Today I set off on the first day of the crowded Gaspe Book
Festival, a large bilingual celebration of reading up and
down the 150 miles up around the Gaspe Peninsula.
Overnight it had snowed sleet and freezing rain, so when
I walked out our back door, I found the car covered in
hard ice, difficult to chip off.
Then I drove to my first appointment...
...at Shigawake Port Daniel School.
I spent a splendid morning at this vibrant school:
the alert children had lots of questions; they already
knew a lot about The Alford Saga, because they had
been reading it in class. The principal, John Prince,
and the other teachers gathered for my talk.
This afternoon I spent at The Anchor, a new, cheerful building,
well designed inside, for adult education classes for the
New Carlisle area, where the United Empire Loyalists arrived
in the late 1700s.
I spoke (as asked) about the importance of reading for
the imagination and thus growth of a young person — as opposed
to television, which has been shown to dull the brain.
I spoke about The Alford Saga, which begins with the early pioneers
in Eastern Canada, and the Gaspe coast. I hoped not only
to bring awareness of our Gaspe to the rest of Canada, and
perhaps the world, but to make these young people proud
of the area in which they were born.
Many of the students were training to become nurses.
I told them how they’d earn much more in the big cities
in America, but I explained that they’d never afford to live
near their wealthy hospital. We go from Shigawake to
New Carlisle (a pleasant seaside trip) in about 20 minutes,
but in Los Angeles that trip might take them two hours
in fume-breathing bumper-to bumper traffic for a couple of hours.
I hoped to keep these wonderful young girls where they belonged
in Canada and, more especially, on the Coast.
I left New Carlisle for the 150 mile journey to the other end
of the Gaspe Peninsula, to Fox River, a large shrimp port
on the north shore. The freezing wind kept the sleet beating
against the windshield, and the closer we got, the deeper the snow.
However, the lovely frost decorating the bare trees
(like Christmas) made up for the harsh journey.
But I was still happy to arrive at my dinner destination, in Gaspe,
which did look rather forlorn in the mist, and freezing rain.
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