Not the least attractive feature of the scenery are the ashes-of-roses colours acquired by some parts of the cliffs, especially those west of la Demoiselle. These colours are wonderfully effective when contrasted against the gray sea, or the velvet greenness of the cliff grass. It was while rambling along these cliffs a few summers ago that Seumas O’Brien, author and sculptor, happened by chance upon an outcropping of clay of so fine a nature that he later took some back with him to “Shea’s” and there, in a little studio improvised in the vacant cottage that was the former hotel, he soon had several charming “figures” to his credit, among them, “The Head of a Child” and “An Irish Troubadour”, one of those quaint Irish figures of village and road who entertain with stories to the accompaniment of an old fiddle.
The inhabitants of the Madeleines are of Acadian-French descent. The life which centres in the scattered cottages reveals unspoiled the Acadian spinning-wheel, the ponderous loom, and handicraft that takes the raw wool direct from the sheep’s back grazing out in the eye of the wind on Les Demoiselles, and converts it into homespun garment, sock, or tapis.
The handiwork of the Madeleine spinners and weavers reaches its highest achievement in the catalogne or bedspread. Not alone is the work fine but the favourite white ground forms just the right contrast needed to bring out the sweet colours employed in the motif. Not even in the heart of Quebec have we seen any weaving to compare with these catalognes of the Madeleines. They catch added character, it often seems, from the looms on which they are made. At Havre Maison, on Alright Island, we once happened on a Madame weaving at an old loom made from the flotsam and jetsam pieces of wood which had at different times been salvaged from the sea—here an upright out of an old mast, there a bar from a broken oar. Madame, with shuttle from the same source, rudely shaped, in her hand, was working as under the fire of inspiration, her bobbins and wools all scattered about her on boxes and on the floor, the while the attic window by which she sat looked out upon the barachois or lagoon enclosed by sand, and beyond that to the far-stretching gray waters of the Gulf.
In Les Iles de Madeleine, catalognes and tapis are heirlooms. Once at Grindstone Island an old gentleman seeing our interest in these fruits of the Island looms, bade his daughter take us into the attic and show us those which his mother had made. There were several sea chests full. And each was of sufficient beauty to justify the old gentleman’s pride in them.
Wool is an indispensable raw material in the home economy of the housewives whom circumstances have set down on these islands so far removed from marts of the “ready-made”. That is largely the reason why so many sheep are seen everywhere, there being seldom a family but owns one or more. And what fine, clean wool it is! And what excellent flavoured mutton comes to the Shea table via a boat-market from Entry Island.
The chief industry of the Madeleines is mackerel fishing, with cod running it a close second, and lobstering employing a number of old-timers whose day of fishing is done.
The waters about the Madeleines are the magnets of sealers in the Spring. But it is mackerel which chiefly magnetizes the life and sketches the characters especially Madeleinian.
Sprightly white, clinker-built, skiff-like boats are here, boats with long and graceful lines, eager in sailing but of sufficient “beam” to carry the “catch”. These harbour in haven-pools which seem to have been scooped out of the waves for just such a purpose. One of these little harbours is called La Bassin, a name which speaks for itself.
The waters about the Madeleines have a curious way of throwing up a sand-bar some distance away from, and parallel with, the beach itself, between the bar and the beach there being a long strip of water of differing widths. This lagoon is called a barachois, and each island seems to have at least one of these. The mackereling appears to centre around the Barachois, perhaps because there is something in the set of the Gulf currents which brings the marine food of the mackerel in their direction, or because the mackerel-boat, with the Barachois behind her, is never without a way of retreat in case of being overtaken by a squall. So, wishing to catch the atmosphere, one has to go down to the Barachois at dusk when the boats begin to come in. Then are seen women coming from all directions in their two-wheeled island-carts with flashing lanterns casting a flare and flicker of light, now brilliant, now dim to extinguishment, as the horses step into a rut or sink in the yielding sand.
The boats, one or two at a time, come hurrying in from the Barachois, unstepping their masts and sails and simultaneously burying their bows in the wet and heavy sand of the landwash. Then is witnessed, a spirited bit of action to be seen nowhere