Walking: An off-grid workout; local love, and more

Return of the lane

Of course, many of you are familiar with the “lane” that leads back to our place. A former logging road slightly more than two kilometres in length, depending on the time of year it can be a fairly bouncy, jouncy, rough ride back to the house.

It’s also a long, lonely drive through strange woods if you’re not familiar with the property.

Amazon drivers love it…er, maybe. Maybe not so much.

The other day one showed up with a book delivery from a friend. I could hear him a couple of minutes before he arrived, his beat-up van crunching along the gravel up the road. I hustled the barking dogs into the house just ahead of him pulling up.

As I strode over in my doe-skin jacket and rubber boots, holding the latest sartorial accessory - a bow saw, for I’d been cutting wood - the driver looked a bit shaken.

“That’s a long lane, hey?” I said, conversationally.

Bobbing his head enthusiastically, the driver echoed: “Yes, a long lane.”

He took in the house, the saw, me. It was 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I could tell he couldn’t beat it out of here fast enough.

He’ll be able to dine out on the story of this delivery for some time to come.

A long lane….

What’s local

Off-grid workout: walking

I figure walking is the workout equivalent of going off-grid. It’s simple, unencumbered, natural. Most people can do it. I used to run, but since the onset of my disease, these days I walk a lot.

When I was younger, in my teens, I used to walk everywhere. I’d think nothing of walking from the north side to the south side of Edmonton and back again. I once walked the length of Broadway in Vancouver, which anyone knows crosses that city. I loved walking, especially in the fall. I found it calmed my mind, long before I was thinking of things like meditation.

I have recaptured that love of walking again. As many of you know, I spend a lot of time walking our lane with our dogs. But I like to get out of Dodge too. Sunday, with temperatures approaching plus-five in mid-February, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

I pulled off the road at the start of the Second Peninsula. It’s a bit past Lunenburg, heading on the back road to Mahone Bay. The peninsula ultimately ends up at a much-loved, much-used local beach, Bachman’s. The latter is actually private property, according to signs posted there, but whomever owns it has made the gently curving strip of sand of roughly two kilometres open to people.

Walking along the Second Peninsula.

On the day I strolled along with the water to the left of me, the road was nearly empty. I passed another walking couple. A cyclist, beaming away, passed me. The majority of traffic respectfully pulled out as they passed me, giving me a wide berth.

The sun shone down. It was splendid.

I also happen to be reading a book titled Walking: One Step at a Time. Almost unsurprisingly it’s by a Norwegian. Why unsurprisingly? Because I’m beginning to believe when it comes to chillin’ Norwegians have a lock on it.

They seem to have an appreciation for the meditative aspects of life: walking, chopping wood. Remember Norwegian Wood? An entire book devoted to the slow pleasure of wood chopping. And now, walking.

The road along the Second Peninsula.

And, yes, the point of Erling Kagge’s treatise of placing one foot in front of the other appears to be in favour of slowing down, and taking things in.

Speaking of walking, be sure and check out my friend Ken Wilson’s blog. He does a lot of walking too.

I get it. I dig it.

There’s a lot of talk about slowing down as you age. I no longer think that’s such a terrible thing. All that striving? For what? To make a comfortable life, of course; but I guess I’m comfortable enough.

I’m liking life in the slow lane. Maybe one day you’ll join me there.

New Old Black Forest Restaurant

It’s no small wonder that on the outskirts of Lunenburg -a place Germans founded - the Old Black Forest Restaurant offered such delicacies as schnitzel, spaetzle and more more since 1998. At some point, it changed hands and became the New Old Black Forest Restaurant.

The 10-table resto is not quite as staid and traditional under its predecessor. Chef goes under the name “Googs,” and flashes a pair of funky blue-framed glasses. He also boasts a pedigree that includes working with Daniel Boulud. Boulud’s New York flagship restaurant, Daniel, still holds three stars from the New York Times, current food critic Pete Wells having last reviewed it in 2013.

Indoor decor at the New Old Black Forest Restaurant.

The menu still holds true to German traditional goods, but Chef Googs loves to do pop-ups featuring pho nights, and other cross-cultural delights.

In mid-February, he suddenly opened the restaurant for weekend lunch service, offering, among other things, a homemade Bratwurst sausage on Viennoise Hoagie topped with mustard and sauerkraut. Damn. I needed to get my mitts on one of those.

The bratwurst.

Apparently, I was really excited about this lunch special. I drove down to the restaurant on a Sunday, pulled up, parked, bustled out of my car and burst through the doors…startling the crap out of chef and a waitress, who were settling in after a lunch rush.

Besides them, the place was empty…until I came through the doors, eyes bulging, fingers twitching, mouth masticating. Googs jumped up from the table by the door and blocked my entrance. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“You’re still serving lunch?” I craned my head around the empty joint. I might have twitched a bit.

Googs stepped back. “Uh, yeah.”

“I can get the bratwurst?” I asked plaintively.

At that point I believe Chef understood I was not some crazed meth-driven robber, but actually a patron and fan of German cuisine. I was shown to a table, and handed a menu, which I waved off as I delivered my order.

Five minutes later the steaming sausage in a toasty bun slathered in condiments appeared at my table. From the first bite, all was forgiven. I washed it down with a glass of water and a soundtrack streaming such old Teutonic favourites as Johnny Cash singing Jackson with June Carter, and John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High.

The New Old Black Forest Restaurant is about a 20 minute drive from my place. Lucky me.

What I’m reading:

Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan Slaght is an enthralling, almost phantasmagorical trip into Russia in search of fish owls. The latter are an endangered bird, of which only a few hundred breeding pairs exist. Ornithologist Slaght, with his Russian colleagues, travel a wild section of southern Russia near North Korea and Japan, in order to map the owls, and create a compelling argument to prevent logging in the area in order to conserve them? Sound familiar? It’s a scenario played out around the globe. Along the way, Slaght has incredible encounters with the Russians who live in those isolated backwoods, as well as with the wildlife and the untrammelled, dangerous land itself. Completely compelling, Owls of the Eastern Ice is one of my favourite books of 2023 already.

What I’m listening to:

Ben Harper’s By My Side feels like a folk classic like, say, James Taylor’s Fire and Ice: Laid back, lyrical, personal, introspective. By My Side harkens back to the early ‘70s for inspiration, and captures the period beautifully. The recording is actually a mini-retrospective of this important artist’s work, showing Harper’s already-then impressive canon back in 2012. Lovely. Soak it up.

Mea Culpa Division

A sharp reader properly pointed out that in my last newsletter I managed to create a new philosopher/travel writer with the unlikely name Henry David Theroux. In the context of the post, I was of course referring to the American philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau, and not the American travel writer Paul Theroux. I blame the mistake on chemo brain.