The Fragment: As we traveled through Atlantic Canada visiting museums and reading histories, we learned of entire areas settled and populated by people “expelled” from the fledgling United States because they opposed the war of independence and wished to remain loyal to the crown. For example, many who moved into Prince Edward Island and the city of Charlottetown were former colonists.
Earlier in the 1700s, during the fight for dominance of the region, French and English loyalists were expelled, depending who had grasped power and had gathered enough strength to do so.
George Island in Halifax Harbor was in essence a penal colony, housing thousands of Acadians (French) who were rounded up and held prior to their expulsion. I said to a young outdoor store owner in North Sydney that it sounds as if the U.S. expulsion of loyalists made Canada possible. He countered by asking, “What would Americans do without Cajun culture and food? They’d be drab as the Brits! If our guys hadn’t kicked out the Acadians, you’d have no Jambalaya!”
We were joking, but when we consider the history of ethnic, religious, and political cleansing that has gone on, probably forever, and continues to go on, we begin to see how serious and deadly a problem this is. Considering the past century alone, the numbers killed, eliminated, executed, and “disappeared” in a forced attempt at unanimity of thought, race, or culture total in the multiple millions.
Food: The Water Prince is an enchanting title for a magical character. Our experience with the Water Prince was based in the fact that near the cruise ship piers in Charlottetown are two streets: Prince and Water. In fact, nearly every city in Atlantic Canada has both a Prince street (a very natural name given their relationship to the monarchy) and a Water street (duh, like they got a lot of water).
A seafood restaurant had the simple good sense to use their location and call themselves Water Prince. But they didn’t stop there, they went on to develop an eatery that produced really good food.
Our meal was, as we sometimes do, a shared one. I ordered a seafood chowder, a meal I love. Pat dislikes chowder. That was my contribution. The seafood plate she ordered consisted of half a lobster, a large pile of mussels, and scallops. With a side of cole slaw, this was a fitting meal for a Water Prince.
It went like this: I would offer Pat chowder and she would refuse, “You know I don’t like chowder.” Then she would shove a wee scrap of lobster my way along with another scallop and a handful of yawning black mussels. And so, after a while, there remained an empty chowder bowl, enough vacant mussel shells to make several musical instruments and a necklace, meatless lobster reside broken into minute pieces, a wine glass lying on its side, a cole slaw stain on the place mat, and a bill larger than we typically incur but neither out of reach nor unreasonable.
We conversed with the eaters on either side of us (a couple from suburban Vancouver, BC and another from Michigan). Not enough for Pat but sufficient for a week of my social needs. Leaving the restaurant, we slowly walked the narrow streets among picturesque houses under a beautiful starlit sky. I think we even held hands.
It was a sensuous, idyllic night. Until we met the skunk. We passed an alley just as a handsome black and white creature that didn’t say “Meow” darted out from under a bush, stopped in surprise, and turned and ran up the alley with her tail raised high. We tiptoed off the other direction, angling away to make the line of fire more difficult. Really, we and the skunk had a shared goal of simply getting away from each other. None of us was looking for trouble.
Attempted Murder: The CBC online headline dated 5 October, read, “Police were asked to warn husband of 'Internet Black Widow': Melissa Weeks now behind bars charged with attempted murder.” The immediate stage for all this had been a North Sydney, Nova Scotia B&B. Our B&B! I wrote about the Chambers and the wonderful breakfast earlier in my North Sydney post.
Melissa and her new husband, Fred, shared a room next to ours. We knew things were amiss with the Weeks couple when she came to breakfast alone and spoke of her husband having “an episode” and not feeling well. An ambulance was called and the EMT team took Mr. Weeks to the hospital. The CBC story reported, “Two days after that, police charged Melissa Weeks with attempting to murder her husband and with ‘administering a noxious thing.’”
The story continued “...the woman had served her time for killing a previous husband and defrauding a boyfriend she met online... She was prone to whirlwind romances that ended with her partner’s serious illness or death.”
Cheryl Chambers of Chambers B&B is mentioned in the story. She is a wonderful host, a collector of antiques with a definite artistic bent, and undoubtedly terribly bothered and embarrassed by all this. We both feel for her. Neither of us would be tacky enough to suggest she might use the publicity and stage Murder Mystery Weekends at the B&B.
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