CCN Back Issues Vol 8 Issue 1

A couple from away move to rural Nova Scotia. Far more by accident than by design, they start a small business. They make a great little product that people love, and they are committed to maintaining its high quality. Over time, the business grows, but the couple resist pressures to change the way they make their product to make it more "competitive" with others in the industry. People notice this attention to quality, and the news spreads by word of mouth about this great product. After more than twenty years of operation, the couple is employing more than 30 people. Then, government regulations change. Though nobody seriously believes there is anything wrong with the product, the couple are forced to go out of business and lay off their entire staff.

That pretty much is what happened to Peninsula Farm Yogurt. Founded in 1976 by Sonia and Gordon Jones, the company folded this past June.

Sonia and Gordon didn't set out to start a successful business in rural Nova Scotia. Gordon was brought up in Brooklyn, New York, and Sonia in nearby suburban Connecticut. When they married in 1970, Gordon ran a New York management consulting business and Sonia was a Ph.D student in Romance Languages at Harvard University near Boston. When she graduated in 1972, Sonia was offered the Chair of the brand-new Spanish Department at Dalhousie University in Halifax. "I had never been here before," Sonia tells me over coffee at her kitchen table, "but just the sound of the words 'Nova Scotia' – I loved the exotic sound of the place before I ever set foot here." She took the job.

"Gordon sold his business and followed me up here on my apron strings," Sonia remembers. The couple looked for a place near the ocean within easy commuting distance for Sonia. They found a beautiful property on First Peninsula, not far from Lunenburg. "It was just over an hour away from my work," Sonia says. "That seemed a lot, but it was a beautiful spot. We fell in love with it right away."

While Sonia drove to and from Dalhousie every day, Gordon was content to be a "house-husband" minding their infant daughter, and within a couple of years, there was a second child. "When we first moved to the farm," Sonia recalls, "neighbours suggested that we get a few head of cattle to graze the land, so we got about ten beef cattle, just to keep the alders back." However, the couple got more than they bargained for: beef cattle produce their own weight in manure every two weeks. "My, but we had a big pile!" laughs Sonia.

So, the beef cattle had to go. But, after the Joneses' second child came along, they decided to get a dairy cow, just to take care of the family's milk and dairy needs. "So, we asked around," Sonia remembers, "and folks told us that the very best milk comes from Jersey cows. And so we got Daisy."

Daisy soon became almost part of the Jones family, but she also had a surprise for them. She produced something in the order of twenty quarts of milk a day, and Sonia and Gordon were at a loss about what to do with the nineteen-or-so-quart daily surplus. A friend who ran one of the pioneer health-food stores in Halifax suggested that Sonia make yogurt with it, and she would offer it for sale in her store. Sonia experimented with a number of recipes. Some failed and were discarded, but she hit on one that tasted good to her and her family, and she got in the habit of dropping tubs of it off at the store on her way to work at Dalhousie each morning. And the yogurt sold. Tongues began to wag about this wonderful home-made yogurt brought in daily to Halifax from Lunenburg County.

And so it went for a time. But, one day in 1976, everything changed. "A Mercedes rolled up the driveway," Sonia says, "and a man got out. 'Hi, I'm David Sobey, and I own a few stores,' he said. 'I'd like to buy a truck load of your yogurt.'"

Across the kitchen table, a smile comes to Sonia's face: "That's when Gordon put out his hand to shake and said, 'Mr. Sobey, you've got a deal!'"

So, Peninsula Farm grew during the late 1970s, but at its own measured pace. Production moved from the kitchen stove to a new facility in the family's yard. Sonia switched from using fresh fruit from the local supermarket to 30-pound fresh-frozen containers. "The big, industrial food companies came to us and told us that we couldn't compete if we didn't stop using pure fruit," Sonia says. "They gave us samples of what they sold the big, multi-national companies, and it was disgusting. The list of ingredients was as long as your arm, and it was pretty much artificial everything. So I called federal officials and asked why all those ingredients weren't listed on the yogurts the big companies sold. That's how I found out that you don't have to list the ingredients in your ingredients. But, whatever others used, we stuck with real, fresh-frozen fruit."

More and more people noticed Peninsula Farm's attention to quality, and the firm's growth continued through the late 1970s. Through all this, Sonia kept her job at Dalhousie, and Gordon turned his entrepreneurial skills to the business. As well as appearing on Sobey's dairy shelves, the Joneses' yogurt was also available at Capitol Stores, at the time a significant player in the Halifax grocery market. But, for a number of years, the Joneses were unable to get their product on the shelves of the other major grocery player of the day: Dominion Stores, owned at the time by Conrad Black's Hollinger, Inc..

"I met with them a number of times," Sonia remembers, "and they said that they didn't need our yogurt. Then they asked, 'What's in it for head office?' Well, I'll tell, you, I thought they were crooked. That was the first thing I ever heard about 'rebates.' We couldn't, and we wouldn't, play that game."

"Then in the summer of '79, I was selling ice cream at the South Shore Exhibition in Bridgewater. The booth next to ours was Encyclopedia Britannica, and, of course, nobody would go near it. So we weren't selling much ice cream, but the fellow manning that booth was interested in Peninsula Farm, and he had a connection to Conrad Black through their mutual interest in autistic children. He called him up and I spoke with him. Oxen were braying in the background, and Mr. Black asked if I was at the South Shore Ex. I said I was, and he said he would look into our problem. The next day, the local Dominion Stores office called and said, 'Sonia, I've been thinking...' Within a week, we were on Dominion Store shelves. And we never paid a penny in 'rebates.'"

Through the 1980s, the business continued to grow, and Peninsula Farm products became available throughout the Maritimes. Sonia quit her Dalhousie job in 1990 to focus on Peninsula Farm and the business continued to thrive, employing at times up to 40 people. They managed this against some very stiff competition. Most of the yogurt sold in Maritime grocery stores is made and distributed by Danone, a French multinational company with sales of around $20 billion a year, Yoplait, another French multinational with annual sales of about $18 billion, or Parmalat, an Italian-based company with sales of more than $15 billion a year. Peninsula Farm, with its emphasis on high quality yogurt, was quite content with annual sales of $2 million. "When you're the smallest," Sonia tells me, "you'd better be the best."

In recent years, two reductions in the amount of shelf space given by grocery chains to Peninsula Farm bit into its profit margins. "After the second of these reductions," Sonia tells me, "we were hardly making a profit, but we were still employing people, meeting payroll, and making the best possible yogurt, so we were prepared to keep going with it."

But it was not reductions in shelf space that would bring Peninsula Farm's fairy-tale, quarter-century success story to an end. The danger lay in a different direction altogether. Until this past spring, health inspections of the First Peninsula operation had been done by the provincial Department of Agriculture. Any problems uncovered through these inspections were immediately addressed, and not once in its entire history was there a recall of fresh Peninsula Farm yogurt. But new regulations that took effect this spring saw responsibility shift from the province to the federal Department of Agriculture and Agri-Foods' Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

And so it was that one day in early June six CFIA inspectors descended on the plant. After looking at the facility and checking the company's computer records, the inspectors expressed doubt about the plant's pasteurization process and the computer system the Joneses had developed to check and document the pasteurization process. The CFIA impounded $50,000 worth of product, which was held in the plant's cooler. CFIA regulations require that the milk be heated to 68EC and held at that temperature for ten seconds. The Joneses pointed out that they heated their milk to 85EC and held it for 30 minutes, and that this not only exceeded CFIA requirements but also made for a far superior and safer yogurt. The inspectors then expressed skepticism about the accuracy of the plant's thermometer, as well as the accuracy of the Joneses' computer system. "At that point," Sonia, recalls, "we suggested to the CFIA that we call in David Rose, who operates Darose Control Systems, which services dairy equipment around the province. He's well known in the dairy industry, so the CFIA people readily agreed."

David came to First Peninsula, looked at the thermometer, and declared it accurate within half a degree, well within acceptable limits. He also declared that the couple's computer system, which had never been questioned by provincial inspectors, was more than satisfactory. The CFIA demanded, and received, David's results in writing. "With the yogurt in the cooler and stamped with its 'Best Before' date, time was of the essence here," Sonia tells me. "We asked that they release the product to us, but then they told us that they wanted to do tests on the yogurt itself."

"On Friday June 7, they told us they were going to surf the internet, and that they would get back to us about the specific tests they wanted to do. On Monday June 10, they told us they needed to test for three pathogens: e-coli, salmonella, and listeria. They said it would take four days to do these tests."

"We were in a very, very difficult situation at that moment. There was the $50,000 worth of yogurt that was still impounded with the clock ticking against the 'Best Before' dates stamped on them, and there was another $50,000 in lost production, because, with that impounded yogurt sitting in our cooler, there was nowhere to put the next batches of yogurt. Our delivery schedule was all out of whack, and we knew that if our shelf space was sitting empty in grocery stores it wouldn't stay ours for long. Finally, we decided to ask them whether – when they had done these three tests and if they found no problem – they would release the yogurt to us. When they replied, 'No, then we will discuss it with you,' we really had run out of options."

Looking at a minimum of a $100,000 loss, Sonia and Gordon realized they were going out of business. The $50,000 worth of yogurt that had been impounded at the plant was shipped to Lunenburg County's recycling facility.

But not quite all of it went there. On their own initiative, the Joneses sent samples of it to a microbiology lab to have it tested for the three pathogens in question. The results came back clean, with no sign of the pathogens.

So, what was at the root of the problem that sank Peninsula Farm? It certainly wasn't the yogurt: nobody had complained to the CFIA about it. It seems that when responsibility shifted from the province to the CFIA, the new regulatory regime wasn't flexible enough to allow the Joneses to adapt. "I think a big part of the problem was in the way they looked at the computer system we developed to monitor and document the pasteurization process," Sonia says. "It worked perfectly well. But there was no reference whatever to our unique system in the CFIA's regulations. That may have been what killed us, plain and simple."

"The CFIA is very heavy on documentation," says David Rose, who tested the Peninsula Farm thermometer. "I don't think there was anything wrong with their product, their pasteurization process, or their computer system. But the CFIA demands all sorts of specific documentation to make sure that everybody's backs are covered."

So, was Peninsula Farm shut down by bureaucrats covering their backs? Perhaps so. But during my visit to the shut-down plant, I also heard another opinion. Crystal Berringer grew up on First Peninsula and as a child she watched the Peninsula Farm trucks coming and going. She began work as an accountant for Peninsula Farm when she finished school. When I visited, it was her last day. She had another job lined up, but was unhappy to be leaving. "It can't possibly be as good as working here at Peninsula Farm. Sonia and Gordon have been like a Mom and Dad to all of us who worked here."

I ask Crystal what she thinks led the CFIA to close the operation down. "I've had a lot of thoughts about that," she says, pausing. "And I don't really know. Maybe it's just easier for those people to go do an inspection in an industrial park than it is for them to do it in rural Lunenburg County."

That is certainly a harsh judgement. But the sad irony of the whole affair is that, after years of bringing delightful tastes to people's mouths across the Maritimes, Peninsula Farm's closing left many with a very bitter taste in their mouths.

Mike Fullerton was the lead inspector for the CFIA at Peninsula Farm. A call to his Truro office was met with the recommendation that I call the CFIA's public relations spokesperson, Freeman Libby, at his Yarmouth office. Mr. Libby agreed to a telephone interview:

Was there any real possibility that the yogurt impounded at Peninsula Farm was any threat to public health?
There were some serious concerns, and we wanted to alleviate those concerns as quickly and easily as possible. We offered to test the product free of charge. We felt that the operators would still have had ample time to market the product.

Did the CFIA not consider during its investigation the 26 years of proven quality of Peninsula Farm yogurt?
We looked at the past history of the facility. It's not quite true to say that there were no prob-lems over 26 years. We had found problems at that facility, and we tried to work them out with the operators. We were willing to work with them over a period of time.

Why did David Rose's written report on Peninsula Farm's thermometer and computer monitoring system not satisfy the CFIA?
He looked at the accuracy of those instruments, but there were other problems at the facility. Those instruments were only a part of it We were looking at a much bigger picture, and the instruments were just one aspect of it.

On Friday, June 7, CFIA staff members told the Joneses that they were going to surf the internet over the weekend. On Monday, they told them they wanted to test for three pathogens. Why didn't CFIA staff know on the 7th what their next step would be?
On the 7th, staff needed to talk to experts within the CFIA to find the best and fastest method of testing. After the consultations, we saw the need to test for the three pathogens. Our staff simply needed time to talk with our experts in this area.

In retrospect, could the CFIA have done anything differently that might have permitted Peninsula Farm to still be operating?
Perhaps we could have made a faster decision on testing the product. But we tried to work cooperatively with the operators. Unfortunately, they felt there wasn't enough time to get the product to market. But the CFIA is responsible to assure that the food on your table is safe. We take that responsibility very seriously.

Pulp and Paper, People and Passions

Port Hawkesbury was a nervous town through much of this summer. Indeed, all along the Strait of Canso, there was uncertainty. The area's largest employer, Stora Enso, runs a newsprint and calendar paper mill just outside the town line in Richmond County. About 800 people work there, while another 400-600 work in the woods, keeping the plant supplied with pulp. For Port Hawkesbury, with its population of about 3,700, Stora Enso is a big deal.

So, it isn't a surprise that people got nervous earlier this year when plant officials announced that its newsprint mill was losing about $2 million per month. Changes, they said, would have to be made if the newsprint operation was to continue. There were three areas targeted by the company for reductions: the cost of pulp, the cost of electricity, and the cost of labour. Failing progress in all three areas, officials announced that the newsprint operation would close, throwing about 400 people in the plant out of work, along with a similar number of pulp suppliers.

Talks earlier in the year with pulp suppliers resulted in them agreeing to a lower price for their pulp. Nova Scotia Power entered into talks with its biggest customer – last year, Stora Enso's electricity bill was over $60 million – and ways were found for cost reductions in that area. Two down, one to go.

July arrived, and Stora Enso set a July 31 deadline for an agreement with its unionized workforce, which is represented by Local 972 of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union. Negotiations began in late July, and the company issued more than 300 layoff notices. At the last minute, a draft agreement was reached, which involved certain concessions by the union involving contracting out of work and changes in some job descriptions. After a layoff of only a few days, a union vote was held and 70 percent of the workers voted to accept the proposed agreement. Within days, the plant returned to normal, at least for the six-month trial period of the agreement.

The town and the surrounding area breathed a collective sigh of relief. Such is economic life for a one-industry town, and although it may not be quite accurate to apply that label to Port Hawkesbury, the central role played by Stora Enso in the local economy makes any argument about the matter more than a bit irrelevant. The town had held its breath. Now, town life will go on, at least for a while, as before.

Port Hawkesbury wasn't always so dependent on one major employer. Known until 1860 as Ship Harbour, early European residents found a hard livelihood in farming, timbering, boat building, gypsum mining, but most of all in fishing. With the arrival of the railway in the 1890s, the nearby community of Point Tupper developed as the eastern terminal of the rail ferry from Mulgrave on the mainland. Incorporated as a town in 1889, Port Hawkesbury grew slowly from a population of about 600 at the turn of the last century to just over 1,000 by 1951. Then, in the early 1950s came a huge change to the Strait area.

The traffic of people and goods to and from Cape Breton became heavier than ever after World War II, and it was clear that a fixed link to the mainland was necessary. The idea of a bridge was dismissed, largely because of the heavy ice that flowed through the Strait on strong currents each winter and spring. The high cost of digging a tunnel left no option but to build a causeway. But, even then, the challenge was severe. No other causeway has been built before or since in such deep water. Visitors crossing the Canso Causeway today can see on the mainland side the great scar of Cape Porcupine Mountain, from where more than ten million tons of rock were dropped and pushed into the Strait of Canso, at its deepest point more than 200 feet deep. Highway traffic began using the Causeway in 1954, and the following year the first train made the journey. Today, Cape Breton's status as an island is preserved only by the 80-foot-wide Canso Canal, at the Cape Breton end of the crossing.

The building of the Canso Causeway changed the area in many fundamental ways. The communities of Mulgrave and Point Tupper, the ports at either end of first the rail and later an automotive ferry service, went into decline. The environment of the Strait area was altered in ways both negative and positive. The ice floes from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence that swept through the Strait of Canso every year were now blocked on their southward journey, and so they stayed to fill Saint George's Bay on the Causeway's north side.

Lloyd Grant has been fishing in the Strait of Canso since the 1940s, and he remembers some of the changes brought with the Causeway: "Before it was built, there was a seven or eight-knot tide that went through the Strait, but once it was blocked, the groundfish from up north stopped coming too. A lot of the fall fisheries ended then. Lobster declined, and the gaspereaux stopped running altogether. It made a big difference in our livelihoods," Lloyd remembers. "Then in the 1980s, the lobster started coming back. Then green crab arrived in the Strait, pumped from ship's ballast. Now they are pushing the lobster out of the inshore again."

Lobster catches after the coming of the Causeway also declined on its northern side, though to a lesser extent. But along with these negative environmental effects came a positive one that would bode very well for Port Hawkesbury's future: the Causeway's south side now became a large, well protected, deep-water, and ice-free harbour. The town and the whole Strait area was set to benefit from that.

Stora was first to come to the area in the early 1960s. Georgia-Pacific set up a facility to ship gypsum, Gulf Oil built a refinery and marine terminal, a heavy-water plant began production for Atomic Energy of Canada, Nova Scotia Power opened a thermal generating plant, and other, smaller industries also came. Government officials in the late 1960s confidently predicted that by 1980, 30,000 people would call Port Hawkesbury home. But not all of the new industries were lasting successes – the oil refinery was mothballed in 1981, and the heavy-water plant shut down in 1986. Even so, there's no doubt that the coming of the Causeway spurred growth in the Strait area. Port Hawkesbury's thousand-odd population of the early 1950s would rise to more than 3,000 by 1971 and again to just under 4,000 over the next decade. Give or take a couple of hundred, that level has been maintained into the new century.

The Stora Enso operation is certainly the lynchpin of the local economy, but Port Hawkesbury is also home to a call centre, and to regional offices of both the federal and provincial governments. Its retail sector serves an area that extends for miles on either side of the Strait. The town is also looking to tourism to spur further growth. Although in the years after the building of the Causeway, the town's core shifted from the waterfront up the hill to the main road to St. Peter's and Sydney, it is back to the water that the tourists are now coming.

In the early 1990s, the Town of Port Hawkesbury established the Strait Area Waterfront Development Society. John Davis, who has taught school in Port Hawkesbury for the past 31 years, has served as the Society's Chair since 1993. "When the Society started, the waterfront and Granville Street were in decline," John tells me, "but things have since been nicely spruced up down there, and now we put on an outdoor concert every Sunday night in July and August. It's a project of the town's Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Department and is called 'Granville Green.' It's a big family and social event, a mix of local people and tourists, and we've had crowds of up to 9,000 people. They have to be the largest gathering of people in the town's history. And, through the week, from June through 'Celtic Colours' in October, we use music to bring people out to enjoy the waterfront."

"There's also a yacht club and a marina on the waterfront," John continues. "In the summer, people tell me it gets about 300-400 recreational boaters stopping to take advantage of the services offered there. A lot of Americans coming up the eastern seaboard on their way to the Bra d'Or Lakes stop in too. And Port Hawkesbury is becoming recognized as a good stopping-off place for boaters moving out of the Great Lakes in the spring and then moving back up from the Caribbean in the fall."

After John kindly gives me some historical background on the area, I take him up on his suggestion that I take a stroll around the marina and along the fine boardwalk near the water's edge. At the marina, I read vessel names and home ports. "Gypsy's Gold, Toronto" and other vessels confirm what John told me about Great Lakes traffic in Port Hawkesbury. (Another vessel, home port "Edmonton," simply leaves me scratching my head, somewhat befuddled.) Before leaving town, I stop in at The Creamery, which houses the town's tourism information centre, a CAP site, and a craft, gift, and art shop.

Meghan Sproule, who is working at The Creamery this summer, tells me that she gets at least 100 visitors per day, and that's on top of the 150 or more people who visit the waterfront when Via Rail's Bras d'Or makes its twice-weekly stop at Port Hawkesbury. "They're mostly all Americans," she tells me, "and they all love it here."

Just before I leave The Creamery, I ask Meghan whether she is from the Strait area, expecting a positive response. But she surprises me: "I'm from Timmins, Ontario. Last year, I learned on the internet about a course I decided to take at the Port Hawkesbury campus of the Nova Scotia Community College. So, last summer I moved down here with my sister. She took Grade 12 here while I took my Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management course," Meghan explains. "I planned on going straight back home when the course ended, but I just fell in love with the Strait area. So, here I'll stay. Of course, my family thinks I'm nuts. Well, except for my Mom's side: they're from Digby County, so they understand better than my Dad's side."

As well as being expert at answering visitors' questions (and at surprising me), Meghan has a gift for dance. "I teach ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, and modern dance," she tells me. Given her full-time summer work, she gives these lessons privately for now, but later this year she hopes to open a dance studio in town.

While Meghan's story might not be typical of most Strait residents, it has much in common with thousands of people who came here from other places and now call themselves Nova Scotians. And if you take Meghan's story, add Stora Enso's story (that was a close one!), the Causeway's story, and some pulp-cutters' stories, then add in the stories of thousands of other local people and enterprises, you'll begin to get a picture that somehow reflects day-to-day life in Port Hawkesbury specifically, and in the Strait area generally.

For more information about tourism in the Strait of Canso area, call The Creamery at 625-0207.

Bigger Needles, Smaller Haystacks

It has been estimated that in Nova Scotia alone, around 12,400 people suffer from dementia-related disorders. These people have unique needs, especially when it comes to search-and-rescue efforts. Last year, the Pictou County Ground Search and Rescue (PCGSR) team, under the leadership of Charles Strickland and Bob Rosborough, undertook five searches for missing persons, and was successful in finding all five alive. But it wasn't so fortunate in 1999 when it launched a search for Mr. Robey Cameron, who suffered from a dementia-related disorder. His remains weren't found until 2001, a considerable source of both regret for the PCGSR team and sorrow for the family. After a careful review, it was clear that there was nothing different that could have been done in the search efforts, but members of PCGSAR were not satisfied with that. In early 2000, they began work on a response plan in conjunction with the Emergency Measures Organization and Nova Scotia Ground Search and Rescue. One of the recommendations they made was development of an information kit for people with dementia-related disorders.

Other organizations have developed information kits to aid in the location of a lost person with dementia-related disorders, but PCGSR is developing the first proactive kit, and it caters to the particular needs of missing persons with dementia in situations where ground search and rescue would be involved. The questions and information provided in the kit will give rescue teams the best possible chance to quickly locate a missing person. Information such as what the person's interests are, what frightens them, what attracts them, what they will ignore, and what will make them curious is provided. It also offers information on their hobbies and volunteer activities, and even provides an imprint of their walking shoes for tread patterns. People suffering from short-term memory loss will sometimes try to find some place familiar to them, perhaps, for example, from their past. An elderly man who spent a great deal of time hunting in his earlier life might, if lost, head to a camp he knows, even though he may not have been there for 20 years. If searchers are aware of his habits, favorite places, and such, it can make the difference between life and death. All this information and more is contained in a waterproof envelope, along with a questionnaire to be filled out when a person is reported missing. These kits will be free and should be available at the annual Canadian Search and Rescue Workshop at the Casino Nova Scotian Hotel in Halifax Septemebr 11-14.

By working together in advance to ensure this information is factual, reliable, and complete, families can be spared the agony of trying to remember things at such an emotionally charged time as when someone goes missing. PCGSR is dedicated to the citizens of Pictou County and wants to ensure that everyone is delivered home, safe and sound, when the need arises.

Mysterious Cat of the Deep Woods

A few years ago, I was hiking a trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park and overheard a father-and-son conversation. The pair was hiking ahead of me, and I'm sure that it was the thin air and not my nosiness that made their conversation so clear to me.

"Dad, are there any cougars here in the Park?" the little boy asked. "No. They don't have any cougars here," his father responded.

"Hey Dad," I thought, "way to take down the Park magic a notch. Scotland loves its Loch Ness Monster and Nova Scotia loves its eastern cougar."

Perhaps Dad was just trying to make his son feel safe, but it's difficult to look at those immense forest-covered Highlands and not think a cougar could survive in that immensity. The little fella had a point.

As I type, my eight-week-old kitten, who we call "Kitty Kitty," is batting at my pen. You can't fool me, Kitty Kitty. I know that each one of your tiny, cute little paws holds five retractable switchblades. Stretch you out another few feet and I'd be heading for the door.

The idea that an animal, 80 to 200 pounds and measuring eight feet from head to the tip of its tail, could be roaming our forests is a sobering and exciting thought. Eastern cougar were once plentiful in the Maritimes. They were given different names: Klan-dagi by some native peoples, while others have called them panther, catamount, mountain lion, puma, among other names. Graceful, beautiful, wild, silent, elusive, wise, secretive — they are called "Ghosts of the Forest." The chances of sighting a cougar: almost nil. They are loners: the denser the cover, the better.

An agile hunter with tremendous strength, a cougar can drag, with its jaws, 600 pounds up the side of a mountain. That's some vise. The cougar's short muzzle allows it to administer a powerful bite and get a steel-like grip. It would be a formidable Olympian. Its back legs are made for pouncing: from a standing start, it can rise twelve feet straight up. Horizontally? Twenty-five feet. No drug tests needed.

But hold on. The cougars have yet more weapons. One-and-a-half-inch-long teeth. Cutlasses: razor sharp claws, retractable, so they aren't dulled by simple walking and can be useful for opening up a can of beans or tearing a deer from its hide.

Their reflexes? Test them in the ring, because they can hit their prey with the force of three heavyweights. Their hearing is superb, so whispering is in vain, and their scent detection is awesome, as is their vision. Add personality traits such as patience, intelligence, and curiosity, and what you have is the King of the Forest.

Given the cougar's amazing abilities, it's unsettling to know that they have been known from time to time to attack humans. On February 2, 2001 a cross-country skier was attacked in broad daylight in the Alberta Rockies by a 125-pound female cougar. The same day there were three other cougar incidents near Banff, Alberta, all involving the same animal. And incidents of cougar attacks out west have increased significantly in the last few years.

None of this is difficult to believe for one resident of Wagmatcook, Cape Breton. She and her husband believe they saw an eastern cougar about fifteen or twenty years ago. It was early spring, and as they were approaching Beverly's Mountain, a tan-coloured beast leaped in front of their car. The length and grace of the cougar's bound surprised them. The cougar didn't appear to jump just from the side of the road, but rather from some distance off the roadside. The beast landed near the centre of the road. One more massive leap and it was gone. The woman says it was like watching a movie. The woman had a broadside view of the cougar too, and they were able to spot one of the distinguishing features of a cougar, the long, hooked tail.

It's time to talk to a field expert. Don Anderson is a Wildlife Technician for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in Whycocomagh, and he was nice enough to meet with me. His office is tucked in among a myriad of other offices, and is festooned with stuffed animals. Not, however, any stuffed cougars.

I was interested in Don's thoughts about whether cougars actually roam the Cape Breton Highlands. Had he ever seen a cougar? No, not in the wild, anyway, but he receives many reports from people who say they have. He explains that all these reports are designated as "possible" cougar sightings and tells me that all reports are actively investigated. Confirmation of a sighting could come in the form of tracks, scat, hair, or, of course, the most precious evidence of all, a photograph.

Many questions are asked of those who claim to have see a cougar: Where were you when you spotted the animal? In a car? Walking? Was the animal moving? What time of day was it, and what were the light conditions? How long did you observe the creature? What position was it in? Broadside, for example, or was it running away? What was its colour? Its size? These are all important pieces of the puzzle.

Don points out that, to date, there is no conclusive proof that any cougar roam the Cape Breton Highlands. However, some reports are very trustworthy and can't be easily discounted. DNR also gets reports of big cats being struck by cars. Usually, when the hair samples left on bumpers are analysed, it turns out to be lynx or bobcat hair.

One of the first questions asked when a big cat is reported is: Did it have a long tail? Large felines like the bobcat and lynx don't have this physical feature, but the cougar does. The tail is also a giveaway if one is tracking a cougar in the snow – the tracks of the cougar are always followed by a line in the snow caused by the dragging tail. But, Don says, tracking a cougar can be most difficult. In one way, cougars are like my Kitty Kitty. (Just try to get her in the tub!) The cougar, who is just a big kitty, avoids water and mud. And so their tracks are best found in fresh snow.

Don believes that Cape Breton has enough wilderness to support the eastern cougar. He points to the area running from Whycocomagh through Baddeck to Meat Cove at the tip of Cape Breton. It's mainly wilderness, and parts of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park here are very remote and rugged. A large population of moose exists in the Highlands, along with other prey species that could sustain the cougar.

I thank Don for taking the time to talk with me. As I drive back to Wagmatcook, I think about Ron MacLelland's story. He thinks he may have seen a cougar on this very stretch of road. Ron lives in St. Patrick's Channel, Cape Breton. His sighting happened one day about fifteen or twenty years ago on the Trans-Canada Highway, about 800 feet west of the Humes River Bridge. The animal was broadside to his car, and it was as wide as his car bumper. He clearly saw the long tail, the distinguishing mark of the cougar. "It was like a hoop dragging on the ground," he says. But it left no tracks.

I contact Mike O'Brien, Manager of Wildlife Resources (Fur-Bearers and Upland Game) at his Kentville office. He was kind enough to spend a considerable time discussing cougars with me. He has never seen a cougar in the wild and isn't sure they are present in Nova Scotia. Each year, he receives about six or seven reports of sightings. Many of these are easily explained – a large house cat, a bobcat, or what have you. But a few are more credible, reported by knowledgeable people, and in some cases, even by DNR staff members. All reports are entered into a computer and the different locations of the sightings are tracked.

I ask Mike whether DNR has any photographic evidence of the cougar in Nova Scotia. Yes, he tells me, DNR once received a report accompanied by a video. The image is blurry, but there definitely is a cat there. But, on close study, DNR staff was able to identify a plant in the picture, and this allowed them to get a scale to estimate the size of the cat. It was about the size of a house cat. Like our Kitty Kitty.

But who can say for sure that the eastern cougar is not present in Nova Scotia? Mike tells me that in the 1970s the pine marten was believed to be gone from Cape Breton. Then the hungry spruce budworm armies attacked the Highlands. In order to salvage the wood, huge tracts of upland forest were clear-cut. Soon, pine marten were showing up in traps in lowland areas, along the forest edges. Revised conclusion: pine martens live in Cape Breton.

You would think that DNA evidence might be used to see if the eastern cougar lives in Nova Scotia, but Mike tells me there are complications in this area. At present, there is no way to distinguish the eastern cougar from any other cougar. It appears that the eastern cougar may have come here, indirectly, from South America. The cougars in Florida or out west all probably came from the same source and have similar DNA. Only in British Columbia is there an island population of cougars with distinctive DNA. Therefore, it's hard to distinguish one type of DNA from another. Mike would love to get his hands on a wild eastern cougar, because he thinks it would enable scientists to establish some subtle distinguishing DNA features for the eastern cougar.

If the eastern cougar is, in fact, not present in the province, would DNR consider reintroducing a small population? Mike isn't sure that this would be a good idea. Nova Scotia is a small province and there are few areas that aren't crossed by roads or aren't reasonably close to humans. Out west, preserves have been created that are home to large animals that serve as prey for the cougar. There is not room for such preserves here. Also, cougars have always been a scourge to livestock. Mike doesn't want to encourage that happening here. Also, a reintroduction would be expensive.

Mike concludes our talk by emphasizing, once again, that DNR receives credible reports from very credible people: the cougar's presence in Nova Scotia can't be totally discounted.

So, despite the lack of any evidence that the eastern cougar is present here, there are people out there who will swear on a stack of bibles that they've seen one. Who's to say they are wrong? Not Dad, walking in the Highland woods with his son. Not Don Anderson or Mike O'Brien. And certainly not me.

Kitty Kitty, maybe you do have a big uncle in the Nova Scotia woods. Maybe just around the next bend in the trail...

Freelance writer Larry Gibbons has spent part of the last nine summers living on or near Wagmatcook, Cape Breton with his fiancée. At other times of the year, he works as a library clerk at a community college in Kingston, Ontario. It is interesting to note that at least two members of this magazine's nine-person Editorial Board claim to have sighted the eastern cougar: Kirk Munro swears he saw one in Pictou County, while Joe Walsh's sighting was in Guysborough County.

Great Nova Scotia Trivia Contest

1. Roman Catholic
2. Princess of Acadia
3. c
4. Kentville/Chester Basin
5. Henry Hicks
6. May, 1998
7. Noel Knockwood
8. Little Tancook Island
9. CHNS/1926
10. Natalie MacMaster
11. Portia White
12. Lake Ainslie
13. Shelburne County
14. Nova Scotia Duck Toller
15. Waverley/Tobeatic
16. Osprey
17. Farley Mowatt
18. Longlining and harpooning
19. Pictou County
20. Brooklyn (used by the Department of Transportation) and Newport (used by Canada Post)

A Voice From Across the Sea

Sincerely,
Freddie Bates
1 Wellington Terrace
Penzance, Cornwall, England TR184SS

Saving a Corner of the People's Playground

Kingsburg Coastal Conservancy
This summer, we're celebrating the complete, ongoing preservation of the beautiful South Shore headland at Gaff Point. The pride that goes along with this accomplishment makes it a good time to review the history of the Kingsburg Coastal Conservancy (KCC) Association to see how we got to this point. It's a story of dedication, optimism, and luck, of valued partnerships and generous donors, and of an enduring appreciation for the natural beauty and worth of our land.

As is the case with many conservation organizations, the roots of the KCC lay in a loosely organized response to a local crisis. In our case, in 1993, it was new houses on the dunes of Kingsburg Beach, along with attempts to privatize a road that provides community access to the beach. We spent considerable time deciding how to respond, and then in organizing community meetings and working with the Department of Natural Resources, the Attorney General's office, and the District of Lunenburg Municipal Council. Finally, there was extensive legal action over landowners' lost rights and the need for government protection of beaches and their dune systems.

While the fate of Kingsburg Beach was being decided in the courts, a group of individuals who felt the need to do something proactive met to form the KCC. At the time, the news media was filled with reports of residents across the province who were cut off from their traditional places of recreation by landowners who wanted to restrict access to formerly accessible areas. We were afraid this would be our fate too – that "Canada's Ocean Playground" would be available only to the few who could afford to own a piece of the coastline. We hoped that, by banding together and forming a group to take united action, we could take a hand in shaping the future of our own community.

And so, in 1995, we applied to become an officially recognized charitable organization with two broad goals: to conserve and protect lands on the Kingsburg Peninsula, and to maintain, wherever possible, traditional coastal access. We loosely defined our area of interest as the Kingsburg Peninsula, extending from Rose Bay around Rose Head, to Hell Point, and then around Gaff Point to the mouth of the LaHave River. We had excellent volunteers who helped draw up our by-laws, formalize our board, and solicit members.

The KCC received valuable recognition in 1997, when we were granted status by Environment Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia as one of the few organizations in Nova Scotia eligible to accept ecological gifts and issue receipts that bring tax benefits to those who donate ecologically-sensitive land. Our first donation of land was an eighteen-acre wetland adjacent to the protected dune system of Kingsburg Beach. This spring, we were given another piece of land that will ensure permanent access to Kingsburg Beach for all. As others enter into discussions with the KCC about similar donations, we are developing explicit guidelines for decisions about securing properties through donations, easements and purchases, and for strategies to provide the necessary financial support for land acquisition and stewardship.

In 1996, our attention turned to Gaff Point. A seven-and-a-half-acre lot on the Point went on the market and we suddenly had our first challenge. Our untouched, wild, and wonderful headland was facing the prospect of development. In only eight months we managed to raise the entire purchase price of $45,000. With that acquisition, we assured the preservation of this piece of land, as well as access for hikers. We've also assured that we have a say in the headland's future. Our success with this project showed us very clearly that we have significant public support, and it increased our visibility and our confidence.

Then, in 1999, about a third of Gaff Point was divided into housing lots and put on the open market. Access to the protected beach would be along a long-established right of way. In hopes that we could somehow acquire and preserve this land, we invested $5,000 in a 90-day option on the properties. This goal was soon replaced by the even bigger aim of protecting the whole headland. We started talking with landowners about their willingness to sell, but the 90-day deadline was almost upon us, we had no more money, and we were about to lose our investment.

It was time for a "saviour" and, with only a week left on our option, we found one in a Nova Scotian businessman who agreed to purchase and hold the land until we could raise the funds to buy it. We received another big boost when a family generously donated its twelve-and-a-half acres on Gaff Point to be held jointly by the KCC and the Nova Scotia Nature Trust. Another family willed its land to our organization. And, then, on the strength of this strong support, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) agreed to a partnership with us to secure the remaining lots on Gaff Point. At that point, we began to believe we would succeed.

The NCC partnership gave the Gaff Point project national visibility and helped highlight the important environmental aspects of Gaff Point. The expertise of NCC staff in negotiating with landowners helped ensure that the entire headland will be preserved. And, of course, the NCC's fund-raising expertise and broad base of supporters was essential in this $1.4 million project.

Through hard work, our community, and our small organization, with substantial help from municipal and provincial governments, was able to raise about $250,000. We're proud of our network of supporters for such significant contributions, and we're grateful to the NCC and other organizations for joining us.

In June 2002, the NCC presented the 124-acre Gaff Point site as one of its "Gifts to Canada." The KCC was there, along with the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, to celebrate our successful partnerships and the permanent preservation of Gaff Point. A dream that had once seemed impossible had now come true.

Partnerships have also been important in a number of other KCC efforts to preserve land and ensure coastal access. We were active in encouraging municipal and provincial governments to acquire Hirtle's Beach, and we now work closely with the Beach Management Committee there. We've encouraged the municipality to secure the routes to two abandoned public wharf sites as a means of public access to the coastline. As well, the KCC is working with a generous landowner and the municipality to ensure public access and parking at the site of another popular local beach.

At this point, the KCC is working with the NCC to raise the final dollars for the Gaff Point project, and we're looking ahead to see what's next for us. We have over 600 members, a strong board, and a reputation in the community for getting things done. At our spring planning meeting, we set four goals for the coming year: to develop a stewardship plan for Gaff Point, to establish guidelines for future acquisitions, to increase our education and communication activities, and to identify issues for discussion with provincial and municipal governments. We feel that we're ready for whatever opportunities come along to help us address our goals of preservation and access on the Kingsburg Peninsula.

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

Peninsula Farm: The Culture of Frustration

Pulp and Paper, People and Passions

Bigger Needles, Smaller Haystacks

Mysterious Cat of the Deep Woods

Great Nova Scotia Trivia Contest

A Voice From Across the Sea

Saving a Corner of the People's Playground

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

Peninsula Farm: The Culture of Frustration

Pulp and Paper, People and Passions

Bigger Needles, Smaller Haystacks

Mysterious Cat of the Deep Woods

Great Nova Scotia Trivia Contest

A Voice From Across the Sea

Saving a Corner of the People's Playground

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