that anyone attending the gathering, regardless of age, might have recognized as something at least not far from the reality of the conference. That turned out to be too tough a task: on reflection, I realized that whatever I wrote could not help but be a product of perceptions and ways of thinking that reflect my particular experiences of life, and not those of others. I took an active part in the conference, but I find myself at a loss to arrange the words that might put it in "a nutshell." Perhaps that's a weakness. But perhaps it's because I'm beginning to understand that my "nutshell" might not be the best fit for everyone's peanut. Or, to look at it from a slightly different angle, perhaps the Topshee Conference helped me get more comfortable in walking the road of common purpose with people whose fashion sense might be far different than my own.

The St. F. X. Extension Department is preparing a summary of the Topshee Conference. To receive a copy by mail, please contact Ginger Hogan at 539-4600.

The Stationmaster's Long Since Gone... Not!

The hills of Cape Breton are famous for their beauty. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists drive the Cabot Trail to experience the meeting of land and sea, to hike the coastal and mountain trails, or to simply escape the faster pace of city life.

Most of these tourists cross the Canso Causeway from the mainland and then take the Trans-Canada Highway to the Trail. Only a tiny fraction of the tourist swarm takes a right turn some 40-odd kilometres from Port Hastings and turns onto a much less-travelled road. This secondary road winds briefly among the rugged hills, bringing the visitor to the small village of Orangedale.

Today, many of the 300-400 people who live and work in the Orangedale area are employed at nearby gypsum quarries or commute to jobs at the big Stora pulpmill in Port Hawkesbury. However, it wasn't always so. Orangedale's first human visitors were the Mi'Kmaq, and there are still thriving First Nations' settlements within a few miles of the village.

The first Europeans to settle in the area came from the staunchly Presbyterian islands of the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland in the 1820s. Many came from the Isle of Mull, and in its early days, the community was known as Mull's Cove. (The name was later changed to reflect the fact that the village was then a bastion of the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization that was a significant political force in the late 1800s.) Farming was the mainstay of the community before the coming of the railway in the latter part of the last century.

Early in the 1990s, the Rankin Family memorialized in song this small community and its railroading heritage with the hit Orangedale Whistle . Perhaps no two people better symbolize that heritage than brothers John Allan and Earl MacDonald . John Allan served as Orangedale's Stationmaster from 1960 to 1988, and then continued with VIA Rail until the Station was closed in 1990. Through most of the same period, Earl worked at the Station as a telegraph operator, baggage handler, and ticket seller. Their father, John Angus, was Stationmaster from 1941 to 1960, and the boys were raised in the second-floor flat above the Station, which served as the Stationmaster's family home. Today, Earl is a member of the Orangedale Station Association , an organization established to preserve and protect the old Station, built around the time the track was being laid from Port Hawkesbury to Sydney in the late 1880s.

When it began its work in the mid-1980s, the Association had a huge task before it. Over the previous decade and more, Canadian National, which owned both Station and railway, had allowed the building to deteriorate dramatically. "Upstairs," recalls John Allan, pointing upward toward his childhood home, "you could feel the wind just whipping from one end of the building to the other." Windows had been broken and were boarded up, the building cried out for fresh paint, and there was extensive structural damage. Canadian National was considering demolishing it.

It took a lot of work, but today Orangedale Station is fully restored to its past Victorian elegance. It houses a railway museum, with a model railway and displays of artifacts used in bygone railroading days. The Waiting Room and Station Agent's office are restored to the style of the 1940s, while the living quarters upstairs echo of the turn of the last century.

The basement of the Station houses a railroad archive containing artifacts and documents from Orangedale Station, from elsewhere in the Maritimes, and from across North America. Martin Boston, a former telegraph operator and current Association member, explains, "We keep the air in the archives both temperature- and humidity-controlled, to better preserve the records and artifacts. People have come here from far and wide to do historical research. It's one of the Association's mandates to preserve these things from our past." The Orangedale Station Association, a charitable organization, holds "Railway Days" events every summer and runs a gift shop in an adjacent railcar. An eyesore not so very long ago, Orangedale Station today is the main tourism attraction in the area, bringing thousands every year to re-live the railroading past.

John Allan and Earl MacDonald remember the days when Orangedale Station was abuzz with passengers and freight. "There used to be stock pens behind the station," John Allan recalls of his boyhood days, "and there were stock drives from Whycocomagh. People would bring cattle and other livestock from all around the area to be shipped out. As a youngster, I remember there'd be 30 or 40 cows and sheep there. We used to like to tease the bulls," he says with a wink, "just for pure devilment."

"Another year," Earl recalls, "A fellow from Alberta shipped a bunch of wild horses he'd caught out there to Orangedale. They were in the stock pens, and the fellow was trying to sell them to local farmers. I remember he had trouble selling the lot of them, and so he offered them to Dad, who was Stationmaster then. Dad had too much sense to take them!"

Canadian National, even in its heyday, wasn't widely known for being a model employer, and John Allan remembers one incident local people found particularly disheartening. "Back then," he says, "there was always a lot of coming and going, and lots of people worked here. One day when I was growing up, a train goes by and a cinder from the steam engine blows up on the roof and starts a fire. It might have been the end of the Station, but, luckily, this one worker notices it in time, and he scrambles up onto the roof and manages to put the fire out by himself. In the process, he burns his overalls up pretty badly. They weren't any good anymore. So Dad, being the Stationmaster, writes to Canadian National, explaining how this worker had saved the company's station and asking it to pay for a new set of overalls. Do you think they would? No!"

Despite the fact that Canadian National ceased operation in the 1980s and VIA followed suit in 1990, there is still a track that takes trains past Orangedale Station. The line from Truro to Sydney is now operated by the American-owned Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway, and its freight trains carry coal, steel, pulpwood, and other traffic. (On the day of my visit, a locomotive hoots its way slowly past a level crossing to pick up a railcar piled high with pulpwood on a siding within spitting distance of the Station.) And, this summer for the first time in several years, passenger traffic is being offered from Halifax to Sydney. (This weekly train is designed primarily for tourists, and its fares clearly reflect that fact.) When this summer service was first announced, members of the Station Association hoped an Orangedale stop might be included in the run. Instead, the train stops in Port Hawkesbury, where tourists are given a chance to stretch their legs.

The future of Orangedale Station today looks bright, but the community recently lost another historic building with a direct connection to the railway. Through the first half of this century, the Commercial Hotel had been well used by merchants, doctors, migrants, and other railway travellers. Although it closed around 1950 and had been a private dwelling since then, its most recent owners had done extensive restoration work. The building, along with a number of historic documents, was lost to fire in February of this year.

One of Orangedale's two stores is a Home Hardware operation owned by Murdock Olsen. "I bought this place 27 years ago," he recalls. "I needed a pair of work boots and I saw a notice that it was for sale. I asked if I could get a discount on the boots if I bought the store. He gave me twenty percent off the boots."

Murdock's store boasts a fair bit of woodworking equipment, and he buys his wood as much as possible from Nova Scotia mills. "Today, a lot of the bigger mills have computer equipment to do their cutting and the wood is cut by technicians," he explains. "But there's no replacement for that hard-earned traditional knowledge that is still to be found in many Nova Scotia mills."

This isn't to imply that Murdock is unwilling to use new technologies. He makes use of the internet to keep up to date on government and other tenders and contracts. "I leave it to the younger fellows to do that part of it," he remarks.

Orangedale's other retail institution is G. H. Smith and Sons, the local general store. It offers an amazing array of goods for sale, from milk to deli meats to furniture to tires. The panel of its delivery truck summarizes its wares in this manner: "Warehouse Outlet Appliances, Living Room, Bedroom Sets and Tires," and adds "If You Didn't Buy It From Us You Paid Too Much."

As she shows me around the store, Lena Smith explains to me that the building has housed a commercial operation since 1906. "My husband, Garnet, bought it in 1944 and ran it until he died in 1981. Then my son Bruce took it over." She takes me out back, where there's a tire-changing facility, leads me through areas piled high with new furniture, guides me past coolers where meat, pop, milk, and juice are on offer, then orients me past candy-bar stands and chip racks. I'd be lost without her guidance as she tells me, "We service local people, boaters who tie up nearby, and many of the Americans, Germans, and others who have bought up the old farmhouses and turned them into cottages."

In this age of Wal-Mart, the success of this little enterprise makes me smile, and I ask Bruce how he does it. "I have a good relationship with my suppliers," he tells me. "And it's better to add just a bit on top so people will come back. If you pile on the cost to consumers, you might get them once, but they won't come back, and they won't tell their friends."

The Smith store does a fair piece of its trade with area Mi'Kmaq living on nearby reserves. "We supply a lot of them with their beds, other furniture, and appliances. They don't pay the HST, so I don't charge them, though I have to carry it on my books for four months until the government pays me back. I grew up with the Mi'Kmaq around here, and if someone gets behind, we'll carry them through the hard times."

I ask Bruce whether he thinks that, one day, one of his three children might be running the operation. "I remember when I was a boy, and I'd drive by and see my Dad working late, and I'd say to myself, 'That's not for me!' But look at me – here I am. I have one boy of thirteen, but I couldn't ever try to put any pressure him. So, who knows?"

For a small place, there's a lot happening in Orangedale. Aside from railroading, a unique general store, and a hardware store, the village houses two churches and also boasts its own community water system that supplies just over 55 customers. Down the road a bit in one direction is Camp Aite Breagh, a summer camp for children and adults run by the YMCA for the provincial Department of Community Services. Down the road in the other direction is L'Arche, an ecumenical Catholic charity that does much good work for mentally challenged adults.

A few years back, the people of Orangedale proved they could save their Station. Today, many in the community are actively involved in other efforts involving educational, environmental, and other community issues. Despite its apparent serenity, it's a busy place. In Orangedale Whistle , The Rankins sang:

In spite of the first two lines of that verse, the heels of John Allan and brother Earl MacDonald still often echo against the walls inside Orangedale Station. And, though the train whistle may not blow from dusk till dawn, its sound is still known to echo off the wooded hills around this little community that is both close-knit and open, serene and bustling.

Celebrate Lighthouse Day !

Nova Scotia's second annual Lighthouse Day will be held on the last Saturday of September.

Community-based lighthouse groups across the province can plan local events for that day, focussing on locals lighthouses that often help a community define and understand itself. Local community groups should start their planning now.

Excursions can be planned to more remote lighthouses, while community picnics, open houses, and other events can be planned at more accessible beacons. Teachers could involve their classes in lighthouse-related projects. Local lighthouse enthusiasts could give public accounts of the history and future of their local light.

Nova Scotia is blessed with many lighthouses that are both heritage treasures and essential aids to navigation. Let's celebrate them, and protect them for the enjoyment of our children and grandchildren.

For more information , or to inform us of a community-based lighthouse event in your area, please call Scott Milsom at 445-7168.

Gender, Globalization, and the Fisheries

We, the women and men of the Gender, Globalization, and the Fisheries Network have identified concrete ways in which globalization has hurt women, their families, and coastal communities worldwide. Recurring themes that demand urgent action emerged from our research and testimony.

We include Atlantic Canadian fishworkers, regional, national, and international researchers, and community development workers from Canada, First Nations, Tanzania, Chile, Gambia, Iceland, Mexico, the United States, Norway, Brazil, India, Vietnam, Nigeria, Cuba, Spain, Denmark, the Philippines, and Thailand.

We want to preserve the positive aspects of our cultures and heritage, and ensure that people who live in coastal communities have equal access, control, and preferential user rights of the coastal fishery. We insist that a clean and healthy ocean must have priority over the development of polluting industries.

Women have always played a crucial and active role in fisheries and in sustaining life in their communities. Yet, in countries all over the world, they have been largely ignored. Women's political decisions must shape policy and we need to put warm hearts into decision-making bodies. We need to stop the encroachment of industrial and other destructive fisheries that deplete marine life. We reject large tourism projects that push people out of traditional fishing grounds and communities. Tourism should complement the small-scale fisheries of coastal communities, leaving gentle ecological footprints on our landscapes.

We are concerned with the way our national governments give up to multinational corporations their responsibility to protect citizens' rights and inheritance. These corporations control our resources and economies with insufficient responsibility to protect and conserve them.

We support the rights of aboriginal peoples to have access to the fishery. The costs of providing equitable access to the fishery must be borne by all citizens. In Canada, we also support the collaborative efforts of both Natives and non-Natives to find ways to share the fishery.

During the past week, we have been moved by the realities of technology's destructive impacts on fishery resources and ways it is forcing fisherpeople into bankruptcy. It is also eliminating jobs and livelihoods in both north and south, and threatening the health of fishworkers. Technology should be designed to produce not only a quality product but also a safe working environment.

The concerns of coastal and rural communities must be central to government policy, fisheries management, and international trade agreements. Socially responsible policy would not abandon the health of our environments and people to unfettered international competition.

One of women's biggest challenges is to have our issues addressed within existing fishworker organizations and government ministries. This conference formed alliances and promoted networking among academics and people living in coastal communities. We have made a commitment to share information and ideas, making them accessible and useful to everyone, particularly those coastal community peoples who are struggling to survive. We commit to research that is ethical and responsive to the needs of coastal communities. We recognize the work and contribution of Southern researchers, and together we aspire to create equitable South-North collaborative initiatives.

Our vision of a sustainable fishery is based on coastal communities where resources are cautiously harvested using ocean-friendly technologies. It also promotes an environmentally and socially sustainable processing industry. We seek an industry that promotes local food security rather than the production of luxury delicacies for a global market. Fishing families must be able to afford to eat fish.

For more information, contact Barbara Neis, Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, at (709) 737-7456.

"Quite an Education"

It's sometimes easy to get discouraged when you look at what's happening in small rural and coastal communities across the province. When you see post offices closing, health care and other essential services moving farther away, and transportation infrastructure crying out in vain for maintenance and improvement, it can be hard to keep your chin up to wage the sadly necessary battles that often have to be fought to preserve the quality of community life. But, deep down, we all know that losing hope will mean losing community. So, rather than wringing our hands over the dire situation of the moment, it can help the spirit of us all to celebrate the successes people in our small communities manage to bring about by their own efforts.

That was the thinking behind the creation of the Proud Community Awards, presented for the first time by the Coastal Communities Network at its annual meeting in Tatamagouche in April. (See the May/June, 2000 issue of this magazine for a listing and brief description of all eight winners). Each of the Award winners provided a source of inspiration to CCN members gathered from across the province. And none was more inspiring, or drew bigger applause, than the Award presented to Tanya Proctor and Kris Terrio , co-Chairs of the River Hebert District High School Student Council. Their successful battle to defend their right to be educated in their own community was a local victory. And, through its inspiration, it can be a victory for all of us in coastal and rural Nova Scotia.

In the 1990s, the province dramatically reduced the number of School Boards across the province, until just six remained. Because funding was tight, each Board looked for ways to reduce costs. River Hebert District High School now comes under the authority of the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board. In June of 1998, the Board appointed a Study Action Committee to look at schooling in River Hebert, which has an elementary school in addition to its High School. The Committee included representatives from the community, and it sought wider community input on a number of possible recommendations placed before it. Among the possibilities discussed was bussing the Grade 10-12 students from River Hebert to Amherst. In March of last year the Committee delivered its Final Report. It included a number of recommendations that might have helped the Board cut costs. The Committee, however, bluntly rejected bussing the higher classes to Amherst for the following reasons:

There was a sense of relief in the community, but it was to be short-lived. Not long after, the School Board hired John Murley, a retired Superintendent of Schools, to study the situations and recommend "options" for schools in River Hebert, Advocate, and North Colchester schools. The "Murley Report" was made public at a school assembly in January of this year. Its "option" for River Hebert: "Transfer Grades 10-12 from River Hebert to Amherst and make special arrangements for transportation."

"At the January assembly," Tanya remembers, "people were crying, but word immediately spread among us that the School Board was going to face a battle. We were all very upset, but people were saying, 'We aren't going to give up. We'll fight to save our school.' We started the Students to Stay Committee."

Although the Murley Report was a direct threat only to the Grade 10-12 students, few doubted that it would be just the thin edge of the wedge, and that the entire school would ultimately be threatened. "We started a 'ribbon campaign,'" says Kris, "using blue and gold ribbons, the school colours. People in the community really got behind us, with people putting signs up on their front lawns and pitching-in in so many other ways."

The Students to Stay Committee circulated a petition among both the school's junior and senior high students, getting signatures from all but nine of the 187 who attend the schools. A walkout was planned for February 6th, and the students contacted local and regional media in hopes that their battle to save their school would gain public sympathy.

"We needed Bristol board and markers to make signs, so local stores – Reid's and the Co-op – donated them," says Tanya. "We made our signs, and, then, on the morning of the 6th, the 10 a.m. bell rang. That was the signal. We walked out." Kris recalls the weather that day: "It was -17EC, and the wind was strong. It might have been the coldest day of the year. But people in the community made hot chocolate and brought it to us."

Sometime around noon, the School Board office in Amherst called to tell the students that they had made their point, that there was nothing to be gained by missing afternoon classes. The students though, believed their point need-ed underlining, and they stayed out until 2:30 p.m.

The kids realized at the time that their actions put teachers and other school staff in an awkward position. Still, says Tanya, "We knew they supported the cause." Though there were rumours of possible suspensions in the aftermath of the walkout, nothing ever came of them. Some local media showed up to cover the first protest demonstration in River Hebert in many, many years, but ATV News, one of the major players the Committee hoped would be there, was, for whatever reason, a no-show. That, however, wasn't the end of the ATV story.

"Kris's Dad had taped the walkout and demonstration," Tanya explains, "so we decided to try to get the cassette to Moncton in time for the Evening News. Someone in the community donated their car, others chipped in for gas, and off we went. We got there, and the lady at the desk asked us who we were. We told her and gave her the video, and drove back. When the Evening News came on, there we were."

Seeing themselves on the tube might have tickled the River Hebert students, but they knew that far more was necessary. There was a School Board meeting in Amherst that needed attending, so more than 120 River Hebert students showed up. Finally, there was a meeting in Truro where a final decision might be made. Again, the River Hebert kids were there. In both cases, busses were donated or supplied free of charge, gas was donated, and volunteer drivers offered their services.

This banding together of community made it possible for River Hebert to be present in numbers at the pivotal Truro meeting in early March. There, a motion was moved to delay any decision and to do another study, but it was defeated. Things then came to a head when a motion was made to bus the high school students from River Hebert to Amherst. It failed by a single vote.

"The School Board has become so big," Tanya says, "that, often, people feel they have no voice. We went to School Board meetings and often got the feeling they wanted to shut our school and stop our voices. But, we focussed on issues of rural education, and gathered support from other rural areas. When we won at that Truro meeting, we all hugged and cried."

For the present, education is still offered to school kids of all ages in River Hebert. Since March, though, there can be few Nova Scotians unaware of the latest threats to education in both urban and rural education across the province. I ask Tanya and Kris how they view their successful battle to keep education in their community in light of the latest round of proposed cuts. Kris is first to respond.

"Last year," he reflects, "we had to fight to save our school. Now, it looks like we'll have to fight to save our teachers." As the dust begins to settle, it appears that there will be no teacher cuts at River Hebert High School next year.

Tanya listens to Kris's response with a thoughtful look on her face. She then remarks, "We both hope our younger brothers and sisters won't have to fight this battle all over again. But, realistically, I think they probably will."

Tanya and Kris both smile at this and, as their eyes meet, they nod in agreement. Finally, Tanya says to me, "This whole thing has been quite an education." Once more, I see two sets of eyes meet, two set of lips form smiles. I can't help but think that we should all be smiling with them.

Native, Non-Native Fishermen Work Together Cooperatively

The Saint Mary's Bay Working Group is a forum for discussion and dialogue about the future of the fisheries in St. Mary's Bay. The Working Group reflects the historical attachments to St. Mary's Bay fisheries of communities of Mi'Kmaq, Acadian, and British Isles descent. The Working Group has been created to create a common meeting ground that fosters respect and dialogue between all St Mary's Bay harvesters and their communities, where all voices can be heard with respect. Its purpose is:

The members of the St Mary's Bay Working Group are committed to working together based on the following shared beliefs, principles, and values:

The St. Mary's Bay Working Group is committed to the principle that nature must be the ultimate authority in fisheries management and that fishing patterns must be designed to respect the natural patterns of regeneration and reproduction. This means that we must ensure that our time of fishing must allow Nature a time of peace to restore and regenerate its strength. This means that we must not harvest in a way that will inhibit natural sustainability. This also means that we must work together to better understand the ecosystem by developing the ability to do a wide range of research together.

The St. Mary's Bay Working Group will take a long-term approach to sustainability, while at the same time addressing immediate issues. As first steps the Working Group has agreed:

For more information on the St. Mary's Bay Working Group please contact the Bay of Fundy Marine Resource Centre at (902) 638-3044, or the Mi'Kmaq Fish and Wildlife Commission at (902) 386-2828.

Coastal Communities News is published bi-monthly by the Coastal Communities Network, a non-profit society registered in the province of Nova Scotia.

Coastal Communities News is made possible by the generous efforts of many volunteers, and by financial contributions from Human Resources Development Canada, and by donations and in-kind contributions from the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Culture, as well as from member groups and organizations.

We welcome all articles and submissions, from individuals and groups, with content in keeping with the role and nature of this magazine. We reserve the right to edit all submissions. Except where additional credit has been given, all articles are prepared by the Editor and Editorial Board.

Our Mission Statement

The Coastal Communities Network is a volunteer association of organizations whose mission is to provide a forum to encourage dialogue, share information, and create strategies and actions that promote the survival and development of Nova Scotia's coastal and rural communities.

"A Large Voice for Small Communities"

CCN is made up of organizations rooted in Nova Scotia's coastal and rural communities, and it is the diversity of its membership that gives it strength. Your organization, and your community, can help CCN determine its direction and strengthen its voice still further. Join the Coastal Communities Network today.

— by participating in regular monthly meetings of the CCN membership. These are held in Truro (usually on the first Tuesday of each month), and allow representatives from member organizations to review what is happening in coastal communities across the province, plan actions on issues of common concern, and review progress on CCN-sponsored projects;

— by getting on our mailing list to receive regular copies of Coastal Communities News. Send us your name and address by mail or fax, or call us directly;

— by contributing written articles to Coastal Communities News, and so letting everyone know what's happening in your community;

— by taking part in CCN workshops and information sessions. Special events like this are held on topics of importance to coastal communities (for example, community economic development, co- management in the fishery, etc);

— by inquiring about CCN's resource library, which includes information, reports, and studies on topics that affect the future and sustainability of coastal communities.

CCN Coordinator:
PO Box 1613
Pictou, N.S. B0K 1H0
Phone:(902)485-4754 Fax:(902)445-7134
e-mail:coastalnet@ns.sympatico.ca

CCN Communications Office:
Phone: (902) 445-7168
Fax: (902) 445-7134
e-mail:ccnews@ns.sympatico.ca

Youth Find Success in Both Town and Country

4-H Breeds Success

Many Peanuts, Many Nutshells

The Stationmaster's Long Since Gone... Not!

Celebrate Lighthouse Day !

Gender, Globalization, and the Fisheries

"Quite an Education"

Native, Non-Native Fishermen Work Together Cooperatively

Coastal Communities News

Join the Coastal Communities Network

Our Mission Statement

"A Large Voice for Small Communities"

How to Become Involved
in the Coastal Communities Network

Youth Find Success in Both Town and Country

4-H Breeds Success

Many Peanuts, Many Nutshells

The Stationmaster's Long Since Gone... Not!

Celebrate Lighthouse Day !

Gender, Globalization, and the Fisheries

"Quite an Education"

Native, Non-Native Fishermen Work Together Cooperatively

Coastal Communities News

Join the Coastal Communities Network

Our Mission Statement

"A Large Voice for Small Communities"

How to Become Involved in the Coastal Communities Network

How to Become Involved
in the Coastal Communities Network