Page 3 - Stories from the Clyburn Valley

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

?? 1 H 1 1 1 1 m $ ''' H'''pil: ''''Ri-".'' 'Ijaif,;';"-"?-. C- ''".A j' '' ' ' * '' "'s"** 7.''- '??-i*''- Jf ..,'' _.''. ' ',' • • I ?? :-.flS "-.v:*?- ' ?? '. 'V'C''t -7 ther imported all those trees. Lots of apples. Emma: There used to be a lot of rhubarb, strawberries, and all kinds of stuff there. Maurice: My moth? er killed a bear up there over in that place. It was blueberry time and they were picking blueberries for preserving. And they had a big porch on their house, and they'd put the kitchen stove out there in the spring so it wouldn't be too hot in the house. That's where they were stewing the blue? berries down--out on this porch--and they left the window out that night. They always kept an axe in the house, took it in at night, case they needed it. They heard a racket through the night, and my mother and Aunt Liz came down. Aunt Liz had the lamp and my mother had the double-bit axe, and when they opened the door, the bear came in with a kitten in his mouth. He had picked the kitten up where it was sleeping on the porch, and he was going toward the window. Above: Bglpw; view up the Clyburn Vallgy. from thQ 7th t'Qt ,.e Head, And my mother swung the axe and cut the backbone off him and killed him. The bears are more plentiful now. Emma; I used to see the odd one when I would be way up the field milking the cows. Maurice: I was coming across the mountain through a short cut one evening and I stopped to pick a piece of gum in the spruce grove. And I went in to get the gum

Cape Breton's Magazine