Hnefetafl and peek-a-boo bears in Wentworth Valley

Photos under the title - click on it to see them.

So I decided a few days quiet contemplation in the wooded Wentworth Valley would chase away the dragons.

The first challenge was getting there. One of the myths the rest of the world has about Canada is that it is in some way better than everywhere else. Consequently, everyone reasons, it has better public services.

NOT TRUE

Well, not in Nova Scotia anyway. Apparently Alberta is better, because Alberta has oil. The fact that Nova Scotia also has oil is, apparently, irrelevant.

Fact 1: Nova Scotian roads are worse than Indian roads.
Fact 2: Nova Scotian public transport routes are a load of steaming you know what.

So I get on the bus with my free newspaper, that I get when I travel on Acadian Bus. Which is fantastic, except I’d prefer they ploughed the newpaper money into sending the buses where I want to go. This time I get dropped off at a liquor store, six kilometres from the hostel. Normally, that isn’t a problem, but I have four days worth of food, as well as my laptop and my rucksack with me. I cross the road and stick my thumb out.

A Mercedes Benz screeches to a halt within a minute of me doing so. I get in. The Asian guy driving it is fascinated with my lack of a motor and insists on driving me right to the door of the hostel. Up a dirt road. Bless him.

Welcome to the Hostel California

Paul comes out to greet me. Paul is the manager of the Wentworth Hostel. I am the guest. The only guest. Apart from two guys camped out back. As he checks me in Paul tells me that he has learned how to play Korean chess. Nice. Apparently, it’s not as difficult as Japanese chess, which he also recently learned. I see two makeshift chess sets on the table in the lounge. I wonder whether I am supposed to offer to play him, but there’s no point as I can’t even play normal chess, so I say ‘don’t worry, I won’t make you learn how to play Irish chess’. That goes down like a lead banana.

I settle in, and Paul takes me for a walk up to the Look Off.

A Look Off is any spot in Nova Scotia high enough to enable you to survey the surrounding landscape. As Nova Scotia is mostly flat, there aren’t many Look Offs, so I ooh and aah with what I hope is an appropriate level of enthusiasm for a view that isn’t half as spectacular as what you get in the Slieve Blooms.

As we walk home, the talk turns to bears, as it so often does in Canada. Paul tells me a story about a woman who got eaten by a grizzly when out jogging with two friends somewhere in Alberta. The other two got away. She made the fatal error of climbing a tree. I ask whether there are bears here. Paul reassures me that they’re not a problem, unless for example, I was walking quietly and rounded a corner and surprised one. Particularly a female with a cub.

Back down to the hostel and onto the porch to read my book in the sunshine. I am reading about the Acadians, who were deported from Nova Scotia because they refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. I think I’ve mentioned them before. Their annual memorial took place in Grand Pre a few days ago and I missed it because they didn’t tell me about it. George thinks they deserved it anyway. That’s because he’s English.

One of the two campers emerges from his tent, where he has consumed something that caused his eyes to glaze over completely. His name is David Tobin and he’s from Labrador. I ask him what Labrador means. Something Indian he says. I wonder. La Bras d’Or, I always thought. The other Labradorian is called Sean Sheppard. They could be from Kinnitty.

Pasta and Politics

Dinner-time and I rattle round the kitchen by myself cooking dinner. Paul has disappeared into his private quarters. He is writing a PhD in Computer Science so I assume that’s what he’s up to. I find a collection of back issues of MacLeans magazines. They’re the Canadian Magill. I read all the political articles, to try to familiarise myself with federal politics. I am struck by the amount of bile emanating from the journalists. Mostly directed at those lazy politicians who use bile to score points off each other. I wonder am I spotting the irony because I am a newcomer. Probably not.

I notice an article about a festival of documentaries. One of them is about a Canadian guy who stalked and filmed grizzly bears so avidly he got himself and his girlfriend eaten by one in Alaska. Someone else pulled his footage together to create the documentary, which also contains an interview with the coroner who took four plastic sacks of human remains from the dead grizzly’s stomach.

The Labradorians light a fire in the firepit, so I go outside to join them. They’re nice. Really laid back. We don’t talk much, just stare at the fire. I try to slow down my speech to match theirs. It’s difficult for me. We play a few games of the international backpackers card game – Shithead. We have a beer, which is very bold because HI Hostels are alcohol free. But we’re outside, so we get by on a technicality. We talk about hockey. Sidney Crosbie the Nova Scotian wunderkid got picked first in the NHL draft on Friday, so all of Halifax is abuzz with excitement.

Yeah, whatever, I hear you say. Aaaah, you’ll be hearing a lot more about hockey soon, boys and girls.

Queenie and the bears

Next morning, the sun wakes me at 5.45 because there are no curtains in the Wentworth Hostel. I drowse until nine, then get up and make breakfast. Still no sign of Paul. I lie on the couch in the lounge and finish my book on the Acadians. I am preparing to write an article on them to pitch to a newspaper. The morning passes along tickety boo.

The Labradorians come in to say goodbye.

Paul emerges from his quarters intermittently and logs onto the internet and types furiously for a few minutes. Then disappears again. Either he’s at a critical point in his PhD, or he’s gaming. I know which one my money’s on.

After lunch I go for a hike, even though it’s starting to rain. I get about twenty yards into the beautiful, deciduous forest and stop dead. What if I disturb a bear? I start having a mild panic attack. I cannot move my legs. I cannot propel myself forward. I turn and scuttle out into the meadow where Paul showed me the blueberry bushes. Then I remember that bears eat blueberries! I scuttle back into the forest. I stand there, petrified. I want someone to come get me and take me back to the hostel where the bears can’t eat me. But nobody’s going to come get me, are they! I have to get back there by my ownself.

Eventually, the rational part of my brain overcomes the irrational part enough to let me pull myself together a bit. I make myself walk along the track, but I have completely terrified myself and I see bears everywhere. Mostly they turn out to be logs (see photo). I hear a branch snap and I am halfway up a tree before I realise that’s the wrong thing to do. At this point, I lose it completely.

A few minutes of petrified quivering later and I am so annoyed with myself. I decide to make myself go for a hike, despite the danger. I will make a lot of noise, thereby warning the bears of my approach, so that they will run away. I walk along the track singing The Teddy Bears' Picnic.

If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise
If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise
For every bear that ever there was, yes sometin’, sometin’ sometin’
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic!

The rain has gotten really heavy, but I cannot put up my hood because it will muffle the sound of bears approaching and reduce my peripheral vision. I am increasingly convinced that there is something behind me. I keep turning around suddenly, but whatever it is keeps ducking behind a tree so I can’t see it.

Gradually, over the course of about thirty minutes, my fears subside enough for me to enjoy my hike a little bit. I eventually forget about bears.

Paul the amazing conversationalist

I get home and change out of my wet clothes. I decide to begin the article on the Acadians, so I start reading the guest book in order to empty my brain so I can write. All the entries follow similar lines:

Thank you Paul for a wonderful time. For sharing your life experiences with me. For the fantastic company and conversation. I’ll definitely be back.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I wonder what the problem is with me. Every time I try to start a conversation with him, he looks like he’s seen a bear and runs away.

Never mind.

I spend a couple of hours writing the article on the Acadians. Then I cook dinner. The woman from next door comes in and barks at Paul. She wants him to walk her dog while she’s away. It turns out she’s the President of Hostelling Nova Scotia, so I suppose he has to. As soon as she’s gone he disappears.

Then some Germans appear to retrieve a map they lent him. As soon as they’re gone he disappears again.

I give up at eleven and go to bed. One of my roommates in the Halifax hostel gave me the new Harry Potter book so tomorrow is sorted.

Paul the amazing conversationalists, part two

Strike that second last sentence. I was just going to bed when Paul appeared and engaged me in reasonably intellectual conversation for three hours. The subjects were:

- whether or not third level institutions should charge fees
- whether or not we are over-educating our young people
- the approaching environmental disaster and how we can persuade people that they must do something
- ancient board games, on which subject our Paul is a bit of an expert. He has a Viking board game called Hnefetafl which he is going to teach me how to play
- the recent terrorist attacks in London (where Paul lives when he’s not running the hostel)
- public transport in Canada
- whether or not Europe is a better place to live than Canada

I had to read Harry Potter for an hour before I could go to sleep.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is...

… very long. And is reasonably good. It has too much of an eye to the screenplay, but I suppose the poor girl is trying to get as much of it done as she can. The Quidditch matches are crap. The enormous spoiler at the beginning of the book doesn’t work. Not doing it would have added to the shock horror bit at the end. And she doesn’t quite get the lustful Harry, although I think she makes a good stab at it.

Afterwards I went for a very long hike. I took some photos – they’re under the title as usual – and I was less worried about bears. But there were still a couple of tree stumps that made me jump out of my skin. As I walked I realised that the bear thing is a metaphor for the work thing. So maybe that’s why it happened. I don’t usually freak out like that.

Hnefetafl, on the other hand is...

… excellent and I will find some way to get you all to start playing so we can have a league when I get home.

Basically, it’s on a board that’s 13 x 13. There are two players. One has 20 pieces, arranged in groups of five on each edge of the board. The other has twelve pieces and the king. The king is in the centre square, the twelve pieces are clustered round him in a diamond.

The king has to get to an edge square to win. The other player has to stop him by surrounding him on four sides (to make a cruciform shape). Moves can only be made vertically and horizontally (like the rook in chess). The king cannot move more than three squares at a time. You capture an opposing piece by surrounding him on two sides.

It’s very difficult. You have to think in four dimensions. Well, four directions in two dimensions. I think. I always do very badly in spatial stuff in those brainiac quizzes. Then, once you get one side's moves a little bit sorted out in your head, you have to switch to the other side and it’s completely different. I prefer it to chess though - I like the fact that there are two different games within one. I think I am hooked already. I have to find someone to play with me. Poor Yoichi……….

Home sweet home at last

I left the hostel today and hiked back down to the liquor store. I had to ring the bus company the day before to get them to come this way to pick me up. They forgot. When I rang, they were really apologetic. They had to send an empty bus back from Truro to get me. It was great fun.

Now I’m in my new house. I’ve unpacked all my stuff for the first time in a couple of months. Ganesh is on the wall. The dragonfly chimes are in the window, so are the candles. The dragon and the cat are on the bedside table. (Thanks to everyone for the gifts)

So I suppose this is the end of the beginning, isn't it.