Miguasha. It has to Start with Miguasha. It's where I spent a good part of my childhood and where I acquired the large ideas that would guide me as I became an adult. It's where I developed my first views of the universe and where I go back to in my mind when I need to refresh my view of that universe and my views on art. It's a push pin on both a geological and psycho-cultural map that tells me who I am and where I come from when I see myself as an artist and as a writer on art on as a writer period.
First things first. the name for Miguasha, a small point of land on the south side of the Gaspé peninsula is derived from the Mi'kmaq (pronounced Mig Maw) word Megouasag which translates to red earth or red cliffs. It refers to the Devonian cliffs overlooking the Baie des Chaleurs on the south side of the Gaspé Coast.
My siblings and my parents referred to Miguasha as "across the river" for the 45 minute ferry boat ride that took us across the Restigouche River from Dalhousie on the New Brunswick side where we lived. "across the river" has now aquired a rather Odyssian resonance for me in my personal mythology. What classical education will do to our simple lives. The ferry boat that took us there possessed an "Argo" dimension that has turned my childhood into a heroic story of personal awakening. The ferry was named the Romeo and Annette by its captain Romeo Leblanc, who was at least sensitive to Shakespeare if not to Homer.
It was my father's fault that Homer entered my imagination. But that was a little later. At Miguasha his influence on me had more to do with the scale of the universe, a scale that ultimately made me question every man made story whether it was by Homer or any other prophet. Stories were a thing people told each other but science was the filter through which we decided the veracity of those stories. You see, at Miguasha my father introduced me to fossils. Fossil fishes, but fossils.
You see the cliffs of Miguasha have concealed for millions of years the sea bottom of the Devonian era when the only living things on earth were fish, plants, and arthropods. So in the company of my father I dug up fossils from the Miguasha cliffs. Having found a fish, I ask my father how old it was to which he answered "350 million years." My initial response was "wow" but after many years I have understood that the "wow" was sufficient. I did not need a creation construct ever. I have learned since that wow must be enough and that only science can provide answers to any questions beyond that.
I learned from that, at Miguasha that mine would be a life of contemplation and not one of acquisition or aspiration to power or wealth. But also the difference between science and well...stories. Later that penchant for contemplation took me to art and the role art plays in our lives. It started as near as I can tell on a ferry ride across a river.
