Dora

(Excerpt from The Birth House)

Dora Excerpt

Some time before 1764 a vessel with some Scotch immigrants sailed up the Bay of Fundy, with its passengers, intending to settle at Cape D'Or. In a squall, (the ship) was driven ashore at the present Scots Bay, where she lay stranded, her passengers and crew, however, being saved. For some time the shipwrecked people wandered helplessly about, but, at last came on a solitary hunter. He gave them food and led some of them down the mountain, but, these soon returned to their first landing place. During the winter that followed the Scotchmen made frequent journeys into the valley for food but what became of them in the end we do not know. From these temporary residents the place got its name, Scots Bay. (From Dr. Arthur Wentworth Eaton's History of King's County.)

In the Spring, when all who had been stranded at Scots Bay chose to make their way to more established communities, Brigit Mackintosh stayed behind. The daughter of the ship's captain had fallen in love with a Micmac man she called 'Silent Rare.'
On the evening of a full moon in June, Silent went out in his canoe to catch the shad that were spawning around the tip of Cape Split. As the night wore on, Brigit began to worry that some ill had befallen her lover. She walked to the cove where they first met and began to call out his name. She looked across the water for some sign of him but found nothing. The Moon, seeing Brigit's sadness, began to sing, forcing the waves inland, stronger and faster than ever before, bringing Silent safely back to his lover.

Even now, when the Moon is full, you can hear her voice, the voice of the moon, singing the sailors home.

This house stands at the edge of the earth. Together, the house and I have held strong against the churning tides of Fundy. Two ancient sisters, stubborn in our bones.

My father, Judah Rare, built this farmhouse in 1915. It was my wedding gift. A strong house for a Rare woman, he said. I was seventeen. He and his five brothers, shipbuilders by trade, raised her 'worthy' from timbers born on their father's land. Oak for stability and certainty, yellow birch for new life and change, spruce for protection from the world outside. Father was an intuitive carpenter, carrying out his work like holy ritual. His calloused hands, veined with strength, had a memory for measure and a knowing of what it takes to withstand the sea.

Strength and a sense of knowing, that's what you have to have to live in the Bay. Each morning you set your sights on the tasks ahead and hope that when the day is done you're further along than when you started. Our little village, perched on the crook of God's finger, has always been ruled by storm and season. The men did whatever they had to do to get by. They joked with one another in fire-warmed kitchens after sunset, smoking their pipes, someone bringing out a fiddle…laughing as they chorused, no matter how rough, we can take it. The seasons were reflected in their faces, and in the movement of their bodies. When it was time for the shad, herring and cod to come in, they were fishermen, dark with tiresome wet from the sea. When the deer began to huddle on the back of the mountain, they became hunters and woodsmen. When spring came they worked the green scented earth planting crops that would keep…potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnips. Summer meant august, weathered hands building ships and haying fields, and sunsets that ribboned over the water daring the skies to turn night. Summer days were filled with pride and ceremony as mighty sailing ships were launched from the shore. The Lauretta, The Reward, The Nordica, The Bluebird, The Huntley. My father said he'd scour two hundred acres of forest just to find the perfect trees to build a three masted schooner. Towering yellow birch, gently arched by Northwesterly winds was highly prized. Their fluid curves readily transformed into keels, the rhythm of the tide mirrored in the grain

Men wagered their lives with the sea for the honour of these vessels. Each morning they watched for the signs. Red skies in morning, sailors take warning. Each night they looked to the heavens waiting for promises, as if the stellar creatures they traced with their eyes could prevent the wiry cold fingers of the sea from seizing them for sacrifice. Sometimes men were taken. On those dark days the men who were left behind sat down together and made conversation of every detail, mingling facts with wives' tales while mending their nets.

As the men bargained with the elements the women tended to matters at home. They bartered with each other to fill their pantries and clothe their children. Grandmothers, aunts and sisters taught one another to stitch and cook and spin. On Sunday mornings mothers bent their knees between the stalwart pews at the Union church, praying they would have enough. With hymnals clutched against their breasts, they told the Lord they would be ever faithful if their husbands were spared.

When husbands, fathers and sons were kept out in the foggy abyss longer than was safe, the women stood at their windows holding their lamps, a chorus of lady moons beckoning their lovers back to shore. Waiting, they hushed their children back to sleep and listened for the voice of the moon in the crashing waves. In the secret of the night mothers whispered to their daughters that it was the moon that forced the waters to submit to her will. It was her voice that called the men home, her voice that turned the tides of womanhood, her voice that pulled their babies into the light of birth.

My house was the Birth House…people still call it that today. The women came, knocking on the door, ripe with child, water breaking on the porch. First time mothers full of questions, young girls in trouble, seasoned women with a brood already at home. I called those babies 'tosies', cause they were more than their mamas could count on their fingers. They all came to the house, wailing and keening their babies into the world. I kept them safe, wiping their feverish necks with cool, moist cloths, spooning porridge and hot tea into their tired bodies, talking them back from outside of themselves.

Mabel, she had two…
Joellyn MacDonald, she had a girl here.
Esther, she had twins…twice.
Alice, had six boys, but she was married to one of my brothers…Rare men always have boys.
Iris Rose, she had Wrennie…

There must have been a hundred or more over the years. There was nowhere else for them to go back then.