TO AN ISLAND AND BACK WITH THE SCENT OF THE SEA

The green green Ontario countryside is unrolling outside the window as this train I'm on speeds toward Toronto in the golden late-afternoon light. The half-full moon is up and there are wispy trails of cloud gauzily draped across the blue sky, catching the late light.

I've been on the island of Grand Manan this week, a completely transporting trip to another world, it felt like. The drive across small roads in Quebec's Eastern Townships, huge swoops of hills, was great, and a reliving of drives I took as a kid with my parents, though now those roads are paved, not dirt. Northern Maine is as pine tree-lined and dark as ever, with beautiful salt-box houses and outbuildings, sparely elegant. But it was Grand Manan, with its steep sandstone cliffs on the west coast, and curving small harbours on the other side that was the new pleasure.

My friend Lianne and her husband have a small house just near Castalia Marsh, on the north end of the island, with a view due east across the water, Nova Scotia out of sight across the blue of the Bay of Fundy. The tides weren't as huge as usual this week, because the moon is not full, though they were still remarkable compared to the tides in most places. The weather was changeable, so skies were dramatic.

On the food front, we went each day to the terrifically good (we have nothing near this quality in Toronto) artisanal bakery, North Head Bakery, not far from Lianne's house. The St John's River breads, multigrain, au levain, with a wonderful crust, were stunning, and so was the Old French Raisin bread (even though I don't usually love raisins in bread). The bakery alone is worth the trek to Grand Manan, seriously. (It's open from May until Canadian Thanksgiving, in October, five days a week.)

We had other luck too: there were fresh scallops at the Kwik-Way one evening, so we bought a pound of them and cooked them lightly and quickly in a little oil with some fresh local garlic. We ate them over fresh rice, with tender salad greens and yellow cherry tomatoes from a wonderful local garden in Whale's Cove. Instead of salt, I sprinkled my rice and tomatoes with dulse flakes - a great condiment from Grand Manan. Lianne and I are hoping to do a three day immersethrough session at this time next year on Grand Manan, probably the week after Labour Day. Now I've seen for myself how much food and culture there will be to explore with people. ANd then there's the whale-watching too....

We stopped in at a dulse-selling place and learned a little about how dulsing works, and about the other seaweeds/algaes that are gathered in Grand Manan. Talk turned to the perils of fishing: a few days ago a scallop boat with four aboard went down in the Bay of Fundy. There's no explanation for it, but the boat has gone. The men at the dulse shop talked about another boat that went down suddenly recently: something important (I don't remember what, the rudder? or?) broke or popped, making a large hole, but in that case the men were luckier, there was a lifeboat and they realised in time to get it launched and save themselves. I had thought that weather was the big risk, but really, it was a reminder that nothing can be taken for granted when you depend on the sea.

My small bag of clothes from the trip is impregnated with sea-aroma, the taste of the wild deeps, for I've brought bags of dulse back with me to Toronto. That haunting iodine-iron-salt-and more scent brings with it the reminder of our fragility in the face of mother nature's power. And it also reminds me of our ongoing debt to those who fish and grow and gather food for us.

GETTING MOVING!!

My last post was about transformation, the transformation of the space we live in by cleaning and music. Perhaps it’s the spring air and almost-summer heat, but as the flowers leap into bloom and the garden comes to full life, another life-pattern transformation has happened.

It’s a pretty trite and ordinary “passage” for many people, this one, but it feels happily momentous to me: I bought a car. You’ve had cars before, I can imagine you saying, so what’s the big deal? Well it’s the transition from no car to wheels that is big. The feeling of autonomy that you have when you own a car is so wonderful and somehow life-giving, but it’s not much noticed by car-owners. Once you have them, “wheels” become normal, you take them for granted. So, as with many things in life, I can appreciate having a car much more fully now that I have spent time without. Being car-less means being unable to offer a lift to a friend in need, or unable to at the last minute leap up the road to Grey County for a shape-note sing, or unable to take a load of discarded books or clothing to Goodwill, or... just fill in the blanks.

I feel like I’m back in business. And yet before deciding to do this, I had hesitated: money concerns, waste generally, I can’t even tell you exactly all that made me reluctant. Mostly though I had lost track of just how empowering it is to own a car. I had adapted to not-having, as one does, just like a cold makes you adapt to not-health and an ugly dorm room in residence makes you adapt to not-attractive, etc. The transition back to mobility, health, and attractive surroundings is a fabulous one. We see and feel freshly; we learn from deprivation to appreciate what we have...

The agenda for this car is a little different. Neither Dom nor Tashi has a driver’s licence, as many city-raised kids do not. They have been raised in the centre of a city which they can navigate on foot as well as by subway and streetcar. To learn to drive as a resident of this city (Toronto), just like in New York, you have to really want to. The guys never have felt the need, except in an abstract “it’s an idea, sometime...” kind of way. Enter the new car, which is not new, but used. I'm hoping it will seem so easy to drive that they will get really launched on getting a licence. I would love them to have that autonomy, and also of course self-interest is at work here: when I am old and decrepit, I'd like them to be able to drive me around occasionally!!

I bought the car with a friend and neighbour, who also wants the autonomy of owning wheels, while keeping money expenses, and consumption of other resources too, to a manageable level. We’ll share the cost of the car and of the insurance. It all feels like a sustainable way of engaging with car-ownership.

What did we get? A used Honda Fit, a 2007. It’s a small hatchback with great visibility, an automatic, unfortunately (because of the kids and my co-owner’s preference too), and a great gas mileage record. Let’s call it an environmental compromise, this shared used small car. But today, in the exhilaration of having checked Consumer Reports (thanks, Art!), test-driven a Rabbit/Golf,and several Fits, and then finally made a decision out there at the Honda dealership on the Danforth, and plunked down some money, I think of it as transformation. Welcome autonomy! Welcome mobility! Yeah!!

Oh, and I forgot to say, the car is red.

POSTSCRIPT: I'll be away for a week or so, leaving Dom in charge at the house, and the red car with my co-owner to get house-broken. I keep thinking of it as a puppy; next thing you know it will have a name!

I'm driving to Grand Manan for a few days with a friend who owns a small house there. Grand Manan is a large remarkable island in the Bay of Fundy, where New Brunswick and Maine and the Atlantic all meet. We're going there to see whether it's feasible to have a small "immersethrough" session there, hopefully this September, for three days. We'd base it around food, but instead of Thai markets etc, the side-interests and immersion would be in exploring tide pools, checking out the phenomenal French bakery on the island and the dulse industry, and just getting acquainted with a place where survival in a spectacular environment has shaped a distinctive local culture. Please keep an eye on the immersethrough site for updates.

An for those of you worrying about the Burma recipes, they are going really well. I am so pleased. A small part of me is reluctant to get pulled away from my engagement with them, even though Grand Manan is a place I've wanted to visit for a long time. So I'll be back and building up the repertoire soon enough! For now, just remember to pick those dandelion greens, as long as they are unsprayed. Wash them in a large basinful of water, or maybe do that twice, to make sure all grit has gone, and then chop them and stir-fry them with garlic and shallots or onions (which will sweeten them a little) and whatever other flavorings you choose. Endless green deliciousness from the plant so many still revile. How crazy is that?