Camping season closes - Tent Dwellers festival ends

I was camped at Kejimkujik for three days, but also made it to Thanksgiving dinner at White Point. That dinner, served buffet-style, was a feast of good food. There was a nice squash and ginger soup, plus mounds of mussels, cheeses, steamed vegetables, potatoes, breads, and salads. There were trays of turkey, stuffing, pork and salmon. There was pumpkin pie, and a host of other desserts. A veritable cornucopia.

There was also the white sand beach for walking before and after, the tide coming in, and the sky a deep blue.

At Kejimkujik, almost every site was full, and almost every site had elaborately-carved pumpkins for the pumpkin festival. On Saturday night, a group of us toured the campsites, looking at detailed witches, moose, cartoon characters and more, all carved into pumpkins. The pumpkins are part of a competition sponsored by the Friends of Keji, with assistance from the New Grafton Variety Store.

Some of the displays were set up like dioramas, with themes, a backdrop, lights and sound. Some were funny and some were scary. We watched as the judging truck moved along the campsites, people inside making notes.

There was a constant parade of campers looking at each other's pumpkin displays. Children rode around on bikes, people walked dogs and kids piled onto the backs of trucks as the drivers drove slowly around the three campgrounds. That didn't please everybody. There was a startling display of lights in front of our campsite, as the RCMP nailed a driver for having kids on the back of his half tonne. I think the driver got a warning.

Camping at Thanksgiving is a very social affair, with people in jolly moods, visiting back and forth and generally having a good time. One person visiting my campsite and going for a short hike returned to find a stern note on the windshield, pointing out that there was a $134.50 fine for having two cars on a campsite, should the RCMP impose a ticket.

There is a reason for the rule, designed to prevent the campgrounds from getting cluttered up with vehicles. The park provides two parking lots some distance away. People complain about it, however, and the park might find a better solution, perhaps by issuing temporary guest car passes.

Still and all, the colours were beautiful, the weather mostly clear, and the playgrounds and hiking trails were busy. I took the dog for an early morning walk along the lake just before the sun peeked over the trees; the light was mystical, the lake calm, and I sat on a bench by Kejimkujik Lake watching several ducks poking around in the grasses.

Kejimkujik at Thanksgiving is a very special place, and it is no wonder that people begin booking for the weekend in the spring.

It was also the weekend of the close of the Tent Dwellers Festival, celebrated over much of this spring, summer and fall in Queens and Annapolis counties. To close the festival, a homecoming buffet luncheon was held on Saturday at Milford House, where the trip into the wilderness that first inspired Albert Bigelow Paine to write The Tent Dwellers was launched.

The homecoming was attended by the paddlers who recreated the trip in May, as well as by members of the public enchanted by the story. Alex Morrison, general manager of Milford House, told the group that this was not the end of the Tent Dwellers festival. He said that next Sept. Milford House would have a Tent Dwellers lunch as part of an international symposium on the role of Albert Bigelow Paine and Eddie Breck on Nova Scotia history.

After the luncheon, special historic plaques were unveiled both at Milford House and at Jakes Landing in Kejimkujik, from where the paddlers set off a century ago.

The Tent Dwellers festival was a resounding success with a variety of high points. A lot of people think some of the events should be annual events. The wilderness embraced by Kejimkujik and the Tobeatic is very special in this crowded world, and is worthy of celebration.

- Tom Sheppard can be reached at twsheppard@gmail.com