By Jim Liar
"Yeah, well, here’s your gear, survey van, crew – and them? Them’s your flag girls."
"Flag girls?" I thought. "Never worked with flag girls before. This could be interesting…’"
Connecting Albert County |
opinions, Letters, and |
Except for the lies, the following story is true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
By Jim Liar "Yeah, well, here’s your gear, survey van, crew – and them? Them’s your flag girls." "Flag girls?" I thought. "Never worked with flag girls before. This could be interesting…’"
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“Waterside? Where's that?” is the question I get whenever someone asks where our cottage is located. I am always amazed people have not discovered this natural gem along the Fundy shoreline. Once you have seen it, though, you won’t forget it. I will always remember the exclamation of my niece from New York when she first saw Waterside Beach this past year: “This is Paradise!” For my husband and I, this piece of Fundy shoreline has been special to us since childhood. Individually, each of us experienced this natural wonder with friends and family in our younger years. When we were dating, it was a place we would find ourselves either walking the beach or exploring the rock formation known as Red Head. (Sadly, Red Head lost its signature head around 1999 and another section came down in 2017 due to storms and erosion.) The beauty of Waterside is that it offers such a large expanse of beach to walk on when the tide is out. On a rare warm day, we see so many families come and pitch their chairs and blankets and some do get in the water! Don’t fear: it will never be as busy as that beach on the other coast known as Parlee. One needs to be careful, though, when they head out so that they don’t get caught as the tide comes back in. We love hiking over to Red Head (which is farther than it looks). You can still see some of the breakwater that is in the old photo above when the tide is out. If you time it right, you can even walk all the way to Dennis Beach, which a lot of people know about and have explored as well. We have enjoyed some entertainment on the beach over the years from kite surfers and powered paragliders to small aircraft, fishing boats and even horses and their riders enjoying the wonderful expanse of the beach at low tide. I would love to get out in some sea kayaks and do some exploring from here but I don’t know if I am brave enough. Fast forward to 2011—finding us on this stretch of Fundy shoreline again searching for a spot we could call our own. We had spent many years camping with our children in the Fundy area but we were getting tired of the packing and unpacking and never finding one particular spot that we liked to go again and again. One day we spotted a small “land for sale” sign in front of Waterside beach. We immediately scoped it out to see its potential for development and access. It was just an overgrown field but we could see the potential and who couldn’t dream with that view? We secured the land in 2012 and tried camping on it but the wind and the bugs had us changing our minds very quickly about how we were going to use this property. We drew up some plans with a local draftsman, borrowed some money and found a builder to start building our cottage. After the local plumber, electrician and drywall finisher did their jobs, we did the rest of the finish work ourselves. We have a lot of pride in what we did because we had never taken on such a project in our lives. By the beginning of summer 2015, we were finally staying there overnight with most of it finished and really starting to enjoy it with our family and friends. This place has been our escape from work and the city, a place for our family to gather, a place for our kids to find summer employment and, hopefully, a place where we can retire. The beauty of this place has ignited our love for the area all over again and our creativity has blossomed. I like to upcycle and paint furniture and garage sale finds, make signs, and sew decorative pieces. My husband loves photography and is hoping to expand his repertoire as time goes by and he has more time to devote to it. We have found ways to inject our gifts into our cottage and make it feel like an expression of the things we love about this place. We started a blog this year called “The Road to Waterside” to feature the area and the places you pass from Riverview to Fundy. It will also feature DIY projects, my husband’s photography, and fun information and events going on in our lives, all influenced by our link to this beautiful area. We would love to have people follow us along. I try to post three to four times a month. We look forward to many years ahead enjoying this little piece of Paradise. Thank you to our wonderful neighbours for welcoming us to your community. We love it! Text by Sheila Nicole; images by Mark Nicolle. Subscribe to the blog at www.theroadtowaterside.com. See posts on Instagram @theroadtowaterside or Facebook.com/theroadtowaterside When the air is crisp, the leaves have fallen, and geese gather themselves for their yearly trip south, thoughts turn toward upcoming special days: Halloween, Remembrance Day, and then Christmas! Christmas is a widely celebrated event where family and community traditions blend in harmony. School concerts, special dinners, holiday parties, music events, charity donations, and travel plans loom over many of us by mid-November, and before we know it we are knee deep in coloured lights, festive ribbon, and list upon list of things to do, places to go, and stuff to buy. With summer in the air, children’s interests have shifted to endless discussions of what the season has to offer. They question its differences, observe its changes, and view all it has to offer through a lens of wonder and curiosity. During a spring walk, children noticed a ragged scarecrow, flagging gently in a garden from the previous year. “What’s that?” a toddler asks, as she points. A preschool child answers “that’s a straw man, he’s not real; he keeps the garden safe from big hungry birds.” By Betty Weston Some of you may already know that I grew up on Grindstone Island, right here in the Bay of Fundy, and this is a true story. At the tender age of eight years old, I make a heartfelt decision to run away from home. This is in spite of the fact that I am experiencing a childhood under the watchful eyes of two loving parents who are providing 99.9% of all my wants and needs and I have my own small island on which I enjoy endless days of fun and play -- days composed of long summer afternoons spent swimming, rowing my boat until the tide goes out, rock climbing and exploring adventures with minimal amounts of chore time and physical work. Article and Photo by: Karen Lindsay East Coast Kids Child Care and Learning Centre is a buzz with activity as they celebrate their 4th anniversary. For many families, their dream of having a licensed, quality early learning and child care service for children in their rural community is now very much a cherished reality. A day in the life of children and Early Childhood Educators With Spring in the air, children’s interests have shifted to endless discussions of what the fresh season has to offer. They question its differences, observe its changes, and view all it has to offer through a lens of wonder and curiosity. By: James Wilson Earlier this month people living along the Albert Mines Road and several surrounding communities found a newsletter in their mailbox called 'The Encourager'. The four page newsletter was produced by the Albert Mines Baptist Church and was sent to over 130 households. The church congregation has been small for several years and struggled with how it could make a meaningful contribution to the community around them. Pastor Jim Rae explains that after much prayer the congregation felt God was leading them to try this 'old-fashioned' method of reaching people. They decided to use the newsletter format to "reach those who are shut-ins, handicapped, or otherwise kept away from the church but would like to experience a little bit of encouragement in life from a good source". The Encourager itself is a mix of life advice, church news, editorials, household tips, and scripture. There is even a bit of cheeky humour in the 'No Excuse Sunday' article. The aim is to publish the newsletter on a quarterly basis. "but who knows", Pastor Jim Rae notes. This is not the first 'church project' that the congregation has undertaken in recent months. Back in February the church started helping to produce signage for Boutique Encore (a division of The House of Nazareth emergency shelter) as they were moving to a new location and were relying on word of mouth to let people know. The success with helping Boutique Encore eventually led to the publication of The Encourager. Producing and distributing the newsletter cost about $130 and was worked on and edited by the entire congregation. Pastor Jim Rae says that feedback to the newsletter has been positive. He had feared that it would not be received well as churches don't usually produce newsletters but the response has been more than expected. A second volume is set to be published sometime in the Spring. About the writer: James Wilson is a resident of Albert County. He writes for Connecting Albert County on a volunteer basis. His interests include politics, history, local events, and gaming
by ‘Grandpa’ Pike I lived in rural Albert County for twenty-some years—at Hopewell Cape, Weldon and finally in Hillsborough. Most of that time I travelled in Sales and Marketing for Hardware and Building Material distributors, but for several years I operated Grandpa Pike’s, a general store in Riverside-Albert. I got to know a wonderful lot of people from one end of the County to the other. by Roy Ries
Each year, The Hopewell Rocks dedicates the proceeds of the admissions of two “Albert County Appreciation Days” to the Shepody Food Bank...one in May and one in September. On behalf of the clients, volunteers and Board of Directors, we want to thank management, staff and visitors for the great success of this year’s events. In May, we received $4,102.00 plus 3100 pounds of non-perishable food contributions. On September 25th, the event broke all of the previous records! We received donations of $5,278.58 in cash and 454 pounds of food. The Alma Village would like to send a huge Thank You to all the volunteers who helped to make this year's Alma Celebration Days such a memorable success! All the events were attended and enjoyed. Some of the highlights included Karaoke, it appears we may have some undiscovered talent in our town. The dinner theatre, Life in Snake Falls, was amazing. The Single Member-Proportional Vote (SM-PV) system (aka The Bennett Method after the former Prime Minister from Albert County) has been proposed by James Wilson, a 28-year-old who was born and raised in Albert County. After studying political science, history, and classical political thought at Mount Allison University, he went to Alberta to get work at the end of 2013. Continue to read his story and his proposal for electoral reform. Alma has its Celebration Days, Hillsborough has Homecoming Days and Riverside-Albert’s Shepody Days is growing to rival these two neighbouring celebrations, while sandwiched between them on the second weekend in July. Shepody Days began four years ago with a great idea by Joanne Butland, her mom Beulah Morrissey and her family – to hold kayak races on the river near Riverside Consolidated School. by Rachel LeBlanc Three years ago a tired couple who were backpacking across NB randomly stopped at our house and asked if they could borrow our backyard as a campsite. Simon and Mieke were from the south of France and we had a beautiful evening with them, and in the morning we shared a warm cup of coffee. Meike was expecting a child so we chatted about all things baby. It was wonderful. Simon and Meike taught me that sometimes life brings you amazing opportunities in the form of strangers. Welcome this. The next summer, as I drove home the twisty-turny roads of Route 114 towards Hillsborough, I noticed a couple of cyclists labouring their way in the darkest, stormiest rain.
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