Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Sacred Land


Nearly ten years ago Farley and Claire Mowat donated their 200-acre waterfront property in River Bourgeois, Cape Breton to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, along with a substantial endowment fund.
Farley said this gift was his way of settling up with the muse that had inspired his many books. 

“All we can do, having lived upon this planet, is to make some kind of repayment to life,” 

“Leaving my property in trust fulfills this need that I feel.”




Nova Scotia Nature Trust   http://nsnt.ca/aboutus/




Mary and I visited Claire at the property last week. 
There was a strong presence of Farley everywhere, especially in the stones. 

This 'hand-printed' silkscreen by Robert Rutherford ( a friend of the Mowat's) depicts the coastal property back in 2006
The beacon we built that year was to be a replica of the mysterious dry stone cairns that have been found (and sparsely documented) not only on Diana Island, off Quebec's Ugava Peninsula, but also along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador.
These ancient Canadian structures were brought to my attention when I first began reading Farley's book The Farfarers . It was this book too, that prompted us to build the dry stone boat structure (described later in his book) at the third annual Canadian Dry Stone Wall Festival in Port Hope.