Louisbourg or Bust

FIRST BOOK

No cellphone. No spandex. Way too many hills. Louisbourg or Bust is a surf pilgrim’s tale fuelled by remote waves, Hungry Man Stew, and blind optimism.

With a Nova Scotia road map in one hand and a fat copy of Don Quixote in the other, RC Shaw hatches a plan. He builds The Rig, a Frankenstein-inspired bicycle-plus-trailer to haul his camp gear and surfboard. Then, for no logical reason, he circles the Fortress of Louisbourg with a black marker and vows to lay siege to it. On a clear June morning, he kisses his family goodbye and creaks off down the road in search of adventure for adventure's sake.

No gadgets, no safety net. Just the restless pulse of the Atlantic Ocean as it rips and tears at the clay headlands of the Eastern Shore.

As the lark gets real, Shaw is forever changed by the gnarly soul of Nova Scotia's fogbound, fading coastline.

Published by Pottersfield Press

Shortlisted for the 2019 Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Non-Fiction

Praise for Louisbourg or Bust

“Shaw’s collective portrait is love letter to classic Canadian folksiness … his affection for the places he sees and the people he meets along the way are endearing and bittersweet, with a short story writer’s light-touch rendering of their Cajun and Nova Scotian accents.” - J.D. Kleinke, The Surfer’s Journal

“This crazy beautiful quest narrative puts Don Quixote on a bicycle and sends him out to face history with a surfboard. Half hilarious dream-adventure, half marathon nightmare, the end result is a madcap love letter to Nova Scotia.” - Ken McGoogan, author of 50 Canadians Who Changed The World

"What starts off as a call to adventure leads to a poetic set of observations and descriptions of Nova Scotia’s beautiful Eastern coastline, combined with history and the essence of surfing. A well-worthy read for anyone eager to release their inner Don Quixote and feel the excitement of the open road. RC Shaw is Nova Scotia’s William Least Heat-Moon." - Rich Aucoin

“My family history goes back over 9 generations on the Eastern Shore. Reading Louisbourg or Bust is like sitting down around a campfire and hearing my family’s stories come alive. Since this book is woven around the pursuit of surf, don’t be surprised to find salt in your hair and waves on your mind. There’s so much richness and depth to the Eastern Shore - it’s a place very close to my heart. RC Shaw showcases it for the gem it truly is.” -Jan LaPierre, Co-founder of A for Adventure

Book Review Published in the Surfer’s Journal, March/April 2019

We faced history head-on and took our kids to see Dachau

PERSONAL ESSAY

As we stood at the wrought-iron gate to the Dachau Concentration Camp and Memorial Site, my wife and I exchanged nods. Our two daughters, nine and 10 years old, peered into the sunlit grounds. We took the girls’ hands and walked through the shadowed arch together.

Earlier that morning at our dive hotel in Munich, the girls watched an episode of German-dubbed Peppa Pig, excited to feel a semblance of home after four months backpacking with their crazy parents. They’d been to giant Buddha statues in the jungles of Sri Lanka, toured the crowded Vatican museum and been coerced into hikes through the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Now they’d been told that, on this particular day, they’d be visiting an important war site. A solemn one.

Visiting Dachau was my real reason for putting Munich on the itinerary. It was the first and longest-running concentration camp, used as a training centre for SS guards. From its opening in 1933 to its liberation in 1945, over 200,000 people were incarcerated there, many of them dying within its walls. Dachau was the template for the thousands of other camps opened during the Second World War. My urge to visit – to stand witness – was strong.

But what about our kids? Should we expose them to this experience? My wife and I knew the memorial site recommended children under 12 take a pass, warning that “the display material could disturb them.” We had many whispered post-bedtime discussions while the girls slept beside us. Ultimately, we decided to go and make a decision at the entrance.

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SPRINTER MAN

SHORT FICTION

Let me tell you this up front: I only went to Sprinter Man because I was desperate.

You might’ve done the same thing.

Don’t judge me.

Exostosis. That’s the fancy name for surfer’s ear, I looked it up.

If you have ear problems, which you probably do, you know a thing or two about surfer’s ear. “Bone growth from persistent cold air and water,” that’s it in a nutshell.

You dunk your head in slush every other day, expose it to ripping winds, and soon enough your ear canal becomes a battle ground, the elements versus you, and your body’s like…

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The Art of Getting Lost

PROFILE

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“Surfers tend to age gracefully in case you didn’t know.”

I first met Lesley Choyce at a Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia Halloween party in 2006. He was dressed as Geordi La Forge, the Star Trek character whose eyes are covered by what looks like a gold vacuum filter. The conversation was fittingly spacy, pinballing from the size of the universe to the metaphorical implications of black holes.

I was in thrall; Choyce’s verbal energy felt like a comet streaking through the night. Who was this mad-masked philosopher? What planet was he from?

I didn’t know it then, but I was in the presence of a man who had already published a constellation of books.

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Ghost road

TRAVEL ARTICLE

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The Louisbourg-Gabarus Road was not a road at all. From my vantage point, as I crouched low to see the footpath disappear in a mess of alder shoots, it looked like a narrowing run to nowhere. My backcountry road map lied. The faint grey line I’d been obsessing over was, at best, an echo of history.

I was there for two reasons: to discover a new surf spot and attempt a third siege of the Fortress of Louisbourg, the largest ever historical reconstruction in North America. After three damp weeks and 600 km of solo bicycle travel from my home near Halifax to northeastern Cape Breton Island, I was ready to leave my rusted bike-plus-trailer behind and make a final push on foot. The Fortress was my goal — my last stand — and I’d counted on a passable route to get there.

I stood at the road’s rough trailhead in a swirl of mist and doubt and blackflies. First, I tarped my bike-plus-trailer and propped it in a nest of prehistorically huge ferns. Next, I rolled my wet towel into a croissant and draped it around my shoulders to cushion the razor-sharp straps of my dry bag. Then I tightened my bike helmet, hoisted the sausage-shaped bag and shrugged it into place. My hands were free to cradle my most precious piece of cargo: Old Yeller, the yellow twin-finned surfboard I’d lugged for 20 days. If I was about to be swallowed by raw forest, I’d need a comrade.

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ONE HUNDRED WAVES IN SOLITUDE

PERSONAL ESSAY

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Of any surfer, I envy Jeff Clark the most. Not because he discovered and pioneered one of the world’s burliest waves. Not because he, a goofy footer, taught himself to ride regular. Not because he was canonized by Hollywood. I envy Jeff Clark because, from 1975 to the early 90s, he surfed in complete solitude.

In the 2017 book Solitude: A Singular Life in a Crowded World, author Michael Harris confronts his burgeoning addiction to “platform technology” and draws a distinction between loneliness and solitude. He sees a paradox: as social media behemoths like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and their ilk demand more sharing and tighter connection between users, we get addicted to the dopamine release of a well “liked” post. Loneliness floods in when we aren’t connected. Solitude, on the other hand, is a precious resource, our comfort in being ourselves. Harris argues that solitude is a fragile forest we must protect from a world more hell-bent than ever on cutting it down.

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Why dads-to-be should take birth preparation classes

OPINION PIECE

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Preparing for birth, the manly way.

When I found out my wife signed us up for birth preparation classes, I was less than enthused. I was enjoying my blissful ignorance around all things birth and I couldn’t see why she needed me to be there. I wasn’t the one birthing the baby, right? I could learn on the fly.