Cape Breton's Magazine

• You Can Order Advance Copies Now! • ANNOUNCING: Q I • ' • I • A terrific new collection oterimg OllVer by SHver Oonald Cameron • Available in plenty of time for Christmas FOR A QUARTER OF A CENTURY, Silver Donald Cameron has been writing about everything that catches his eye • from sailing and skiing to fear and suicide, from civil liberties to the perils of home renovations • writing with intelligence and compassion and good humour. Ster? ling Silver brings together the best of this writing, includ? ing some previously unpublished discoveries, in one handsome volume. Distilled from hundreds of essays, short stories, profiles, and feature articles. Sterling Silver is full of pleasures and surprises. It's a book for Canadians. It's a book for Cape Bretoners. It's a book for anyone who cares about the fundamentals of community, family and the individual. justice and integrity. It is also a damn good read. Sterling Silver is not so much a collection as a series of visits with a generous, en? tertaining and prova- cative companion. Here is a little taste of Sterling Silver • a chapter called "Fear of Fearing." Fear of Fearing by Silver Donald Cameron Silver Donald Cameron TERROR IN BRIGHT SUNLIGHT: it's all wrong. Fear be? longs to the night, to the fog, to the stormy winters, not to the brilliant afternoons of August. Let me tell you what frightened me, and what I think I discovered about it. I was sailing my schooner alone on that part of the Bras d'Or Lake system known as "the big lake," 45 miles long and 15 miles across from St. Peters Inlet to Barra Strait, the entrance to the smaller bays and channels around Baddeck, Nova Scotia. If you've seen the back of a dime, you know what a schooner is: Hirondelle looks about like that, but she only carries the three lower sails • the triangular jib forward, then the foresail and fi? nally the big mainsail at the stem. CENTRAL CAPE BRETON CO 'ppr See Cape Breton from the Centre 'JEM'xtsIrm Lakeview accommodation and dining 26 double units with private baths Traditional Cape Breton entertainment (check schedule) Local crafts and watercolours Highland Heights Inn Tel. (902) 725-2360 P.O. Box 19, Id N.S. BOA ILO The forecast called for westerly winds of 10 to 15 miles per hour, just a nice sailing breeze for my little ship, a wind that would whisk her across the lake on one long reach. When I woke that moming in MacNab's Cove, I had barely enough wind to sail out of the harbour, but in summer the wind usually pipes up toward noon and dies at dusk. Just outside the harbour, though, I found it blowing briskly, perhaps 15 knots already and gusting higher. I am a cautious sailor of only moderate ex? perience; I lowered the foresail in case it should blow harder, and smashed onward under jib and main. It was a superlative moming, the kind of clear breezy day when every detail stands out in crystalline sharpness. The schooner ploughed on, throwing rainbows of spray from her bow, her sails bellying out against their lacings. I tacked up to the light? house and set my course for Kelly Shoals buoy, two miles away. I was enjoying myself, to be sure. But beneath the pleasure of a sunny day on the water ran an undercur? rent of anxiety. This breeze is plenty for me, I was thinking, please don't blow much harder. At Kelly Shoals I eased the sheets, letting the sails out to put her on the reach for Barra Strait. A reach is a schooner's fastest point of sailing, with the wind roughly at right angles to her course, and Hirondelle took off like a racehorse. The deck beneath my feet began to dram as the rac? ing water spun the idle Living history museum 10 historic buildings, animated staff Scottish concerts and pioneer activities (check schedule) Giftshop and computerized genealogy Nova Scotia Highland Village N.S. BOA ILO Both facilities located on Route 223, just off T.C. 105 via Exit 6 and Little Narrows ferry