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Letter From The Publisher
Sadness, Pride...
and Hope?
It is with great sadness that the Communities Network (CCN)
must inform our readers that, unless last-minute funding is somehow
found, this issue of Coastal Communities News will be our last.
This is not to say that CCN as an organization will cease operations:
we will continue in much of our important work. Our monthly membership
meetings, where people network to share the situations, problems, and
solutions of their communities, will go on as before. Our efforts will
continue toward getting the Coastal and Rural Communities Foundation
of Nova Scotia well onto its feet, so grass-roots groups can receive
support in their work to better their communities. We will not neglect
our efforts to develop a national rural network, so that rural and coastal
communities can speak with a more effective voice to policy makers at
all levels of government. Our work to underline the importance to Nova
Scotia's economy of wharves and other marine and rural infrastructure
will continue. And we will remain active in many other areas to help
sustain and develop our coastal and rural communities.
But, make no mistake. Without Coastal Communities News, our
profile will be lessened, and it will be much harder to both defend
our communities against ill-considered policy decisions and to help
them take full advantage of positive policies. Its loss will make it
more difficult for CCN to remain A Large Voice For Small Communities.
That said, CCN is happy, and proud, to have been publishing this magazine
and getting it into the hands of rural and coastal Nova Scotians
at no cost to its readers for more than seven full years. Our
gratitude, first and foremost, must go to Human Resources Development
Canada (HRDC), which, through the years, funded the magazine yet allowed
communities to speak freely about their problems and triumphs
even when HRDC itself occasionally came under fire within these pages.
We must also thank the provincial Department of Education, as well as
other provincial departments and agencies, who have been nothing but
helpful and supportive over the years. Our thanks are also due to the
Rural Secretariat Branch of the federal Department of Agriculture and
Agri-Food, which has been supportive of us more recently. And finally,
our heartfelt thanks go to our readers, hundreds of whom through the
years have provided both kind words and sound advice on ways to make
Coastal Communities News a more attractive and useful tool
for small communities across Nova Scotia.
Our thanks go to all of you. If we find good fortune, you'll
receive future issues of this magazine in your mailbox. If we do not,
remember our thanks.
It's been fun.
CCN's Editorial Board
back to top
Larry's River
Guysborough's Acadians:
Pride on Display
by Scott Milsom
In the summer of 1755, Nova Scotia's colonial Lieutenant-Governor
Charles Lawrence issued a proclamation that would forever soil his name
in the annals of the province's history. All the French-speaking
settlers in the colony were to be rounded up, their livestock and property
forfeited to the Crown, and expelled from the colony. They were sent,
mostly in boats hired by the British, to most of the thirteen colonies
to the south (others went to Louisiana, where the word Acadian
was corrupted to eventually become Cajun), while others
were sent back to France, or to French islands in the Caribbean. Many
of these people came back, and tales of treks of thousands of miles
back to the ancestral homeland became part of Acadian legend.
But not all the Acadian settlers were captured. Many fled to the forests,
where they were sheltered, often for years, by the Native Mi'Kmaq
people. As the next couple of decades unfolded, some of these fugitives
emerged from the woods and started small settlements in out-of-the-way
spots. One place Acadian settlement was unofficially tolerated was in
the Chezzetcook area east of Halifax, and many who had been with the
Mi'Kmaq began life anew there. They knew better than to ask for
land grants, and hoped for nothing more than to be left alone. Then,
in the mid-1780s, thousands of Loyalists came to the province in the
wake of the American Revolution. When many of them applied for and were
promptly given land grants around Chezzetcook, many in the Acadian community
could see the handwriting on the wall. Larry's River, and some
other likely spots around Tor Bay far down the Eastern Shore, looked
as though they might be good spots, safely out of the eye of colonial
authorities in Halifax. In 1797, the first Acadian settlers arrived
to settle in the Tor Bay area.
It's like the Acadians who came to settle Larry's
River, along with nearby Port Felix, Lundy and Charlo's Cove,
suffered a double expulsion, says Larry's River resident
Gordon Pellerin, whis is now retired after spending most of his working
life teaching English at Guysborough High School. They were looking
for isolation, and they found it. Even by 1815, there was no church,
and no priest. But that doesn't mean that these settlers had lost
their faith. Every five years or so the Bishop from Québec would
sail into Tor Bay to marry or baptize people, or otherwise see to local
people's religious needs. One day, he sent word from his ship
that he would be coming ashore at Larry's River the next day,
and word spread among the communities around the Bay. By the time he
stepped ashore in Larry's River the next morning, all the people
of Port Felix, more than ten kilometres away, had made the trek through
the woods to see him.
The bishop from Quebec was appalled at the isolation these early settlers
endured, and he asked them during that 1815 visit to move around the
Canso Peninsula to join the Acadian people on Isle Madame. But the settlers
had come to like living along the shores of Tor Bay, and they politely
declined.
Today, of course, the isolation of Larry's River and other communities
of Tor Bay is not what it once was, but it's still no easy feat
to get there from Halifax, the place those settlers were trying to distance
themselves from those many years ago. If you go along the shoreline
route, it can take well over three-and-a-half hours to reach Larry's
River from the provincial capital, first along Route 7 on the Eastern
Shore, and then further along the Guysborough County coast on Route
316 when Route 7 turns inland at Sherbrooke. Reaching Larry's
River this way also involves a cable-ferry trip across beautiful Country
Harbour, a narrow sliver of ocean that snakes about 25 miles inland
from the rest of the coast.
Larry's River is normally quiet on a Saturday at lunch time,
but when I arrive on the Labour Day weekend, there is a large buzz of
activity about the place. Asking directions, I make my way to the home
of Blair Pellerin, where I'm offered coffee and
a bite to eat at his kitchen table.
Blair grew up in Larry's River, and he works out of the Guysborough
office of the provincial Department of Community Services. He tells
me why there's an unusual level of activity in the community today,
and gives me some further background on Larry's River. St.
Peter's, the Catholic church here, has been holding a picnic fair
to raise funds for the parish every Labour Day weekend since 1918,
he tells me. Although almost all the young people have to move
away for work elsewhere, on this weekend everyone comes home. The village's
population more than doubles for a couple days this time of year.
Unlike most other Acadian communities across the province, young people
in Larry's River, who attend elementary school down the shore
in New Harbour and are bused to Guysborough for the higher grades, receive
their education in English. When I started school in 1955, there
was an elementary and junior high school here in Larry's River,
Blair explains. Instruction was in English, though I have older
siblings who remember being taught in French. The process of assimilation
accelerated in the 1950s, though even when I finished school at Guysborough
in ‘68, French was still the predominant language of everyday
use in the village. But now, it's almost all English for those
under 40. The process was sped up by a lack of public services available
to people in French.
Though many of the younger people here have lost the French language,
they still celebrate their Acadian heritage. Typical names around Tor
Bay are Acadian ones such Fougere, Pettipas, Richard, and the like.
The Acadian flag is still a common sight, and a recently formed community
group, the Societé des Acadiens de la Region de Tor Baie,
is developing local plans to celebrate the World Acadian Congress, coming
to Nova Scotia in 2004. Another project we've been working
on is to gather materials together in order to put together a history
of Larry's River, something that's never been done,
Blair says.
When that community history is finally put together, the cooperative
movement will have a place of prominence. In the 1920s, the fishery
offered only a very hard living, and the parish priest, Charles Forrest,
a colleague of the famous Moses Coady, helped bring people together
to establish the Tor Bay Canning Company, a co-op facility which continued
operating into the late 1950s. Pointing from his kitchen window across
the river, Blair says, You can still see parts of that old cannery
near the wharf. They canned lobsters, and also blueberries, which grow
well in this area. Another local resource is the foxberry, which doesn't
can well and isn't very well known in much of the world, but is
very tasty. Rather than canning them, people would keep them in water,
where they'd last all winter. In the first half of the last century,
school would close for a bit around the end of September and all the
kids would go to pick foxberries by the barrel. These were shipped to
market in Halifax, to be traded for molasses and other provisions that
would see families through the winter.
Back then, the fishery kept Larry's River afloat economically.
Sadly, those days are all but over and the community itself is in decline.
There are a couple draggers that still fish from here,
Blair says, but they just land their catch and it's immediately
trucked out. Other than that and about a dozen or so people who fish
spring lobster around the Bay, there are few people making a living
from the fishery nowadays.
The measure of the decline of Larry's River and area can be
seen through its children. When a new elementary school was built in
New Harbour to serve the area in the mid-‘70s, there were about
360 students there. This fall, the school will open to fewer than 70.
Some years, there is not a single child entering school from the village
of Larry's River.
But this decline is hardly in evidence at the Larry's River picnic
fair, held in the field between the church and the parish hall. Here,
on a bright sunny day, there are booths set up with spinning wheels
and other games of chance. One, a bean-bag toss. Five for a dollar.
Pot all five: a big stuffed toy, or a water gun! A sliding
scale of rewards down to pot one: a piece of candy. Kids swarm
the booth.
I sit in George Pellerin's (no close relation to Blair) car
and talk to him, a retired man who has spent his life in the Larry's
River area. I remember working in the co-op cannery back in the
1950s, he tells me. When that closed, I started delivering
groceries, going house-to-house in Larry's River, Charlo's
Cove, and Port Felix. I did that until the grocer I worked for closed.
Today, there are two small retail stores left in Larry's River:
Murphy's General Store and Village Grocery.
After a quick trip down a side road to take a walk along the beautiful
beach at Tor Bay Provincial Park, I return to the picnic fair, where
preparations are being made for a community supper in the basement of
the parish hall. I track down Father Will MacPherson,
the parish priest for Larry's River and four other Catholic churches
in this part of Guysborough County. A young man in his early 30s, he
hails from Sydney, and after high school he went to Saint Mary's
University in Halifax. I studied accounting there, he
tells me, but the priesthood was always there in the back of
my mind. When I graduated, I looked to see what God was calling me to
do. So I went to seminary. Now, I've been here just over a year,
but, as a priest, you have to stay a long time in order to get to know
the people. In order to be of worthwhile service to the community, you
have to be here long enough to get to know them and have them get to
know you.
I ask Father Will whether the work the priests of the Antigonish Movement
did for so many years in Larry's River and area had left any lasting
effects. There's not a lot of that legacy left here,
he says, because of the massive depopulation of the area. The
very nature of work here has changed over the years, and so has the
nature of community. The outlook among young people is: go away. But
I've heard people talk about trying to change that attitude. One
thing we have to do is tell governments that there is a real value in
rural life, and in rural living. It's frustrating, because they
don't seem to listen. But there is a real value in communities
like this one. Maybe if we all keep saying it long enough, and loud
enough, people will start to listen.
At one time in the 1890s, up to 800 people lived in Larry's River.
Today, just over 200 people continue to live here. While a small number
still make a living from fishing, most people of working age go elsewhere,
to jobs in Guysborough or even Antigonish. A few people cut pulp, and
mussel and scallop aquaculture operations in the waters of the wide
Bay provide for a couple of families.
But not all in Larry's River is sliding downhill. A few hundred
yards down the road from the parish hall a large new building is taking
shape. This will be the new home of the Larry's River Volunteer
Fire Department, among other things. It will really be much more
than a fire hall, fisherman and volunteer firefighter Roger
Williams tells me. We'll have 9,800 square feet
of space, and we'll include a kitchen, dance hall, community rooms,
and an interpretive centre. It's going to be a great multi-use
facility, not just for Larry's River, but for Charlo's Cove,
Tor Bay, and Lundy as well. It will provide a great boost to these communities
here.
The new facility is being built with help from all three levels of
government. Building this place has caught the imagination of
people in our communities, Roger says. The community spirit
it's brought out has been wonderful. Everyone has lent a hand.
The New Glasgow local of the carpenters' union donated 25 carpenters
to help put it up, and A. W. Leil Cranes donated a crane and operator
for two weekends. We're hoping for a grand opening sometime early
in the New Year.
Larry's River may be a smaller place than it once was, but on
the Labour Day weekend it is all abustle. It's easy to see that
the hundreds of people who have come home for a few days, as well as
those still living here, love the community they sprang from. And seeing
that love of community on such proud display gives hope for a better
future.
back to top
Our Resources:
Putting Community First
We've been hearing a lot lately from people from away who want
to help our small communities and rural areas with various
proposals involving extraction of our natural resources. On Digby Neck,
a New Jersey-based company wants to establish a quarry to mine basalt
to be shipped to the United States and turned into materials for making
interstate highways. A Texas-based company wants to bring offshore natural
gas ashore in Shelburne County and process it to remove harmful hydrogen
sulfide before then shipping it by undersea pipeline directly to New
York. A Toronto-based company wants to dredge hundreds of millions of
tons of riverbed from the Shubenacadie River in order to extract and
export the approximately two percent of it that's thought to be
titanium.
All three of these projects were subjects of discussion at a Truro
meeting of CCN's membership in early September. They were brought
up, independently, by people who live in the communities that would
be affected if these projects get the go-ahead. The people who raised
these matters had much in common. For one thing, they were all concerned
about possible environmental impacts of the proposals. Tourism, one
of the province's most important economic engines, depends on
a healthy environment to draw people from far afield to the beautiful
small communities across Nova Scotia. Any threat to the local environment
is, therefore, a threat to local tourism operators and that industry
as a whole.
But it was more than just environmental concerns that the people who
brought up these resource extraction proposals had in common. They also
shared a healthy skepticism about past, present, or future consultations
between the companies making these proposals and the people of the communities
that would be affected if they go ahead. This may be because the particular
consultation processes are, in each case, flawed. But
there's little doubt that a contributing factor in each case is
the past history of government's and industry's consultation
with affected communities whenever a company, wherever it may be from,
decides that resources located in our near a Nova Scotian community
might be able to improve its balance sheet.
This is not to say that these three extraction proposals, and others
that might be made, cannot be good things for the communities involved.
Rural and small-town Nova Scotia certainly needs jobs to help stem the
outflow of young people to larger centres. Nobody is more aware of this
fact than the friends, relatives, and neighbours of those who are forced
to move elsewhere to earn a livelihood.
And this is exactly the point. Perhaps the people of Digby Neck would
like nothing more than to see scores of long-term quarrying and shipping
jobs created in their area. Perhaps the people of Shelburne County would
welcome the work that comes with laying underground pipe and processing
sour gas. Perhaps the people who live along the banks
of the Shubenacadie River and Minas Basin would be grateful for dredging
jobs in their communities. But in each case, there might be pros and
cons that affect communities. How might natural gas and basalt extraction
operations impact on the rich fisheries of Digby and Shelburne Counties?
How might titanium extraction on the Shubenacadie affect the delicate
ecological balance of the Minas Basin? How might these proposed operations
affect the natural beauty of these communities, beauty that draws thousands
of visitors every year?
Whenever such proposals are put forward, judging their pros and cons
can be a delicate matter. And, when you get right down to it, who is
it that should take the primary role in such judgement? The companies
that make the proposals are obviously motivated by self-interest: how
might we improve our profits? Governments are obviously motivated by
self-interest: how might we get re-elected, or otherwise earn brownie
points? Regulatory bodies are often fettered by blinders that make them
look solely at environmental, or solely at economic, considerations.
But there is one group that, together, has the wisdom necessary to make
such a judgement: the people who themselves live in the communities
involved. Yes, they too have a self-interest: that of the future well-being
of their communities. Sometimes, of course, communities may be divided
on the merits or perils of a particular proposed development. But often
they are not. It is in such cases that the voice of the community should
be the determining factor in deciding whether any particular proposal
goes ahead.
It's hardly rocket science: when any proposal is made, the voice
of the community must be paramount. And that rule should apply to Digby
Neck, to Shelburne County, to the banks of the Shubenacadie
indeed to any community in Nova Scotia considering any manner of development.
Where governments and the private sector do not adopt this principle,
bad things will only follow. Where they do, our communities will be
better places to live.
Scott Milsom
Rural Communities Impacting Policy
University and Community: New Bridges
by Scott Milsom
Nova Scotia has a well-earned reputation for the excellence of its
universities, and for the high academic standards associated with them.
University life has a real impact on life in the Halifax area, which
serves as home to six institutions of higher learning, as it does in
Sydney (University College of Cape Breton), Antigonish (St. Francis
Xavier), Wolfville (Acadia), Truro (Nova Scotia Agricultural College),
and even tiny Church Point (Université Sainte Anne).
But to most people in rural and small-town areas of the province, universities
are not seen as being relevant to rural life. But that is changing.
The Coastal Communities Network (CCN), in partnership
with Dalhousie University's Atlantic Health Promotion Research
Centre, is working to bring the benefits of social science research
to people in our communities. Rural Communities Impacting Policy
(RCIP) is a three-year project designed to give individuals
and organizations in our small communities better tools and information
to influence the policies that affect the health and sustainability
of their communities. (For more about RCIP, see the September/October
2001 issue of this magazine.)
One important part of RCIP's work this past summer was the placement
of four student interns in small communities around the province. They
each examined a specific policy issue, and investigated ways in which
community people could have meaningful influence in the development
of improvements to policies that affect those particular issues. Emily
King spent much of the summer in Canso, where she investigated
both the social and economic impact of the Stan Rogers Folk Festival
on the area. She was particularly interested in lessons that the Stanfest
experience might have for other Nova Scotian communities. Brynn
Kelly worked out of New Glasgow investigating policy issues
that have an impact on the province's Black communities. In Shelburne
County, Rebekah Brannen looked at how the downturn
in the fishery has affected women's ability to remain self-reliant
and to take part in economic and community life. In Inverness County,
Joyce MacDonald looked at the impact of school closures
and amalgamations. Each of the four is currently busy putting together
a final report on their summer research.
Steven Dukeshire works as RCIP's Project
Coordinator, and he sees a lot of potential good coming from
the interns' work. Communities will now have a systematic
collection of information concerning four important rural issues. This
information will allow people to better understand their own community,
and will also serve as a useful tool they might use to become more meaningfully
involved in the policy process.
**
Dalhousie graduate student Emily King comes from West Bay, Cape Breton,
so she took a knowledge of small communities with her to Canso. My
thesis advisor is developing new assessment criteria to judge the value
of festivals to small communities, she says. The current
policy process at times seems overwhelmed by purely economic considerations,
but there's more to life than Gross Domestic Product. The current
system may be biased against cultural festivals, because it is often
hard to provide evidence of the cultural value of events. It's
easy to just look at economic indicators: cultural indicators are harder
to qualify and quantify.
It was interesting going to Canso, Emily continues, to
see a rural community where the isolation itself is a common bond. That
very isolation is a part of the attraction of the community.
Along with helping out over the summer at the Stanfest office, Emily
put together a lot of audience and performer feedback that she hopes
will be a help to organizers in coming years. When I write my
final report, she says, I'm going to make every effort
to make it relevant and useful to not only festival organizers, staff,
and volunteers, but to policy makers as well.
Brynn Kelly's work out of New Glasgow resulted in her identifying
48 different communities across the province that had significant Black
aspects to their cultures and histories. I studied psychology
at McGill, she says, where I looked at some of the issues
surrounding prejudice in children and university students. Racism still
exists, and the Black community knows this, even if portions of the
White community may not. Although racism may not be represented in the
same way it used to be, and it may be a little less obvious, it exists
under the surface nonetheless.
I looked at policy issues that are relevant to rural African-Nova
Scotians and how specific communities are dealing with these issues,
Brynn continues. I was able to lay my hands on a lot of descriptive
research that the Black community has produced, but it's much
more difficult to find statistical information. Even census data can
be problematic, partly because people can be apprehensive about self-identifying
themselves as Black. In addition, most rural Black communities are too
small to have their own census information in a neat package. Obtaining
a custom tabulation from Statistics Canada which would likely
reveal some worthwhile data can quickly become very costly.
But it's important that we eventually obtain that data because
it will be a valuable tool for African-Nova Scotians who want to have
an impact on policies in their communities
My final report will outline policy areas that are of interest
to the Black community such as land issues, housing, employment, education,
programs for youth and seniors, and racism. I'll also try to put
these issues in the appropriate historical context.
Rebekah Brannen is from Charlesville, Shelburne County, and she did
her internship out of Wood's Harbour. I could have decided
to first look at policies, and then at the situations of women around
Shelburne County, she says. Instead, I chose to look at
how women are doing, what problems they are encountering. I found that
young women felt the main barrier to upgrading their skills and knowledge
was the distance to Community College campuses in Shelburne and Yarmouth.
It's a bigger County than many people realize. For older women,
particularly those 40 or more, there are more serious problems. Fishing
isn't an attractive option, as the County's culture still
frowns on women in the harvesting sector. There are still some fish
plant jobs, but with the downturn in the fishery over the past decade
the competition is very heavy for the few jobs that come up. And, for
women in the over-40 age group, people who may have dropped out of school
before junior high to take a job in a fish plant during the boom years
in the fishery well, for them, it's not just feasible
to study towards a high school diploma. It would just take too long
That's an area we've identified where, I think, policy changes
are needed to help such women. There's a real need for skills-training
workshops and the like. Women in Shelburne County need both changes
in current policies and new policies to help them be more active economically
and socially.
Academic research is foreign to people in Shelburne County,
Rebekah continues. I found it helpful to become involved in community
activities like working for the food bank. I met a lot of people this
way and it introduced people to my research and let them see its validity.
Once they knew about me and the research, people weren't so hesitant
to become involved in workshops and discussion groups I organized.
Joyce MacDonald, who grew up in Brook Village, Inverness County, examined
changes in the public education system in southwestern Cape Breton.
Prior to 1996, the communities of Judique, Port Hood, Mabou,
and Whycocomagh (this applies to non-Native schooling), each offered
local children education from Primary to Grade Twelve, she explains.
But through an amalgamation process that began in 1996 and was
completed in 2000, children in all these communities and surrounding
areas now attend Primary to Grade Eight in either Port Hood or Whycocomagh,
and then go on to a Grades-Nine-through-Twelve facility in Mabou.
I find that there has been a feeling of powerlessness in many
communities when it comes to school closures, and it's one that
I don't think is unjustified, Joyce says. Based
on my research, it seems that many people believe that, throughout the
amalgamation process, the ‘community consultation' process
was flawed. There are sometimes back room reasons for
certain closures and amalgamations, and sometimes there aren't.
The trick for people who are fighting school closures is the ability
to tell the difference. When communities lose their schools, they can
tend to lose their focus. With the new schools, many teachers no longer
live in the communities where they teach, and many parents feel less
attachment to a larger school in another community than they did to
their old local school
But, despite a fair degree of negative feeling about school
closures in some communities, there have been a number of benefits that
have come with the new, larger schools, Joyce explains. There
can be positives that come from school amalgamations, tangible things
like better, more modern facilities and a broader choice of curriculum.
There are extra-curricular options such as playing in a school band
that weren't there before amalgamation. And there are also intangible
benefits that have come from amalgamation. There's a broader social
atmosphere among the kids, who are now getting to know others from two
or three communities down the road who they would never have met under
the old system. Differences that may have divided communities in the
past seem to be dissolving.
**
There's no doubt that policy issues affecting local festivals,
Black communities, women's ability to be economically active,
and school amalgamations are as diverse as the communities they impact
upon. Nor can there be any doubt that the process of policy development
is both complex and obscure to many people in rural communities. What
we've found, says RCIP Coordinator Steven Dukeshire, is
that there is really no set policy process. There's not one path
or set of steps to follow in order to implement or change policy. Each
case seems to be situation-specific. But one great positive that has
come from the RCIP students' work this past summer is that communities
seeking future policy changes will have very good information at their
disposal. This information could well serve as a useful tool in creating
changes to improve to current practices.
A second big plus that's come of the students'
summer work is the building of stronger bridges between the rural and
university communities, adds Steven. The interns proved
to be great ambassadors for the RCIP project and we saw four great examples
of how community and university could work together. The interns'
work will also allow university people to gain a better understanding
of issues facing rural communities and how they are dealing with policy
issues. I see stronger community-university links in the future, ties
that will be of benefit to both parties.
When they have finished their final reports on their internships,
the four women are planning to scatter to the four winds. Emily King
will go to Halifax to continue her graduate studies in development economics.
Brynn Kelly plans to go backpacking in Malaysia for a few months before
taking a job in the Indian Ocean island-state of the Maldives. Rebekah
Brannen is going to Campeché in Mexico to study Spanish. Joyce
MacDonald is headed for Amman, Jordan where she will take up a position
with a United Nations agency. All these places are a far cry, both geographically
and culturally, from Canso, New Glasgow, Wood's Harbour, and Mabou.
But it seems a good bet that the work of these women, who are heading
out to worlds far different from rural and small-town Nova Scotia, will
help the people in the communities they are leaving, as well as people
all across the province, to have a greater ability to shape future public
and private policies in the interests of their own communities.
For more information on the Rural Communities Impacting Policy
project and the work of the RCIP summer interns, visit the project's
website, which is to be launched and open to the public in mid-November,
at <www.ruralnovascotia.ca>.
Shelburne County
Texas Tea and
Community Livelihood
by Kathleen Tudor
Only the fall can produce a day like this. Hot, the sea in front of
my house near Lockeport flat calm, the sun glancing off the mirror-like
water. Islands, four of them, one with a lighthouse the others rich
in spruce, lie in the haze of the soft southwesterly.
Then a sudden chill. The chill of people thrust from ancestral homes,
familiar landscapes, livelihoods, the scene forever and suddenly threatened.
Not by the forces of nature no tornado or hurricane or flood
but by a force even more destructive, the force of greed. That
force is characterized in this instance by El Paso Corporation. El Paso,
a huge American pipeline company, has all the attributes of globalized
companies ruthless indifference to local needs, local values,
local landscape. All that matters is garnering millions for shareholders
in a foreign country. Too dramatic a picture? Let me make it more concrete.
A few short weeks ago some local people received glossy brochures
from El Paso with pictures of harbours much like the one I described
above: colourful Cape Islanders beside working wharves and, incidentally,
equally romantic pictures of slim, shiny gas smoke stacks, reaching
to the heavens through blue sky, surrounded by green trees and bush.
They call their planned project Blue Atlantic.
As it turns out, lots of local politicians (those at all levels, actually),
knew about this scheme long before most of us living in this area did.
Local town and municipal councils held in camera meetings,
and although some elected leaders claimed the Council meetings were
open to the public, naturally no one knew of El Paso being guests. Once
the brochures were plucked from our mail boxes, phones began to ring.
Three days before an El Paso Open House in West Green Harbour (six kilometres
from Lockeport) about fifteen people fishermen and other local
people from a representative group in the community, lifetime residents
(like me), newcomers, retired people, taxpayers, young and old
met to challenge this threat to our productive, lively, beautiful community.
That very same night, meeting in the home of friends, we formed the
South West Nova Environmental Protection Group. A fisherman, Ricky Hallet,
became our President and we quickly made plans for the El Paso Open
House in West Green Harbour, and for another in Shelburne.
The advertised times for both gatherings was 3:00-8:00 p.m. We decided
to go together as a group to West Green Harbour at 6:30 p.m., so we
could not be handled one on one. Gathering chairs in the Community Hall,
we faced El Paso's Vice-President, Jack Lucido, smiling, casual,
confident. No, no, he told us, this is not a meeting.
This is an Open House. The 60 or 70 of us who had gathered paid
no attention, and the questions flew. The scene was repeated the next
night in Shelburne. These two events were our first appeals to the whole
community. And our cause took off. Our working group grew, our weekly
meetings had to be moved from kitchens to a community hall. We had to
make placards, print up a brochure, make yard signs, develop a telephone
tree, meet the demands of the bank in order to open an account, make
up and distribute petitions, work the Internet. In short, we had to
do all the things a new-born, community-rooted organization has to do
to be successful. Our campaign plans were discussed at our first public
meeting after the open houses. Further meetings, held about once a week,
overwhelmingly involved talk, discussion, information sharing, and grassroots
participation. There were usually 40 to 50 at these meetings. Our group,
placards in hand, had an unscheduled meeting with Premier Hamm in Barrington,
and though politeness reigned on all sides, the Premier was as unforthcoming
as all the other politicians we have dealt with. His message was the
one we have come to expect: El Paso's proposals are merely
preliminary. Nothing has been decided. Don't worry. A similar
meeting with Shelburne County MLA Cecil O'Donnell resulted in
the same pointless platitudes. On the bright side, our local weekly,
The Shelburne Coast Guard, has done an excellent job of reporting on
meetings, using editorials and letters to the editor to inform citizens
on the issues involved.
Our aim is not only to preserve our rural character. We have many
concerns about the company that is proposing this pipeline and processing
plant. El Paso's shares have been falling steadily from a high
in the $50 range to about $10, indicating shareholders' concern
about the viability of the company. Could we be faced with a bankrupt
company, abandoned structures, a general mess? There are several court
cases in progress against El Paso, including one on behalf of an extended
family wiped out by a horrific gas explosion at Carlsberg, New Mexico.
El Paso's safety record is far from encouraging, and some accidents
have been serious enough to result in court cases for compensation.
The gas that would come ashore in Shelburne County is likely to be sour
gas high in sulphur content, as El Paso itself admits. The smoke
stacks will, of course, release other toxic elements into the air, and
the surrounding area will enjoy the light of night-time flares. Our
health, our fishery, our traditional industries will be sacrificed for
virtually nothing.
A major goal of our new organization became a public meeting to which
the widest number of people could come. El Paso was invited, but declined.
Elizabeth May, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, was
invited to speak. Refusing to accept fees, she and Mark Butler of the
Ecology Action Centre, along with members of our Group, addressed about
400 people in Shelburne's Community Hall. It was a well-organized,
non-threatening meeting, with a microphone available for anyone to voice
their opinion. Only one person supported the El Paso scheme, essentially
suggesting it was inevitable, So, get the best out of it you
can. Our people had heard this before and wanted none of it.
No El Paso became our rallying cry.
In the meantime, El Paso agents have infiltrated the community. Some
coastal residents agreed to allow traffic over their land for $100 unaware,
it seems, of the significance of what was unfolding. Surveys on the
water, in the air, and on the roads go on all the time. Recently an
El Paso trailer has appeared. El Paso plans to open a storefront in
Shelburne very soon. Some people were asked strange questions in a telephone
survey: peculiar interpretations will probably result.
In spite of attempts to get elected representatives to quantify and
describe the industrial plan and the jobs it will create, nothing is
forthcoming. A letter from MP Gerald Keddy, in response to one I sent
him, proclaims cheerfully, We can benefit from both industries
[fishing and natural gas].
What evidence is there of this? For weeks now we've heard pro-El
Paso politicians: We need jobs and industry. Never once
has anyone using these words described the jobs, the number of jobs,
the duration of jobs, the wages involved, or determined that the jobs
would be filled with Shelburne County people: no industries have been
described. If such studies have been done, proponents of the El Paso
scheme have not chosen to cite them. And, El Paso makes no great claims
for jobs in any case. El Paso doesn't itself distribute gas, so
some other company, if it thinks it will be profitable, has to be found
to distribute the gas.
We have Canada's most lucrative lobster fishery right here in
Jordan Bay, where some 300 lobster fishermen make their livelihoods.
This is where undersea pipes would be laid and a huge, commercial
wharf built to bring tankers in for servicing the processing operation
and removing by-products. Dredging would be required. Trucks would cross
the small trunk road to the tankers at the pier. The pipelines, after
coming ashore, would then carry the natural gas containing deadly hydrogen
sulphide to a plant in East Jordan where it would be processed.
The gas would then to be piped over lobster spawning and coral grounds
beside or on George's Bank to New York to feed America's
insatiable demand for more and more fuel. Why aren't the pipes
and plants on American shores? Take a guess.
Yes, there are people who need jobs in Shelburne County . Yes, there
are people here who, as one writer has noted, need to pay mortgages.
But is this the way to meet these needs? Some have urged putting our
trust in a variety of regulatory bodies meant to assure citizens will
be safeguarded economically and to secure our health and safety. Nova
Scotia does not have a good record on any of these scores: Westray,
Tar Ponds, Halifax Harbour, oil spills, work-site safety these
are almost daily subjects of news stories. If we don't trust agencies
and boards, it could be because we've been betrayed before.
Shelburne County has a thriving lobster fishery, fish processing plants,
a growing tourism industry, with several new businesses opened in the
last few years to accommodate visitors. People are moving here, building
and buying homes and demanding carpenters, electricians, painters, and
other workers connected to the building and maintenance trades. We have
small businesses that make little or no demands on the environment or
on people's health. Let the government support and develop this
base and Shelburne County could probably do quite well .
What we don't need is El Paso.
Lockeport resident Kathleen Tudor is a writer and publisher active
in her community.
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A Word of Thanks
The Coastal Communities Network (CCN) would like to thank the Rural
Communities Impacting Policy (RCIP) project for its sponsorship of this
issue of Coastal Communities News. By sponsoring this issue,
RCIP has shown, in a concrete way, its support for our coastal and rural
communities.
CCN has provided space in this issue (see page 2) for RCIP to get word
of this exciting project to coastal and rural Nova Scotians. Responsibility
for editorial content, however, remains the sole responsibility of CCN.
Coastal Communities News
Acknowledgements
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.
Join the Coastal Communities Network
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
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How to Become Involved
in the Coastal Communities Network
CCN's strength lies in its membership, which is made up of organizations
rooted in Nova Scotia's coastal communities. The range of member organizations
is very broad, including churches, fish harvester groups, municipalities,
community and regional economic development agencies, unions, universities,
and local community groups. CCN welcomes the participation of any organization
that represents the interests of a coastal community or issue and is interested
in working together with similar groups across the province. Your organization
can become involved in a number of ways:
— 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.
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