God, the Devil and the Maritimes

This was written after I got back from Brazil

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Karma exists. And my only defense against being swallowed by it Sunday was a death grip on my steering wheel.

I'm talking about how a massive snow and sleet storm is a really bad time to come back to the Maritimes after a tropical holiday.

I managed to steal away to Brazil for the holidays, a reunion that brought the family all together in one place for the first time in three years.

Brazil was Brazil. It was nice. It was chaos. It rained every afternoon. And it was bloody, disgustingly hot, with the sweat drenching you from top to toe the moment you wake up and step out of your air-conditioned bedroom.

I had a good time. I got some sun. I got to see the folks. I got to see how my Portuguese is after years of idleness (prognosis: rusty).

But even so, I knew. As I packed my bags and got ready to head down to the airport, I knew there would be payback.

Because, in the dead of winter, I dared escape to another clime that didn't involve scraping frost and digging out. The gods would not be pleased with this inversion of the natural order, and they'd be waiting for me.

So I expected my connection to Moncton to be cancelled or redirected for four hours to another city or something but, aside from a half-hour delay and a couple of really bad turbulence spots, it went swimmingly. Had I cheated my doomed destiny?

No. My non-escape became apparent when I had to get my bags to my car, forcing the cart through an unplowed, two-inch deep part of the parking lot, in the face of a driving wind bombarding my eyes with tiny shards of frozen rain.

Then, of course, the marvelous ordeal of hacking the hardened snow covering off my vehicle so I can see enough to brave the highway back to Miramichi, but after that was done, of course, came the sigh of relief.

The worst was over. All that was left was an hour and a half's drive back to Miramichi, where I could finally unpack and rest up for a bit before mustering the courage to do those dirty dishes that had been mouldering for ten days.

See? That's how much warm weather kills your brain cells. I seriously thought it would be an easy drive.

It wasn't, of course. Up until last weekend, I thought 'weather bomb' was some made-up media catchphrase, not an actual weatherman's term for the hideous situation that made everyone's life a misery for three days and got bad enough to actually claim three lives.

Wasn't the worst weather I, or anyone, had ever driven through. But the roads were poorly plowed, the snow-slash-freezing rain was horizontal and I was battling a couple hours jet lag on top of no sleep during the flight up from South America.

Not a good frame of mind to be driving, even though by that time, the weather bomb was a pitiful shadow of its former self.

Still a formidable shadow, though. The bomb became a dark tunnel through some snowy underworld, though which I crawled at a breakneck 70 kph . Yes, I was that guy. All you guys in your trucks or SUVs can deal with it or pass. I ain't going the speed limit, not with a half-inch of wet snow on the road.

At every milestone, I cursed the weather gods. Just ... not too loudly.

Bit dramatic, I know, but you have to remember, I was standing on a hot beach in a tropical paradise 24 hours before, and I've had one weather-related accident on that road once already. Those aren't fun, and I wasn't interested in a repeat.

Didn't want to be late for work the next day either, burned down city landmarks and all. If you're reading this, I trust you are doing so with a total lack of sympathy, given where I was for my vacation. Imagine how my coworkers must have felt, although I hoped to buy their goodwill with a few Brazilian chocolates and a generous load of tropical coffee purchased from the finest of run-down Rio corner stores. Being late after a Brazilian getaway is a poor way to win the office popularity contest.

Ah, well. I got there, I got back to work and at least the temperature's been decent, at not too far above or below zero.

In Brazil, that would be catastrophic. For me and the Maritimers, it's rather nice.

Good to know my little tropical sojourn hasn't messed up my temperature tolerance.

Staff reporters will offer their views in this space on Wednesday and Friday. Daniel Martins covers the political beat.

A sin against numismatics

Check this out:



It's a 1943 Canadian 50-cent piece, with all the dead space cut out, leaving only the text and coat of arms on the reverse side.

It's a fine piece of Canadiana which I found, of all things, in a special shop in Paraty, that little tourist town in Brazil detailed below.

The guy who ran the place was, I think, from Uruguay, as if it wasn't complicated enough.

I wear it around my neck. Love it to pieces.

Reveillon 2010

I rang in the new year with my family ... on a boat anchored off Rio de Janeiro's famed copacabana beach.

The fireworks display there is legendary, although it was nice to be able to see it without rubbing shoulders with the two million strong crowd of revellers on the beach itself.

Here's the pics, taken by me and my dad. Miss 'em already.










Good bye, 2009, and good fucking riddance. 2009 sucked even worse than 2007. May 2010 capture the hopeful spirit of 2008.

The little white house

More shots from my Dad, this time of a little lodge about an hour's drive uphill from Paraty town.


Called the Casinha Branca, or little white house, It's run by an afro-Brazilian woman who worked for many years as a journalist for Italian TV, in its first year of operation. Was only there for a bit after a horse ride, so I've mostly got dad's shots to go by.

Pretty, though.


And what a view.

Paraty Bay!

Seeing as how it's the dead of winter and all, I thought I'd get around to uploading some shots my dad took when we went to Paraty after Christmas, in Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil.


Paraty's an old Portuguese colonial town, hundreds of years old. Aside from the nice streets and quaint shops and pubs in the preserved downtown, the real attraction is the stunning scenery and the bay, and tourists can rent a boat and a captain to take you out there for a day.


We decided on two islands for snorkeling and two for beaches.

Unlike the waters of Guanabara Bay, hideously polluted by the teeming millions of Rio de Janeiro, Paraty Bay is down the coast of the state toward Sao Paulo, so the water is clear, and teaming with fish, like this gathering of sergeant fish.


Lots of the islands are well prepared for tourists, like the one below, while others were basically untouched.


Even the untouched ones had some great beaches. We'd basically anchor the boat off shore and either swim or drift over with a pool noodle. Then you either swam/tanned, or heading over to a nearby kiosk for a snack and a cold brew.


Even got to do some spelunking.


Honestly, that's probably one of the most beautiful places in Brazil, and certainly relaxing. Heartily recommend it for a honeymoon or something.

Don't hate me 'cos I'm sunburned.

The best of 2009 part 3

The last of my dozen best, or just plain favourite, shots of the year.

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Sniff Sniff.


The nice K9 unit officer in this shot is inspecting, with some disgust, an empty beer can found in the back seat of a car he and his RCMP buddies stopped on a weekend police check on one of the two highways heading down to Moncton.

Yes. Police checks are sometimes news, especially when we get a couple funny shots out of 'em.

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Here's a digger taking apart a building on the old UPM mill site, which had just been bought by that Norwegian solar panel company previously mentioned.


Included mainly for its "end of an era" feel. It's not a spectacularly composed shot, but it's demolishing part of a mill on a site which has had a mill on it on and off for a century. On the Miramichi, that's a big deal.

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I've had this one on here before.

This is at a candlelight vigil for Hilary Bonnell, the girl from Burnt Church First Nation who vanished after a house party. She was later found dead in the woods, and her cousin was charged with first degree murder.

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This was a freak shot taken at Hilary's funeral.


The light just happened to hit Pamela, Hilary's mum, just right through the church windows, as well as the feather she had at the time. During the service, she would occasionally reach out and rest the feather against Hilary's casket. Behind her is Hilary's step-dad, Fred.

I'm told it's rare for NB First Nations to have funerals in a church, rather than at the deceased's house.

As sad as that was, I think everybody was at least relieved her body had been found. But it was a sad affair, although I was surprised at how accepting folks were of cameras in the church (at least for the newspaper folks. The CBC had, like, nine vehicles there).

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That's it for 2009. Rough year, but still a few good shots. Here's to 2010.

Best of 2009 part 2

Part two of my amateur best.

You know this guy.


He was in Miramichi for the World Acadian Congress, on the nearby Acadian Peninsula. In this shot, he's ringing a bell and waving a flag for the Tintamarre, where everyone present makes as much noise as they can, with a few screamed "vive 'Acadie!" thrown in for good measure.

Got to talk to him, too. He sounds remarkably like Mr. Spock in real life.

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This local veteran was having his experiences of WW2 recorded for the Memory Project, from the Historica-Dominion institute in Toronto.


Basically, the stories he and around 60 other Miramichi veterans will be posted up on the group's website, along with pictures of any memorabilia they brought with them. Apparently, our turnout was higher than in Moncton, the sort-of largest city and metro in the province.

We never used this staged shot, but I've always liked the look on his face, with the recording equipment in the foreground, so here it is.

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This is the president of one of the city's rotary clubs, which organize the pond-hockey tournament. We set this shot up because the big mystery was going to be who was going to drop it (ie: Stevo).


I just like the composition, so here it is.


Notably, you can see the cleared-off ice patches at French Fort Cove that were to be used as rinks. In the summer, all that melts, and what you have is a lagoon in the middle of the city, surrounded by trees and trails.

But I digress.

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This lad is Nick Hardy of the Chatham Ironmen, sliding into home to win the pennant for the 2009 NB Senior Baseball League regular season.


They would eventually lose in Game 7 of the finals to the Moncton Mets.

Mainly I like this shot because his helmet is basically in mid air. Nice effect, one of several to come out of the travesty that is my reluctant baseball coverage for the Miramichi Leader.

Best of 2009 part 1

Little late, but here's some of my best shots of 2009.

We'll start with the infamous 'where's the beef? Right there, Mr. Premier' shot.



This has been on the site before, but I've always loved it, and it was hit in the forums, back when we still had a website. To recap, the larger gentleman is a local MLA, John Foran, who'd invited me to tour a local slaughterhouse with the premier, Shawn Graham (left).

I don't think this marvelous, and hungry looking, shot was quite what the portly pol had in mind.

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I don't know any of these people and their deeds, but prolly some of you might.



Left to right are presumed NHL greats Terry O'Reilly, Don Marcotte and Brad Park, next to a set of signed pucks. They were each on corporate sponsorship teams during Miramichi's legendary pond-hockey tournament, but all were Boston Bruins alumni (so I was told). I included this one because I've always like the composition. For the most part, they were distant when I chatted with them for the paper, but very friendly with the local hockey talent. I suppose that's the way it should be.

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Then there's this guy.


He was in town to drop the puck for the pond hockey tournament, and stopped by the local hotel for some kind of function. I was there at the same time, with the NHLers and managed to beg my way close to him, escorted by a handler, to get a shot of him with the son of the city engineer, whose school project he'd just signed.

Whatever you think of the guy, I thought it was pretty neat to have a shot no other media had.

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This was taken in the cockpit of a cadet training glider.


I happened to see if flying around the airbase and once it landed, someone asked if I wanted a go. I was working that Saturday, and wasn't against actually having some fun on the job so, naturally, I said yes. Got some great aerial shots of the city, and I've always liked the composition of this one.

Boom?

I'm a civilized man. The product of thousands of years of refinement and cultural development, a lover of order and civilized peace.

I also like it when similarly civilized men take the time and effort to blow shit up.


Those storage tanks above used to be part of the UPM mill complex in Newcastle. The site's currently being re-developed by a Norwegian solar panel company for use as a polysilicon plant. That means there's a bunch of stuff on the site that they need to get rid of, hence the demolition.

Basically, the whole thing was a massive fiasco ... starting with the fact they were late.

By the time the warning siren wound down, I was on the side of the road, giant telephoto lense in hand trained on the tanks. But when the siren ended, no boom!

So I wait about a minute, and it wasn't until I dropped my lense for just a second (that thing's heavy), that a burst of smoke shot out from the foot of the tanks, followed a second or so later by the ear splitting, heart ratting BOOM! that was the whole reason for standing out there in -10 winds.


I was pressing my autoshoot button down with such intensity it wasn't until five seconds passed when it dawned on me...that sucker was still up.

Not impressed. Nor was the guy from Public Safety who'd been posted near me to make sure everything's hunky dory.

So I waited. Again. For an hour in the freezing winds on the side of the road. Then again with the siren, again with the BOOM! and again with the ever-so-slightly too late camera to snap what we were counting on for our front page.

Nada. Sucker was still up there.

To amuse myself, I shot random pics of demo workers resetting the charges among the decimated foot of the structure.


See all the blown-out concrete and steel rods? Something was happening, all right, but nothing was falling down. Must have been really frustrating. Hell, if I had a ton of explosives and some Norwegian guy was paying me to blow shit up, I'd be a little pissed about this whole situation, too.

So finally, an hour and half after the first blast was supposed to happen, the lads got serious.

The post-siren boom, when it came, was massive.

In the days to come, people would ask me what that was that rattled their window panes. At the time, the shockwave ruffled my trousers like a light breeze and my heart felt like it had been flicked by a plate-mail digit. My ear drums were not happy, and for a second I felt the soul-crushing terror programed into my instincts threaten to emerge.

Nothing. The damned thing was still fucking there.

In the meantime, the wind was getting colder, and while I was taking my battery out to tuck into my jacket to keep the cold from sapping it, one of the trucks the demo folks were using to patrol the inside perimeter of the property stopped in sight of me, and a lad got out and trudged through the old snow to within shouting distance.

"No good," he yelled. "Try again next week."

I left. Never did find out when the next demo was and I seriously didn't care. With the winds getting colder, no boom was worth it.