Walkers Road part 4
After Montreal, we worked a week in Richibucto, NB, two weeks in Moncton, NB, two weeks in Bathurst, NB and part of a week (?) in Charlottetown, PEI.
There were five sets each night from 9 pm until 2 am. In some places, you work all week without a day off. It really separated the mice from the musicians. A band either came out of one of those trips super tight, or they self-destructed.
We were without our roadie and all-around handyman, Marty. He was picking tobacco at a farm in southwestern Ontario. He did that for a couple of decades, working on crews that were mostly comprised of migrant workers from Mexico and Acadians from New Brunswick. Coincidentally, our next stop was the Acadian village of Richibucto.
History Lesson
These Acadians are descended from the original European settlers of what is now Atlantic Canada. During the Seven Years War (1756 to 1763) as the British took control over what is now Canada’s Atlantic provinces there was a fear of disloyalty. The Acadians were exiled back to France. Some found other places to settle, for example, in the bayous and delta at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
After the war, some returned to Atlantic Canada and formed communities. Quite a few settled in that part of New Brunswick’s coast that faces east along the Northumberland Strait and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Yellow Brick Road
We left Montreal and drove up the south east side of The St. Lawrence past Rivierre Du Loup to Rimouski. We then turned south across the Gaspe Peninsula, entering New Brunswick near Campbellton and then down the coast to Richibucto, about 80 kilometres northeast of Moncton. The population of the village in 1974 was just under 2000, with the majority of them Acadian.
The Bears Den, a fair-sized bar and restaurant, was where we would attempt to entertain the villagers for six nights.
It was a large shed on the edge of town with lots of parking and open all day. I got the impression that it was a sort of a boozy community centre.
A Parallel Dimension
It didn’t take long to win them over. It was so different from Montreal. They danced, sang along and applauded at the end of each song. Between sets, they bought us drinks. A girl ran up and hugged me. She planted a kiss on my cheek, turned around and went back to her table. This pleased and worried me at the same time. What if she were with some big beer-brained galoot who might want to have a few words with me outside?
Most of the conversation in The Bear’s Den was in French. However everyone, it seemed, was bilingual to some degree.
A few weeks later, in Bathurst, another 120 kilometres north, the reception was great again, but a little bit subdued compared to Richibucto. I attribute that to a smaller ratio of Acadians to Anglais in this metropolitan area of 30,000 people.
In between those places, we were in Moncton for two weeks. We did some of the touristy things while we were there. Fundy National Park was cool. The highest tides in the world happen every day there.
Drawn By Unseen Forces
Another attraction (pun intended) near Moncton caught our attention: Magnetic Hill.
You pay $10, drive to a designated spot, put the vehicle in neutral and experience the illusion of coasting uphill. We tried it with the Walkers Road van.
It’s not a scam. Others we talked to who had done it thought it was really cool. In fact, I just read that it was Canada’s third most popular tourist attraction in the 1950’s!
Maybe the illusion worked if you were lower to the road in a car, but our van sat noticeably high on its frame. To us, it just felt like we were rolling downhill, which, in fact, we were.
To mangle a popular cliche, there’s ten dollars we’ll never see again.
The Sequoia Digression
That reminds me of a famous attraction in Northern California, in which a road tunnels right through a giant redwood tree.
I was alone, driving up the coast on the scenically spectacular Highway 1, when I started seeing signs for it. I wasn’t on a strict schedule, so I decided to check it out.
I turned off the highway at the designated exit and approached an admission booth. I pulled up, and a pleasant girl with a big smile welcomed me and said, “That will be $5, please.”
“Is this really worth it?” I asked, “C’mon, just between you and me, am I going to think later that it was $5 well spent?”
“Well, you are alone,” she replied, “how about 2 bucks?”
Such a deal! How could I refuse?
I paid and proceeded for a couple of hundred metres, turned a corner, and there it was. The biggest tree I had ever seen in my life (the next day I was to see some that were at least twice as big), and it had a hole through the trunk big enough to drive a car through!
One problem. It currently had four bikers stopped in it, revving their Harleys. It was thunderous. That poor tree survived a millennium and a half to experience this kind of humiliation? I turned around and left.
Back To The Topic
Our last stop was Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. I’m not sure we made it through the whole week. Hell, I’m not sure we even started. This is missing from my memory.
It may have been a case of double booking, which would occur from time to time. You’d arrive, and another band would be set up. It’s a little inconvenient when you’re 1500 kilometres from home. At least they paid for our accommodation.
We stayed for a few days, I’m not sure why, and then high-tailed it west, back to Toronto. It was the second week of September. We had been away since the spring and almost the entire summer. Home was looking pretty good.
My Take Away
I wasn’t in Prince Edward Island long enough to get an impression and it would be another year and a half before I would spend six weeks in Newfoundland, so let me just comment on Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
They share the same geographical area, but each has its own individual character. Also, the provinces themselves are comprised of distinct regions. Cape Breton is as different from the Annapolis valley as St. John is from Miramichi.
To be fair, I was only in a few places in Nova Scotia, including its biggest city and some nearby towns, so this is definitely an apples-to-oranges comparison, but let’s give it a try anyway.
Halifax had a fast pace. Not anywhere near as fast as Toronto, but it seemed headed that way. That was nice, it made getting things done easy. New Brunswick in general, had more of a “stop and smell the roses” feel to it, which was very welcome particularly in the last few weeks of the trip.
Conclusion To Part 4
As we were driving home, I realized I’d be happy to return to either of those provinces. And I did, many times, over the course of my career.
I finished my first road trip with no illusions about the glamour of the music business. It was hard work, but with all that playing, I was a better musician, and I had some money in the bank.
We had a repetoire of roughly fifty songs. I figure we played each one of them about seventy times during the summer of 1974. You’d think I’d be tired of the monotony, but I was ready for more…….. after, of course, sleeping in my own bed for a while.