A picnic in Kejimkujik. Photo courtesy Parks Canada

If the early bookings are any indication, it’s going to be a busy year at Kejimkujik.

Almost 10,000 campers raced to book their favourite spots at the National Park and Historic Site when the online reservation system opened on March 31, a nine percent increase over last year.

The feat is more remarkable considering Parks Canada rolled out a new online booking system this year, requiring all users to create new accounts.

Visitor Experience Manager at Kejimkujik National Park and Historic Site Sophie Borcoman says Keji is consistently one of the most popular parks in Canada.

“Kejimkujik, every year we have such a loyal fan base of 85 percent repeat visitation who come back year after year, multiple generations,” said Borcoman. “And we’ve for, between Jasper and Banff, as being the most popular site.”

The park, which straddles Queens and Annapolis Counties features a variety of sites for tents trailers and RVs, located near services and washrooms, or in the backcountry, far away from anyone.

In recent years, many roofed accommodations have been added including rustic cabins, oTENTiks and Oasis all within an easy walk of inclusive washrooms.

The washrooms were completely renovated just two years ago to provide a toilet and sink behind a private door in the washroom facilities and private individual showers, making them more inclusive and eliminating the need for traditional separate male and female facilities.

Borcoman says despite the large number of bookings there are still lots of sites available between the May long weekend and the end of October when the park closes.

In fact, the park is offering a new service that will make it easier to book last minute.

Every Tuesday, staff will post how many sites are available in the coming week on their Facebook page, listing unbooked sites as well as any last-minute cancellations.

Borcoman says staff at Kejimkujik are constantly looking for ways to highlight the attributes of the park and historic site and encourages people to visit their web page for dates and times of several special events taking place including an ultra-marathon and the dark-sky weekend.

Kejimkujik also hosts many interpretive programs honouring the Mi’kmaw, the First People of the area.

Visitors can take a guided petroglyph tour, visit a Mi’kmaw encampment or watch and talk to master-builder Todd Labrador as he builds birchbark canoes.

Kejimkujik will open for camping May 19.

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Melissa and Todd Labrador sit in front of the beginnings of a birch bark canoe. Photo Ed Halverson

Todd Labrador is taking his canoe building on the road.

The Queens-County based artisan and builder has set up shop at the Lunenburg School of the Arts for the next month to construct a 16-foot birch-bark lake canoe.

Labrador says part of what inspires him to build is passing on knowledge to others.

“We can build it in the privacy in the backyard and nobody gets to learn anything except whoever’s there at the time. But if we go out in public and build it in front of people and allow them to come in and ask questions and watch the process, come back every other day and see how we progress, that way we get to share with everyone, what we do. That’s important to me,” said Labrador.

He and his family harvest the materials themselves often spending days scouring the woods for pliable birch bark and digging for spruce roots.

Labrador uses many traditional techniques to build his canoes but welcomes some modern tools into his methods.

“If great-grandfather, who was born in 1874, died in 1961, if he had a nail, boy, he would use it. And I know if he had a band saw, he would’ve used that too.”

His daughter, Indigenous Guardian and artist, Melissa Labrador is helping with the build.

While their family’s roots are in the Wildcat Reservation in Queens, Melissa says they have a Lunenburg connection.

The Labrador family was known to have a home near the harbour close to where the fall hall currently sits.

“It’s really neat to be able to return to an area that our family occupied and create something here that probably hasn’t been done for a very long time,” said Melissa Labrador.

Her father has built several canoes over the past few years.

Some have gone into private collections; others have been acquired by museums or Indigenous communities.

Todd Labrador says each canoe always finds a home.

“Usually what we do is we build them. We don’t think about where they go. The joy for us is to build them,” said Labrador. “It’s my hobby, my passion and we paddle them as long as we can but eventually someone comes along and says we’d like to have that for our museum or cultural centre.”

The public is welcome to watch the Labrador family build the canoe at the Lunenburg School of the Arts Monday through Friday between 11:00am and 3:00pm.

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Iain Rankin sworn-in as premier of Nova Scotia. Photo Government of Nova Scotia

The province officially has a new premier.

Iain Rankin became the 29^th premier of Nova Scotia Tuesday.

Rankin and 16 of his caucus colleagues were sworn-in to their cabinet posts by Lt. Governor Arthur J. LeBlanc.

The event, held at the Halifax Convention Centre began with a smudging ceremony conducted by Queens County residents Todd and Melissa Labrador.

In addition to his responsibilities as premier of the province, Rankin will also serve as president of the Executive Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness. He is Minister of the Department of L’Nu Affairs, formally the Office of Aboriginal Affairs among others.

Deputy premier Kelly Regan will maintain her role as Minister of Community Services with responsibility for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She also takes on the Department of Seniors.

Rankin’s opponents to become Liberal leader Labi Kousoulis and Randy Delorey will also feature prominently in his new cabinet. Kousoulis will assume the position of Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and Minister of Inclusive Economic Growth, which is the new name for the Department of Business.

Former Health Minister Delorey is now Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Minister of Labour Relations.

Former Education Minister Zach Churchill will now assume the health portfolio.

Derek Mombourquette is the new Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development and Chuck Porter is now Minister of Lands and Forestry and Energy and Mines.

There will be some new faces around the cabinet table as well as Kings South MLA Keith Irving was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Ben Jessome, the MLA for Hammonds Plains-Lucasville, becomes Minister of the Public Service Commission, and Brendan Maguire, MLA for Halifax Atlantic, takes over at Municipal Affairs.

Premier Rankin used his first public opportunity to rally Nova Scotians to build a better province.

“All of you, not just the women and men that are serving in cabinet today have a role in building our future. Whether a union member, a business owner, a volunteer, retiree, still working, any age, you are part of building that future. It’s not just government. This is your province. This is your opportunity. This is our time to break through in Nova Scotia, so let’s get to work.”

Reported by Ed Halverson 
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Three generations of the Labrador family paddle the newly finished canoe. Photo credit: Ed Halverson

A gathering of friends and selected media were on hand to watch a master Mi’kmaq canoe builder launch his biggest vessel to date.

Todd Labrador spent the summer at Kejimkujik National Park crafting a 21 and a half foot long birch bark canoe along with his daughter Melissa, her husband Corbin Hart and grandchildren Nakuset and Tepkunaset.

Labrador said the high-sided canoe is three feet wide, and even at 21 feet long, doesn’t come close to those his ancestors built, some of which reached up to 30 feet in length.

“You know they would’ve paddled across the Bay of Fundy, along the Atlantic coast to Prince Edward Island and to Newfoundland in birch bark canoes,” said Labrador.

The canoe has no seats but is built to fit five adults sitting or kneeling low, which helps to keep it stable.

“If you put lots of weight in a canoe it also makes it very stable,” said Labrador. “So this canoe, you know, I always say it will take the mother, the father, the grandparents, the children and a moose.”

It’s that ability to transport a large number of people and supplies along the regions many waterways that made the birch bark canoe the equivalent of the modern day station wagon.

Labrador family members daughter Melissa, grandchildren Tepkunaset and Nakuset and Todd with canoe. Photo credit: Ed Halverson

Building a canoe of this size was a learning experience for Labrador.

While he still used traditional materials such as birch bark, spruce root and cedar, most of which are sourced locally, he needed to learn how to apply heat in just the right way to make the thicker bark bend the way he needed.

Before he took up the craft, Labrador said it was over a hundred years since the last birch bark canoe was made in Kejimkujik.

He has built a dozen canoes ranging in size from two feet up to seven feet. Many of those are in museums or on display on First Nations. He is not sure yet where this canoe will make its home.

“We always say in the end the canoe will end up where it’s meant to be. But I’m going to paddle this canoe as often as I can and eventually it may end up in a museum or a First Nations community,” said Labrador. “That would be really nice if it did, where more people can enjoy it and see what their ancestors did. Maybe bring some good energy into the community that it goes into.”

He has a close connection to Kejimkujik national park having grown up about 20 minutes away on the Wildcat First Nation.

Todd Labrador and his grandson Tepkunaset smudge the canoe before launch. Photo credit: Ed Halverson

“It’s very special. It’s always a very powerful, spiritual feeling when you paddle a birch bark canoe. But to paddle it here where my ancestors were, actually my family for generations going back, they lived here. They would’ve been on the same beach that we’re standing on today. It’s very, very powerful and special,” said Labrador.

He is pleased to be able to share the experience of building canoes with his family so they can continue to carry on the tradition.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson