Go Alice Go

There are so many reasons to visit the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Shelburne, for reasons of accessibility and content! If you’ve ever read Lawrence Hill’s award-winning novel, “The Book of Negroes” (published as “Someone Knows My Name” in the USA, Australia, and New Zealand) then you may recall the community of Birchtown, located in Shelburne, in the story. Reading the book is certainly not required to enjoy the Centre, but reading the book before or after your visit will enrich your experience.

Some things of note:

• There is plenty of parking but it is a small walk from the parking area to the main building.
• The facility is wheelchair accessible and even the gift shop has plenty of room for mobility devices.
• There are so many places to sit down when/if you need to, which is unlike most museums I’ve visited! I was thrilled to find that there are stools, benches, and even a couple of inviting arm chairs.
• The interactive exhibits, with the exception of one that I can think of, were set at a level so that they would be easily accessible to someone in a wheelchair, someone who was short, or an older child (they were also easily used by someone of *average* height-I’m 5’6″).

It is a small museum but it is extremely well laid out and user friendly. When you are admitted you receive a business card with a name and a bit of information on it. From there you can access four stations with laminated flip books of information (in aphabetical order by last name) that tell the story of the character whose name you  have on your card. It helped to personalise the experience and give insight into the fuller lives of the people who once settled in the area. There is also an electronic version of The Book of Negroes that you can search through, and the names in the book are on the windows and under panes of glass in the floor. The effect is quite beautiful and impactful.

There are stations where you can build your own digital quilt (it will be displayed on a screen on the wall and you can email it to yourself, if you like), benches where you can listen to information and other sound bytes (I enjoyed the singing–old blues and plantation-style work songs about freedom), and large touch screen monitors where you can see all kinds of pictures, documents and more related to Birchtown and the people who settled there.

Just seeing those shackles makes me feel so ill at ease but I accept that because to feel anything less would be worse. We’ve come a long way; we have so much further to go.

Quotes like these (above) can be found all over the walls.

Additionally, there is some information about the Mi’kmaq peoples who are indigenous to the land. Indigenous cultures and rights are near and dear to my heart based on my life experiences and I was pleased to learn that the local Mi’kmaq peoples welcomed those who were escaping slavery, including sharing practical knowledge about shelters (pithouses) and food sources. It’s never a surprise to me that the Indigenous Peoples of Canada could lead the way in being stewards of both the land and the people in that they are historically generous and take responsiblity for the well-being of each other and others.

This Centre is an important and interesting place to visit. For more information including hours, admission fees, etc. please visit their website:

https://blackloyalist.novascotia.ca/

Dan’s is a diner-style place in Barrington, very near to the causeway that connects the mainland to Cape Sable Island. The inside is decorated in the style of a diner from decades gone by and we enjoyed some ice cream there.

Some things of note:

• There is plenty of parking near the entrance.
• There are no steps in the entrance or inside.
• The bathroom is a single unisex room.
• There are a variety of seating options. The booths are very small and there are stools bolted in place at a counter. The majority of the seating, though, is metal chairs and tables that can be moved and the seats are sturdy and have no arms.

Dan’s sells lunch items such as subs and salads but we were there for the ice cream. I don’t know why but soft serve ice cream in British Columbia, in my experience, is predominantly ice milk. In contrast, we had soft serve ice cream in three different places in Nova Scotia and all of them were most certainly using ice cream. The difference in taste and texture is HUGE. It takes me back to my days as a teenager when I worked in a Tastee Freez (they used ice cream, not milk, but they are no longer around in British Columbia). I had the strawberry butterscotch sundae. It might sound like an odd combination but mixing the two flavours is another habit leftover from my Tastee Freez days. My dining partner had a brownie parfait with hot fudge and peanuts.

We didn’t try any, but Dan’s also sells take-home bakery items like cookies, squares, and mini cakes. If you’re looking for a sweet treat in Barrington this place makes a nice pit stop.

I hardly know where to begin with the restaurant that is rhubarb and I mean that in the best way possible! While this is of no consequence in terms of accessibility or quality of food, I even love the “rhubarb” font they chose for the front of their  establishment.

While there are a couple of steps to get up to the front door from this vantage point, you can go around the side of the hedges and use the ramp if you need or prefer to.

Other important things to note:

• The restaurant has its own dedicated parking lot so you won’t have to park very far from the entrance.
• There are two bathrooms inside. One is wheelchair accessible and one is not (the latter is down a flight of stairs).
• Aside from the stairs down to the one bathroom, the rest of the restaurant is on one level.
• The chairs were very sturdy and they did not have arms (no pinched hips/thighs!).
• The chairs and tables can moved if you need to make more space or pull a wheelchair up to the table.
• We arrived on a Sunday at lunchtime and they had some live jazz-type music going on. While the performers were certainly talented the volume made it difficult to have a conversation but they finished up around the time our meal was arriving so we got to enjoy the music and then enjoy some quiet conversation.
• The service was really excellent. Prompt but not pushy, our water glasses were kept full and I was going through a lot of water because I was dehydrated from all the flying, and genuinely friendly.

Now, the food…oh, the food. First, I waffled back-and-forth about whether to have a bowl of seafood chowder or the dish that I eventually settled on. “Settled” is the wrong word, though, because I think I made the right choice. If I was ever going to be requesting a last meal, this would be it!

This is the pan fried haddock with chick pea salad! It doesn’t look particularly special but it was spectacular in the flavour department. The haddock was crispy without being over cooked and the seasoning was perfect. The real star of this dish, though, is that chick pea salad. To be clear, I enjoy chick peas well enough but I’ve never been excited about them until now.

It’s a combination of cucumber, tomato, pickled red onion, parsley, chick peas, and a delicious, light honey mustard dressing. The real magic, though, is that about 1/3 of the chick peas are deep fried! I didn’t say this was health food but I promise you it is tasty food. My cravings for this have been so fierce that I’m going to attempt making it at home but will use roasted chick peas in place of the deep fried ones and see how that turns out. I’m even going so far as to try pickling red onions for the first time. I’ll document the results in the recipe section sometime next week.

For good measure, here are a few pictures of Peggy’s Cove. If you get the chance to visit it is a beautiful landscape, both times I’ve visited there has been someone playing the bagpipes, and there is a great gift shop on site. I highly recommend a stop at rhubarb and that you try their haddock with chick pea salad!

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