On Wednesday, I drove to the third world.
It was about a half-hour drive down the 117, in a town called Baie-Ste.-Anne, named for Acadia's favourite saint. The cloudy sky couldn't take away from the scenery, a mix of forest, rivers and coastline dotted occasionally with boats of all kinds. Seemed nice, until I got to the place, anyway.
See, about a month ago, a man from here froze to death after the provincial energy utility disconnected his hydro. On Wednesday, I went to his house. Here's the story, have a gander before reading on:
http://miramichileader.canadaeast.com/front/article/284138
This happened before I started, and it's not my beat, but the boss figured we ought to do something since it's in out coverage area, so I wrote it as a feature, not news.
I tried to bring across what a godsdamned hellhole that was. And it wasn't even some random shack on the outskirts of town, either. The post office was right across the road, next to the bloody RCMP detachment, of all things. It was maybe a three, four room house, but every room was filthy. You could barely see the floor for the scraps of clothing and blankets, and tons of propane tanks. There's a picture attached to the story, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. You had to have been there, in the dark, with the stench of shit and kerosene in your nostrils to really get a sense for what a place that was.
The brother, Bert, changed his story a couple of times, and I notice when doing archive searches of other papers that some of what's printed there is different from what he told me. Either they fucked up, or he was unreliable. That's not uncommon. He was obviously traumatized by what happened and people in that situation, their heads can be a little screwy. This is unrelated, but I've found that sometimes the worst sources are eyewitnesses.
But that doesn't change the fact that this shouldn't have happened. And it's just a glimpse of what some parts of this province are like. Out in Ontario, we make jokes about how poor the Maritimes are, and I guess I knew what I would find. But knowing is one thing, and seeing it is another.
And I'm going to be here for years. I like to think that's the worst I'll see, but this is definitely a rougher place than what I'm used to. I'm settling in fine, but having the chance to see that for myself and have to write about it in a way that brings the reader right in there...makes me feel like a real reporter. Odd that I should feel so good about something so terrible, but there it is.
This is such a strange place.
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4 comments:
Dan, what an amazingly moving and balanced story. Kudos for handling a difficult subject so well.
Thanks Alex! I did the best I could, although I'm not sure how balanced it is...it's pretty heavy on the brother's side of things, but that's the leeway you get with doing a feature, I guess.
very well written dan.
but a terrible shame.
here's my question for you,
if there is legislation that states that the provincial power authority is not allowed to disconnect people in the winter months, and i assume from your story that this legislation has been around for at least several years, then how is it that a public utility blatantly broke these rules and is now going without reprimand?
Hey Dan - that's a really, really hard read. Heart of stone or not, that sort of thing shouldn't have to happen to anyone. Well written, and, as Alex said, props for handling the story so well.
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