Mirapalooza!

In early August, I went to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, with Colin and his family--all 45+ members of his maternal grandmother's extended family. This was my second family reunion of the summer, since I went to Blalock Lakes with my own maternal grandmother's family in early June. In many ways, the two trips were similar: the presence of a nearby body of water, seafood for dinner, water sports, meeting new dogs and kids, and being a "foreigner" surrounded by a bunch of local family members (Boston is pretty foreign to all my family still living in metro Atlanta--and they think it must be about as cold as Canada).

That's where the similarities end, though. Most obviously, the reunion at Blalock was almost an order of magnitude smaller than the reunion on Cape Breton Island. Colin's family reunion - dubbed "Mirapalooza" for the Mira River on which it's held - was a gathering of the old Scottish clan, the families of Colin's grandmother and her two sisters. I'm not sure Colin knew everyone who was there, and I'm pretty sure I said goodbye to some people that I had never said hello to in the first place.

The trip began with a beautiful 12-hour drive from Colin's parents' house in Maine. I had taken the bus from Boston the night before, which was a good thing because we left at 6 am. I watched for moose the whole way to the Canadian border, thinking that the morning mist made for excellent moose habitat, but I didn't see anything. One of these days I'll see a moose in Maine...  Anyway, we crossed the border, drove across New Brunswick, which looks a lot like northern Maine and was pretty uninteresting, also with no moose. Soon enough, we crossed into Nova Scotia and began the truly scenic portion of the drive. By late afternoon, we were on Cape Breton Island, driving along the shore of a giant, brackish lake, Bras D'Or. (Oh right, they speak French in this part of Canada. And all the road signs use kilometers, which is always disconcerting when you momentarily forget and think that the crazy Canadians set the speed limit at 110 miles per hour.) We followed the lakeshore for quite a while, until we turned south to drive through very rural Canada to the Mira River. Colin's grandmother's sisters have summer cottages ("bungalows," in Canada) on the river that serve as base camp for the reunion.

Conveniently, we arrived at the bungalow just as the family was gathered for a prayer before dinner. It was like a receiving line! Colin, Colin's brother, and I all walked in, totally disrupted the prayer-gathering, and greeted everyone in quick succession. I didn't remember a single name from that moment.

After dinner, Colin's immediate family and I headed back to the bed and breakfast where we were staying. This was the view of the Mira from our B&B:

Not bad! But we didn't spend much time there. Most of the three full days we were in Nova Scotia were spent hanging out at the bungalow, swimming (in the refreshingly cold water), playing cards, skipping stones, and kayaking. We did go for a boat ride one day, getting picked up by Mark, one of the relatives (Colin's, um, mother's cousin's husband... what would that be?), at our B&B and riding down the river to the ocean.

Waiting at the B&B for Mark to pick us up in his boat.

The ride down the river was gorgeous. Much of the Mira River is built up with summer cottages (apparently the Canadian hockey players have started buying summer homes there, so you know it's the place to be!), but towards the ocean, it's mostly undeveloped. The water was crystal clear and so, so green:

And once we made it to the end of the river, the ocean was like a mirror:

Colin's brother Ross and what Google Maps tells me might be called Mira Bay.

On the ride back, we stopped to look for eagles. Mark has apparently done this many times before because he was prepared with a box of frozen mackerel and a particular sandbar in mind for our "hunting" ground. As soon as we spotted an eagle perched in a tree, Mark drove the boat close and threw out a frozen mackerel so that it would float in plain view of the eagle. Then, cameras poised, we waited for the eagle to take the bait.

Eagle spotted: will it take the bait?!

This particular eagle (see it in the bare tree?) did not take the bait, so Mark waded out onto the sandbar to retrieve the mackerel to throw again.

Colin waits for the eagle to grab the mackerel.

Colin's brother waits for the eagle to grab the mackerel.

Super blurry picture because I wasn't prepared, but the eagle came for the mackerel!

We ended up seeing three eagles, although only one flew down to grab the fish. Both Colin and his brother had huge, fancy cameras, so I quickly gave up taking pictures. And unfortunately I was not at all prepared when the one eagle flew down to grab the mackerel, so the only photo I got of a flying eagle is blurry. Oops.

Since the eagles weren't flying for us, we all got out of the boat and splashed around on the sandbar.

We did see some terrifyingly huge, purple jellyfish, though. Colin's mother's cousin (Mark's wife) had picked one up the day before and insisted that they didn't sting, but I was content to stand back and take photographs. I wish there were some way to show the scale of these things. They were like basketballs. And there were at least 500 of them (luckily mostly in deeper water, not the sandbar we were wading on).

We were surrounded by huge purple jellyfish. Apparently they don't sting, but they look terrifying.

I would not want to swim with this guy. 

Other than eagle-baiting, the highlight of the trip was digging for clams. Unfortunately, the tide schedule was not at all cooperative, so we had to go clamming at 6 am on Saturday. Nearly 30 people came! We drove south to Fourchu (sort of at the other end of the Mira River) and ventured out onto the mudflats at low tide. With 30 people, it didn't take long to find enough clams for dinner. I had so much fun digging for them. The razor clams in particular run away from you. I never really thought about clams moving - they seem like they ought to just sit there - but razor clams are speedy little things!

Before we could dive into eating freshly steamed clams that night, though, Colin, his brother, and a few other young'uns had to go through the family "initiation." Each initiate is handed a raw clam and a beer and, in full view of all 45+ family members, has to swallow the clam and chase it with a swig of beer. Colin and Ross both passed with flying colors. Colin opted to chew his clam, resulting in a collective gasp from the audience, and Ross slurped his for full effect. I managed to dodge the initiation this year, arguing on a technicality that I am not yet a family member. But, actually, I've already slurped a raw clam--back in 2004 or so, after raking clams from a boat in Rhode Island during BELL. It wasn't so bad. It's the beer chaser that I'm worried about.

Anyway, Mirapalooza was so much fun, and it was great to meet more of Colin's family. I've just about got their names down, and by the time the next Mirapalooza rolls around in five years or so, I might even understand the family tree.