A Thousand Choices

I have been thinking a lot about choice, and about how choice impacts everything in a life. As more and more people discover Birchdale, more and more people become interested in how we came to be here, and how Birchdale came to be what it is today. Several of you reading this have your own part in that story. You know something because you have been connected to this place through family, through stories, through your own labour and contributions, or through the memory of an amazing day well spent here.

Lately, as some of our goals come more clearly into view, it becomes both easier and harder to remember how we first encountered the enormity and mystery of this extraordinary place.

When we first visited Birchdale, on a moody November day, a lot of beautiful things occurred. Much of that has been chronicled, and if you have not heard Tracey’s hair-raising and beautiful story about a dream, it is truly worth hearing.

But there is also the story of the nausea that arose during our first trip from Shelburne to Kemptville along Highway 203. And the moment my brother slipped through a board while exiting one of the cabins. None of us can agree on which one it was, although I remain convinced it was the Guides’ cabin, which has now become the Kids’ cabin. I remember the realtor handing us fluorescent vests when we got out of our cars and saying, “There is no hunting on this land, but I will not see you shot on my watch.” And I recall us asking whether there was somewhere nearby where we could grab a coffee. She valiantly tried to explain how to get to the Carleton Store. We made it, and looking back, we can only guess what kind of impression we left. City folks for sure.

Still, we chose Birchdale.

Or perhaps Birchdale chose us.

When we bought it, I immediately entered a spreadsheet matrix from which I have yet to emerge, trying somehow to comprehend the enormity of what we had taken on.

Then COVID hit. We learned that the previous owner would not be spending that first summer showing us the ropes. Because she was American, she was not permitted to cross the border. It is fair to say that sh*t got very real.

Sandra Phinney and Barrie McGregor welcomed us to a scrubbed and ready Hemlock cabin. It was beautiful and welcoming, and we still use the Nova Scotian napkins and tablecloth they left on the table for us. Nicola scrubbed toilets that should not have been used during the winter… and together with Ruth Roberts, she cleaned the Main Lodge top to tail. Jeff Gates and Justin Gray came by several times during those first quarantine weeks. Jennifer Gates arrived with blueberries and candy. Helen, the previous owner, was on the phone whenever we could get enough cell service to reach her, offering advice, much-needed support and inexhaustible enthusiasm. Nicola and John, along with a really young Jaxon and an even younger Easton, dropped in regularly, bringing support, advice and great vibes.

And then there was Jim Muise. Jim had worked a great deal with Helen during her final year or two at Birchdale, and I think she made him promise he would make sure we did not die during our first summer. He taught me how to hook up the plumbing. He told us to sweep the roofs. Looking back, he probably wondered how the heck any of this was going to work out. We called him Yoda, and we felt blessed to have his gentle, smart support.

That first summer, Sandra arranged a work party. Two of the decks got some love, and we met more people. One of them was Travis. Travis worked with us the following year on the roof of Maple, on its bathroom, and ultimately on a new plumbing run for the Main Lodge and all the cabins stretching toward the garden. There was a rupture in the earth that is close to impossible to imagine now.

The following year, Greg Mood came out. By the end of that summer, among a thousand tiny tendings, we had a brand-new back deck on the lodge! And a gorgeous wedding of Greg’s son Denton and the magical Brittany.

In between, Nick Hilton, Rick Allwright, Candice Marie, Tracey and I worked together to secure the deck off the Sanctuary. These friends and their friends contributed in so many other ways that it is difficult to catch them all. For every name and every touch I remember, there are so many more.

When a tree went through the roof of Maple, on my birthday, Nicola, John, Carrie and Lyndon chose to show up. It was random, but the fact that they came on that day feels like a choice now. By the time we got back from a trip to Annapolis Royal—in part to take a drive to figure out what we should do—they had the tree off the roof, cut and sectioned neatly on the lawn, and had tarped the gaping hole. And some of you likely helped cover some of the cost through an emergency GoFundMe that Sandra Phinney launched. Thank you!

That is the crux of our story that I keep returning to.

It is not simply that we chose Birchdale!  It is that at every stage, other people have chosen it too. They have chosen to come down the road. They have chosen to bring a hammer, a truckload of wood, a plate of food, a piece of advice, a song or a story. They have chosen to remember what was here, to imagine what might be here next, and to help us bridge the distance between the two.

There are all the people who hold their own corner of memory within this place. Tracey’s cousin Brenda and I ripped out the ceiling in Birch. Greg Mood, Tracey and I took turns tackling the ceiling in Cedar. Ginette and Trevor have arrived again and again with wood and all kinds of other help. Steve and Phylicia show up with their truck and Everett, and somehow make magic happen with chickens, wells and fires. Lloyd and Lois, Sam Hoffman, Ruth and Wayne helped Nicola bring Fir Cabin across the finish line just last year!

There are so many more.

Just this month, Ina Comeau and her husband Rob came out and gave Apple Cabin a fresh hold on life!

And now, we are so thrilled by all that has come to pass! Tracey and I cannot begin to chart the galaxies of contributions made since we arrived. The cosmos becomes even larger when we look back across Birchdale’s 115-year history. I hope it becomes larger still, and more mysterious than we small humans can comprehend, when we project it into the future.

I often think about Zita Cobb and what she has accomplished on Fogo Island. The strength of an idea, and of a place, is found in the communities that come together to build it, sustain it, and help it grow, thrive and prosper.

No one builds a place alone.

Perhaps that is especially true of a place such as Birchdale.

The world continues to change. But for 115 years, people have been drawn to Birchdale. A constant craving.

Our hope is that this legacy will continue for at least another two hundred years!

And somewhere within those years, we hope you will visit and stay. That you will retreat and eat. Or that you will head out into the Tobeatic on an adventure your grandchildren will someday hear about.

Perhaps you will leave behind a photograph, a story, a cabin made stronger, or a person made happier.

You probably will.

Birchdale is made and sustained by thousands of different choices, made by people who might have chosen something else but instead chose Birchdale.

I think I have come to realize that we are simply the people who have the privilege, for this little stretch of time, of choosing it now.

As always, thanks for reading.

Sarah

UPCOMING AT BIRCHDALE