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Îles de la Madeleine:
Beautiful islands in a windswept sea Story & Photos by Tony Tedeschi
We are bird-watching during the first day of the hunting season, the last weekend in September; the ducks we have our binocs trained on are at the top of the hit list. My guide, Pascal Poirier, is pointing out some pintails, and scaups, off in the distance, then he gestures toward an SUV parked just off the road we are taking on a long ribbon of sand bar. We can just make out where the hunter is posted, the ducks well out of range of any shotgun blast.
The scene is somehow symbolic of this tiny cluster called Îles de la Madeleine (Magdalene Islands), sitting in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the Canadian Maritimes. It is a place where the locals are acutely aware of the fragile environment and the wide range of birds, terrestrial animals and sealife that have been attracted here. But it is also a place where fishing has been the lifeblood of the local economy, seal-hunting was a major contributor to the economy before world markets evaporated in images of baby seals being bludgeoned to death, and where some other element of revenue generation needed to pick up the slack. That element may very well be ecologically based tourism. While the fragility of the environment is apparent in the long stretches of delicate dunes that would never be able to take any level of intense vehicular traffic, the population here is small, 13,500, and begs a manageable, sustainable level of tourism development. Visually, the islands can only be described as stunning: long sinuous sandbars threading together the clumps of islands, red sandstone cliffs continuously redesigned by the relentless sea motion, copses of evergreens here and there, small communities of clapboard dwellings and those weathered sheds and other outbuildings that almost demand to be photographed, fishing boats bobbing at anchor in sheltered marinas or in dry dock alongside the houses.
In many ways, the islands and the lacy sandbars that join them are an easily understood lesson in ecology. On the sandbars, for example, where the dune grasses have taken hold the bar is well established, with a single stretch of roadway and, in many spots, water almost up to the road on both sides. Where there are no dune grasses, shifting sands reconstruct the landscape, sometimes even filling in small ponds, critical to both flora and fauna. On the wind-driven cliffsides, evergreens that grow horizontally, literally, form just enough windbreak to protect a second layer of plantlife that is a bit taller and so on until you have a legitimate stand of trees several rows back.
As a way station along the Atlantic flyway, the islands are replete with birdlife. In a marshland on the opposite side of the road from where the hunters were posting for ducks, for example, there were greater yellowlegs and great blue herons pecking about, while a northern harrier and a kestrel circled alternately. Because the maritime climate here allows autumn to linger a bit longer, the birdwatching hangs in a bit as well. My guide, Pascal, is a member of an environmental organization called Attention Fragîles (attention.fragiles@sympatico.ca) that looks after endangered species, particularly the piping plover. Each year during nesting season, he walks miles of beach in search of their nests, so well hidden among the shells and other flotsam along the sand that you must be extremely careful not to step on them. "I watch for adult activity," he explains, "then use that to try to find the nest." He then marks the nest with a stake. Pascal and his colleagues also build boardwalks through dunes and wooded areas, to try to direct foot traffic to where it will do the least harm; create unimproved roadways for all-terrain vehicles to keep them within prescribed areas; and plant dune grasses and trees to help replenish those that have been destroyed. A walk with Pascal along a stretch of beautiful, white-sand beach at Sandy Hook on the southernmost island of Îles du Havre-Aubert is pure fascination. He points out sanderlings, with their beautifully mottled black-and-white backs and wings, running in and out of the waves; red knots dipping into the wet sand for sea worms and small insects, a fly-over of immature great cormorants with their white bellies, not yet gone black. He stoops down and fingers a small patch of sea rockets, a plant with two distinctive seed pods, one with double prongs to anchor it to the spot thereby enhancing the breadth of the host plant, the other without the prongs to allow it to be blown away and start a new colony. He explains that this simple act can redesign the topography, the new plant allowing sand to accumulate around it, then a dune beginning to grow, which will attract dune grass and so on. He finds a small patch of sea parsley. When I comment on the name he offers me a leaf to taste. Truly, just like parsley.
Throughout our travels among the islands, we see locals out in the marshes, picking cranberries, raspberries and blueberries; some using their hands, others special collection boxes. Scattered throughout the pristine landscape are tiny clusters of buildings, some even gathered into small villages, usually around a harbor. In the "suburbs," clapboard houses usually have firewood stacked in the yard in pyramidal piles to allow the saltwater to evaporate/drain from them. Some houses include silos filled with hay for some domestic livestock. It is difficult to travel more than a few hundred yards between houses without a boat alongside or out back, each invariably named for the fisherman's children. The houses are bright colors – reds, purples, oranges, yellows, blues – you'd never see in more sedate neighborhoods, in and around the continent's cities, but these brilliantly painted dwellings guide the fisherman home, allow them to spot their specific home from afar.
Ever smaller, uninhabited islands dot the seascape, most with some serious representation of birdlife. Pig Island, for example, hosts nesting terns, mostly common and arctic species, but one nest of roseate terns. Attention Fragîles has installed an electric fence to keep the foxes away. Red Island is covered with seabirds, mostly cormorants and gulls, silhouetted beautifully against the orange-and-salmon sky in early evening, while herons work the waterline for food. The drama of nature and the uncomfortable realities of the food chain play out here. While humans are mortal dangers to the piping plovers and foxes to the roseate terns, coyotes which have journeyed across the icepack in winter from nearby mainland points are a danger to many species. The seal population has grown geometrically since the demise of the seal hunt, in part because the seals' natural predator, the polar bear, has been driven away by human encroachment. An increase in the number of seals has helped to keep down the population of cod, which had been an economic staple here for generations. Most of the decimation at the cod fishing banks, however, has been done by huge factory ships. More than 10 years into a moratorium, the cod population has not made a substantial comeback. Lobster and crab fishing are now the most common nowadays, fishermen engaged in the former having to make their nut within a short, two-month season. The latter is very dangerous work, deep fishing with huge traps running line down hundreds of feet into icy cold water. "You catch a leg in the line and go over the side," Pascal says, "you won't last long."
These islands, small and eel-shaped as they are, nonetheless are home to one of the world's largest salt mines, the salt having been pushed near to the surface by tectonic plate action. This geologic upheaval was, ultimately, what created the tiny island chain. A small, but fascinating museum, details the story.
Lacy strands of foam bubbles dance about the shoreline as we head back to my hotel, making the shore look like the floor around an overflowing washing machine. Ever-present birdlife flits about: semipalmated plovers, ruddy turnstones, black guillemots, common eiders. By evening, the wind is whipping, the newscasts are talking about the hurricane, Juan, heading for first landfall in Nova Scotia, south and southeast of us. Having lived through similar storms in the Caribbean, I go into hurricane evacuation mode: sleep in my clothes, suitcases packed and secured in the bathroom. The wind howls and I am startled awake a couple of times by items slamming against the side of the hotel, but it is my alarm that awakens me, finally, at 7:15. I sneak a peak around the edge of the window curtain. The wind is still blowing pretty hard, but wind is the default position here and a sliver of sunshine is already apparent in the morning sky. The near-nonexistent effects of the heavy winds seem like some kind of index for life here, a seemingly fragile environment that somehow manages to weather the storm.
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