This summer, I submitted a poem to the Poetry in Motion program. Ten poems are selected and put on Metro Transit buses for a full year.
The WFNS website describes this year’s theme : The 2023 submission theme, “joy,” was open to broad interpretation—including happiness, delight, glee, festivity, or ecstasy; the objects, causes, or sources of joy; the joystick, the joyride, the killjoy, schadenfreude, or other complications of joy; and other meanings, qualities, and impacts of joy.
Today I received an email from one of the judges. He told that my poem had not been selected, but I was on their shortlist ! I have never entered a writing contest before, so this was a bit of a shock. I jumped up and down in the living room with my slippers on! I am thrilled to be shortlisted. (If I ever actually win a contest, I’ll probably do cartwheels on my lawn…which might be difficult with just one working arm 😉 .
There is a new business opening in Grand Etang, Café Les Suêtes, by come from aways.
Adonia O’Hara grew up in Rhode Island, but she was born in Sydney NS, while her American parents were visiting relatives. Chris O’Hara was born and raised in Ontario.
Adonia visited Cape Breton several times as a child. When she was 16, she moved to Bay St Lawrence with her aunt and uncle, and finished high school at Cabot High. She graduated in 2000, and moved to Toronto. “I had never been to Toronto and it was wild and beautiful- full of culture and opportunity,” she said. “Collectively, I spent about 15 years in Toronto, found a group of friends, a couple of great apartments I could afford on my own, and worked in every occupation you could think of!”
She started with telemarketing, she was a Merry Maid, she sold spa packages door to door, she worked at a fabric store and finally settled into an upscale women’s shoe store where she was employed for years. She came back to Nova Scotia, and did two years at Mount St Vincent University. “I ended up leaving MSVU and heading back to Cape Breton where I worked as the Wedding & Events Coordinator at Keltic Lodge Resort & Spa for 3 years.I flourished there, and enjoyed every minute of it. For personal reasons, I left there and went back to Toronto, and got into administrative work in real estate. I went on to work in retail sales while I got my realtor’s license,” she said.
“Chris and I met 10 years ago online in Toronto. He had always wanted to eventually move to the country and open some sort of eatery, as cooking was his passion,” Adonia explained. A few years into their relationship, Adonia took Chris to Cape Breton. He fell in love. “The boats, and seafood, the Highlands, the hiking, the ocean, the wild berries and foraging, small town vibes, no traffic, fresh air!” she said. After this trip, they started talking about moving to Cape Breton permanently.
Chris O’Hara spent 21 years in Toronto. He worked in the advertising industry in Media Planning. Chris explained, “Simply put, my job was to ensure our clients ads were seen by their target audience. Our recommendations known as Media Plans could include a variety of media types: TV, radio, magazine, newspaper, outdoor, online, depending on which mediums were most used by the relevant consumer. Advertising was a fun and engaging career that offered many opportunities I would have not been able to experience had I worked in another career. For example, I would think it may be hard to find an accounting firm that lets all the employees leave the office on a Wednesday afternoon to cheer on the Blue Jays at Rogers Stadium while drinking $10 complimentary beers.”
Over the years he was able to move into more senior roles, with his last position being Vice President, Paid Media at a company by the name of Edelman Worldwide. “With these more senior roles came a heavy level of stress, which ultimately just burned me out and I wanted a change. I was so lucky to have a spouse that was okay with me walking away from my career,” he said.
Chris has worked a number of different jobs since they moved to Cape Breton, but the ultimate goal was always to open a food establishment. Cooking has always been an interest for Chris. He worked in some restaurants during high school and college, binge-watched the Food Network and he even enrolled in some culinary courses at George Brown College in Toronto, just for fun!
They bought a house in Grand Etang and have settled into the community. Chris joined the Lemoine Volunteer Fire Department 3 years ago and is now Vice President and also takes care of their social media accounts.
When Chris was asked how he felt about living on Cape Breton Island, he said, “I heard a quote once and I believe it rings true: Live in a place where other people want to visit on vacation.”
They had never heard about the big south east winds common to the area. The strongest winds regularly reach hurricane force, from 100-240 kilometres an hour. It only affects a 30-kilometre stretch of land. Their house is in the centre of it. The Acadian locals call these winds, suêtes.
“We bought a large, 2-story house, with 130 years behind it,” Adonia said. “The entire house shakes, rattles, and rolls when a suête comes along! Several times now, I thought the roof was going to fly off but, we’ve only had our power stack come down once! Our picnic table blew from the back yard to our neighbour’s front yard one time. We didn’t even realize it until the next morning. Truth be told, I have always loved the wind! Sounds corny but, I feel like it was fate that we moved here. And obviously, we thought it fitting that the cafe be called Café Les Suêtes!”
The locals are excited about it!
Christina Murphy, who lives down the road, cannot wait for a café so open so close to home. “I often think of how much potential there is between the villages of St Joseph Du Moine, Grand Etang and further towards Terre Noire to the Belle Cote area. There is no reason to NOT have a cafe in the area. The population continues to grow with people from everywhere, and many, I am sure would love to have a place to go to relax without having to drive to Cheticamp or NE Margaree, I wish them the greatest success,” she said.
A resident of Grand Etang, Leandre LeBlanc said, “I think it’s a great idea; I am anxious to go for a walk and a coffee.”
Local business owners support the new establishment. Geoff Gillstrom, who owns the Cedar Peak Airbnb in Grand Etang said,” It’s exciting to see people trying new things and servicing our small community with fresh ideas. I’m most elated knowing that I can now grab a quick bite on my daily walk instead of having to drive to Cheticamp. I really hope they succeed!”
Waves End RV Campground is pleased that more businesses are opening in the area. “This is a sign that the local tourism ecosystem is recovering and thriving,” said owner Scott MacPherson.
Café Les Suêtes will be opening soon with a rotating menu including sandwiches, salads, soups, baked treats and espresso drinks.
Best of luck to these come from aways and their new café!
Born in Montreal and raised in Cape Breton, Cindy grew up by the sea. She spent her childhood jumping from rock to rock along the rugged beach with her black lab and her friends, binoculars in hand on the family-owned whale watching boat, and reading lots and lots of books. The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Anne of Green Gables, Littlest House on the Prairie, Pippi Longstocking and anything by Madeleine L’Engle.
She moved around a bit and had many different occupations. Tour guide on the whale watching boat, T-shirt seller in Banff, bookstore clerk in Yellowknife, tree-planter in BC, oyster picker on Denman Island, English teacher in South Korea.
For most of her adult life, she had to carry identification, to prove her name really was Cindy Crawford. As a result, she published three children’s books under the name CJ Crawford. Luckily for her, she got married in 2020. Bah-bye supermodel moniker!
On November 1,2021, she had a stroke. Before 11am, she could walk and talk. After 11am, she could not. The ICU doctor told her family she might never go home. Two weeks later, she walked out of the hospital. Her speech and arm are still in recovery. She went back to work almost a year later. They would not adjust her duties to accommodate her speech issues, so after seven months she found herself, disconsolately, back on disability.
I was born in Montreal at St Mary’s Hospital. Dr. Quinn told my father that I was a perky pipsqueak. Perhaps I was too little and lively to be raised in the big city. At 4 months old, I moved to Cape Breton. As the result of my parent’s decision, I was able to spend my childhood roaming the fields with my dog, playing games in my neighbours’ yards and roaming the seashore with my friends.
My father had ties to Cape Breton. His mother, Lucy à William, à John, à Eli, à Basile, à P’tit Basile Chiasson, was born and raised in St Joseph du Moine. She married Lloyd Crawford and raised her children in Moncton, N.B. My father loved to visit his grandparents in Lemoine.
My parents moved from New Brunswick to Quebec in 1965 as they were crying for teachers and paying them very well. Five years later, the October Crisis forced them to re-evaluate. The FLQ (Front de libération du Québec) kidnapped James Cross, a British diplomat and the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. They killed Laporte. The War Measures Act was imposed. We had an English name.
My father was a school principal and my mother had a good job; they were well established. Nevertheless, in October 1971, they loaded three kids and a dog into their vehicle and drove to Grand-Etang, Cape Breton. No house, no jobs…they were starting from scratch.
Back then, my father’s teaching certificate was no good in Nova Scotia. He got a job selling insurance, door to door. He hitchhiked to Truro during the summer months to take teaching courses. Eventually, he got a job teaching in Inverness, and then at NDA school in Cheticamp, closer to home.
In the summers, my father ran a whale-watching business, the first one in Nova Scotia. He got a lot of flack from the local fishermen for the way he awkwardly docked his boat the first few times, and for telling tourists those ”poissons bleus” were whales. Over time, people realized they were pilot whales, and now whale-watching tours operate in many ports.
He talked to countless visitors over the years, and most times he would say, ”I chose to live here.”
When I was 18, I left Cape Breton. I went to university. I lived in a multitude of places: Banff, Yellowknife, the Gulf Islands, Halifax, South Korea, Ottawa, Quebec.
In 2011, I moved back to Cape Breton. I chose to live here.
Life: Before and After Stroke. 