“Our Portaupique”
Written April 2, 2022 by Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking
In memory of those who were killed on April 18 & 19, 2020
And for those of us still traumatized.
“May we all learn to see the beauty again.”
Every day,
Twice a day,
The moon pulls the salt water
From the Minas Basin,
Up the Portaupique River
Until it spills over the salt marsh.
To the rhythm of the tides and seasons,
Eagles, geese, gulls
Soar overhead
Looking for rabbits, foxes, fish.
Moose, bear, and wild cat
Hunt, forage,
Raise families, die.
Deer browse new growth.
Foxes make dens in hillsides.
Woodpeckers hammer holes
In dead wood.
While beavers cut trees
To build dams and lodges.
For years,
The Mi’kmaq people
Paddled these shores
Camping and exploring
The Portaupique River inlet,
And up Into the valley
At the base of the
Still-shrinking Cobequid Hills.
Living a nomadic life,
They foraged all sorts of wild foods,
Jerusalem Artichokes,
Marsh Greens,
Fish and game.
Early in the 17th Century
The first Acadian family,
The Bourques
Arrived in Portaupique
From France.
They built rough houses,
And dikes and aboiteaus
To farm the salt marsh.
Their families were large.
Other communities
Were settled
up and down
The shore.
In the mid 18th century
The British claimed this land.
They expelled the Acadians,
Letting the earthen dikes and
Aboiteaus erode.
They farmed the post-glacial stoney land
Above the high water mark.
They harvested the woodland,
Fished the bay,
And cut salt hay from the marsh,
Like the tides,
Both people and nature,
Ebb and flow.
The tiny fragrant spring beauty
Is a foil to horrendous acts and death.
Aging, poverty, religion and politics
Bring neighbours together
Or drive them apart.
Nature is not kind
But neither is it punitive.
Only people have the choice
To live in harmony,
Or not.
Every day,
Twice a day,
The moon pulls the salt water
From the Minas Basin
Up the Portaupique River
Until it spills over the salt marsh.