CELTICLADY'S REVIEWS: Walks by Big Alex's Pond by Henry Van Berkel Book Tour and Giveaway!

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Walks by Big Alex's Pond

by Henry Van Berkel

GENRE: Autobiography (Nature)

BLURB:

Ten years after Big Alex MacDonald leaves his home in Ashdale, Nova Scotia, in the 1880's to find his fortune, he amasses fabulous wealth almost overnight in the Yukon and becomes known as "the King of the Klondike". At his death a decade later, there is not enough money in his estate to cover expenses. What happened to his immense riches? A century after Alex's departure from Nova Scotia, the author purchases "Big Alex's" family land and finds his own El Dorado amongst the riches of friends, neighbours and family, and the endless fascinations of nature. On hikes along the roads of the historic property he muses about the drama of his own past, and the life journeys of his family members and those of his neighbours.

EXCERPT

I helped my son, David, build his cabin in the late eighties when he was still a teenager. David picked the location, and we constructed it: twelve feet by sixteen feet, out of rough spruce lumber purchased from Teasdale’s mill in North Grant, with two-by-six floor joists, two-by-four studding and rafters, and one- inch boards of assorted widths to cover it in. Inside, we built a half ceiling seven feet from the floor to make a loft. We found some used windows and an old door, put in two windows facing the pond, one window on the opposite wall, a window with hinges to allow it to swing open at the end of the loft, and a doorway facing the road. On the inside, we insulated all the walls and roof and then boarded the entire interior with rough boards.

My niece, Janine (Thomson) Wilson, in Skye Glen, Cape Breton, had an old-fashioned kitchen range for sale. David and I went down with my truck to pick it up. On the way, I got a speeding ticket in Whycocomagh. Back by the pond we cut a sixteen-inch square hole in the wall three feet from a corner, built a box around it, fashioned an eight-inch chimney pipe to hang in the middle of the hole, and then filled the hole with concrete. We set the stove on a steel sheet and secured steel sheets on the walls behind the stove. There was plenty of old furniture around our house to provide the simple needs of the cabin.

Everything for rustic living was now in place. Well, not everything. We needed a toilet. Back to the mill for more rough lumber. We cleared a spot in the woods about 50 feet away, dug a hole and constructed an old-fashioned outhouse. Just a one-seater.

I never stayed in the cabin overnight, but David did, frequently alone. He loved the solitude. To tell the truth, I was a bit afraid of staying in such an isolated place in the woods by myself at night. We were still living on Ponderosa Drive, in a subdivision on the outskirts of town, and the cabin on Big Alex’s pond was fourteen kilometres away, a half kilometre into the woods and a half kilometre from the nearest house, the old farmhouse.

One storming winter night, Elaine was still tossing and turning in bed at twelve o’clock, an hour after we had retired. David had gone out to the cabin a couple of days before. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Worried about David?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s such a miserable, stormy night, and he’s out there all by himself.”

I knew what I would have to do, though I didn’t feel much like it.

“Okay,” I said, doing my best to hide my reluctance. “I’ll go out to get him.”

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