Robert Paterson's Weblog

Finding Home - Back to the Land

Starting in June, I will be having two interviews a month on CBC Mainstreet. I have decided to focus on hearing the stories of the many Back to the Landers who came to PEI in the 1960's and the 1970's.

35 years ago many of us were hippies of some sort or another. Some of us acted upon these beliefs and, however naif, made a major commitment to having a life. I like most of us choose making a living instead. I have always admired them for being more adventurous than I. They have great stories to tell that have something important to tell us again as we enter a time when knowing how to live simply may become less of a choice and more of a necessity.

They came to the Island just as Islanders were struggling to leave their agrarian past. The newcomers ironically represented a more strict attachment o the values of self sufficiency and community than the natives. They fitted into the beliefs of the then older generation. Many were taught the skills of rural life by old men and women whose own children had no desire to remember no heat, an outside privy and lobster sandwiches.

For a golden age, they built their own houses, killed their pigs and chickens, swam naked, made butter and cheese. Most now live quite conventional lives but what stories! What confidence that they could do anything! What friendships and what a contribution to "Our Country"!

I am starting in Eastern Kings - the hot bed of hippiedom. My guides will be Darla Thompson and John Rousseau. I will post more soon as the line up develops. In the interim. Do you have a story of this time? Do you have pictures that you dare to share?

Development in Atlantic Canada - Culture versus Jobs

For maybe 50 years the focus on "development" in Atlantic Canada has been about creating jobs for those with few skills or in rebuilding old buildings.

Is it working?

I would like to build on the idea that the issue has never been jobs or buildings but culture.

Culture? Adventurous people create sustainable jobs not government. Buildings don't create sustainable jobs. Creative people create sustainable jobs. PEI works hard to marginalize those that are creative. This is I believe the heart of our problem.

Is your child creative? if so are they comfortable here. Are you creative? How do you feel?

Unless we can create an environment where creative people want to stay or come too, we will not make any progress. I will talk more about this but in the interim here are some slides that I have been playing with. It is 4mg in pdf

The New Prometheus

The New Prometheus

In the original myth of Prometheus, the hero ascends mount Olympus, where he fools the gods and steals fire from them. Returning to the surface world, this fire is given to humanity and used to build civilization. But Zeus is angry with Prometheus and condemns him to be tortured for eternity.

Recent information made available thru the Freedom of Information Act indicates some important details of the myth have been left out. It turns out the gods knew Prometheus was coming and was planning to rob them. So the gods hid all of the good fires and left only the worst one behind for Prometheus to steal [Prometheus wrongly assumed there was only one kind of fire]. Thus Prometheus returned to earth with the wrong fire and with the wrong intent and correspondingly built the wrong society.

There is now a place for a new kind of Prometheus. One who works with the gods instead of stealing from them and uses the best fires, which the gods hid from Prometheus in the places we have only now started to look for them - in the wind, in the sea and in the sun.

It is time we started working with nature - instead of stealing from it, harnessing the power of renewable resources in wind, solar and sea-based technology. And with these we can build a new civilization.

Development in Atlantic Canada - Shrines or Culture

Is the main thrust of development in Atlantic Canada the building of a Potemkin Village that seeks to "Disneyise" the past. What we mainly seee is a process of either tarting up old buildings or supporting deadend seasonal jobs. If we are honest we can admit that this focus has not helped. So if this is not the answer what is?

I think the answer is to look at our culture and work on that.

I found this well considered review of this idea in Dooney's Cafe by S G Irving.

Here is how he begins:

The seemingly unending dilemma of Atlantic Canada’s economic disparity has been a recurring theme in the Canadian experience, most recently revived during last winter’s debates over offshore oil revenue allocation between Ottawa and the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. Over the past century, the region has consistently sustained a reputation in the rest of Canada as either a collection of constant complainers or as the “colourful peasantry” of Canada. Beginning shortly after Confederation and continuing today, the region’s four provinces have been plagued with high regional out-migration levels and an inability to attract new immigrants.

This is normally thought to be the result of a lack of economic and employment opportunities in the region.I don’t buy this. As a native Prince Edward Islander, who has lived in various parts of the country, I have consistently been surprised by the opportunities available to people in Atlantic Canada, opportunities which in my opinion are just as good as anything I have seen in other parts of the country. Thus, it is my position that the cause of continued regional out-migration has more to do with cultural issues and is not simply the result of limited economic opportunities.

Worth a look.

Finding Home CBC - UFIT - Gord and Eireann

It's Finding Home time on CBC Mainstreet next week.

If you tune in this Monday 30th May after 5.30 you can here Eireann Rigby and Gord McNeilly talk about how two athletes came to PEI and found not only a home but an unusual way of offering fitness classes - making community the priority.

UFIT is becoming a huge hit. The secret? That if we want to change our lives, then we need the support of a community and we must not feel judged. This is the essence of UFIT and it is the essence of Eireann and Gord as people.

It is also a story of how in a place like PEI, creating your own work is often the best way to have both a living and a life.

My son's birthday and the meaning of life

It is my son James' 25th birthday this weekend and I have been pondering what to say in his card. Lots of drama has occurred for him in the last few weeks and he and I have been talking a lot about what it all means.

The paradox is that I speak to him not from a position of wisdom and of strength but from a position of weakness.

My advice to him is that in the end no experience can hurt you because that is what life is. My advice has been that when you are true to yourself then others can gauge how they wish to be with you rather than you trying to please them. At a father level I know these to be truths.

As a person, I am humbled because I find myself afraid to take my own advice. Time to step up to life myself.

My Home - the power of place

I will soon be 55. All my life I have been a wanderer. I can hardly recall how many times that I have moved - at least 20 times. I have lived on many continents and in many cultures.

For the first time I am experiencing the power of place. It is not simply beauty, I lived for many years in the Cotswolds in England, it is that every inch of where I live, I have invested work. I "Know" every inch of where I live now.

The richness of the landscape where trees, fields, a river, the buildings and the sky converge have given me a glimpse of the deep rooting in place that all men and women had once.

For a lifetime I did not notice the power of place. How could I have been so blind? Maybe I was too busy to notice? Here is where I live. Here is where roots grow from my feet into the soil.

What about you? Does your place inform you and give you strength?

Here is my home from space (Thanks Google)

Here is my home looking down the drive.

Here is the main house.

Here is the barn from the vantage of the tree house.

The Joys of Spring!

What a spring we have been having. The heating has been on full blast. The poor Queen has been drenched out west. There have been floods in Nova Scotia and In Montreal, the girls are still wearing overcoats!

But the days are still lengthening, the grass is growing and my mowing meditation has begun. Robin is hardening off the tomatoes and we have have the feeders up for the Humming Birds. We have taken our sweaters to the basement and, full of hope, have found my summer pants. We have even got the lawn furniture out of the barn. The fields have all been tilled. The brush has been gathered. The winter's rubbish in the ditches has been cleaned up. The buds are out. The first herons have arrived.

We wait - poised - eager as a lover to bask in the heat of her partner's body, for the sun to break through and transform our world.

Canadian Politics - A Reality Check

What I have learned over the last week is that;

• Stephen Harper is even more of a ambitious bigot than I had thought before. It's all about his party and not the country
• Peter Mackay is a fine person. When he said that he wished BS well, you could tell by his voice that he meant it. When he talked about missing the children, you could tell that he meant it and such a comment was revealing in a deeper way about what he feels is important. Ironically BS's leaving him may be the making of him. He is the person who gave up the leadership of his party to make a new party work. My bet is that I am not the only person to notice his qualities this week

Property Tax on PEI - The Pips are Squeaking

As we hear of Canada's largest firework display this summer and how the City is being sucked dry by the pool complex at CARI, my thoughts turn to taxes and whether what we pay already is more than we can bear.

We got our assessment this week. Up another 9%. Our assessment is up about 100% in the last 5 years. We live in the country and receive no services other than the road plow. When I say no services I mean none - no water, sewage. Nor do we have kids. Our monthly cost is about $300.

I have been asking around and a bungalow just in Stratford is paying about the same. Their taxes exceed their mortgage payments! In town, a friend with a large suburban house is paying well over $450 and another with a more modest town house around $400. When your taxes are the same or exceed your mortgage costs, there is a problem.

Imagine this trend pushing out a few more years and an attempt to tax and say 25% above the mortgage payment? Time to look at what the city and the province are doing and time to begin to get together and say ENOUGH!