An Interesting Essay about the Bras d'Or Lakes

In one drop of water is found all the secrets of the Oceans*

“Mommy, Mommy, I’m thirsty!  Turn on the kitchen faucet dear and get yourself a drink of water.   Mommy, how many drops of water are in this glass?  A lot dear!  But I want you to remember something else very important child. What’s that Mommy? All those drops of water are the same! What do you mean Mommy?”

World Oceans Day occurs during the month of June.  In Iona during 2016 it’s being celebrated on the weekend of June 4^th and 5^th. This global label can mean many different things to each of us. And well it should. The oceans are large areas.  They are composed of many drops of water. They’re all interconnected, as we too are interconnected with them.

The Bras d’Or Lake – Canada’s Inland Sea - is a microcosm of the World’s Oceans.  A drop of water from the Bras d’Or Lake is virtually identical to those of the oceans themselves.

Many of us as children recall before the time of central heating, Jack Frost leaving his intricate icy sketches upon the morning window panes of our otherwise cosy homes.  We reminiscence about donning skates after school and playing scrub hockey with the neighbouring kids on the frozen Bras d’Or Lake.  In summer running barefoot, we scampered over the early morning’s dew laden grass, and later during balmy afternoon sunshine we recollect lying on green fields, daydreaming, while watching the billowing white clouds lazily passing us by.  Do you remember clutching frogs and investigating scads of tadpoles wagging their wiggling tails along the edges of the nearby pond?  And even today we catch glimpses of dazzling rainbows after an afternoon shower while harbouring yet a yearning to embrace that elusive pot of gold!

Do you bring to mind going for an exciting boat ride with Daddy in his freshly painted boat? Can you recollect the ripples and wake left behind as we zipped along?  And waves crashing upon the shoreline as we sped by, and sometimes waving wildly to a sailboat crew with its wind-coached sails as we zoomed by them too?  And as adults now, we’re still oft-times witnesses to sea-fog blanketing the warmer Lake waters on those cooler September mornings. 

In one drop of water is found all the secrets of the Oceans. Sometimes we fail to realize that all of the above scenarios, in one way or another involves drops of water.

The Bras d’Or Lake is a microcosm of the World’s Oceans.  Today the ocean economy is more knowledge-based and technology-oriented resulting in increased marine research and development here within Nova Scotia. Why cannot the Bras d'Or Lake –a natural microcosm of the world’s oceans -- not be better utilized for those research capabilities and especially employed for the extraordinary global ecosystem that it is, in an idyllic rural-based region of this province?  The Bras d’Or Lake has for eons been a natural spawning ground for oodles of species of fish. Why go 250 miles offshore for marine research, experimentation, and development, when such a natural laboratory already exists here on Cape Breton Island, cradled within the most exotic of watersheds found anywhere in the world?

The late revered Eskasoni Mi’kmaq elder Charlie Dennis was a noble supporter of the concept of establishing a shore-based Marine Research Centre on the Barra Strait.  The United Nations through UNESCO has recently bestowed international status upon the Bras d’Or Lake with its Man and Biosphere designation, and the Lake lends itself most accommodatingly to the evaluation of more modest sized devices of renewable energy.  Why cannot environmental impact assessments and climate change monitoring not occur here using the natural attributes that lend themselves to the World right here on Nova Scotia’s Bras d’Or Lake.

A perfect storm of opportunity beckons governments, educational institutions, and industry alike on the Bras d’Or Lake.

 In one drop of water is found all the secrets of the Oceans.

“Daddy, Daddy, can we go fishing?”

Vince MacLean, Washabuck, November 30, 2015

*(Quote by Kahlil Gibran)

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