“I’m a professional beach bum,” says a laughing Monica McIntyre, and off she goes, walking out onto the boardwalk, first stopping to look both ways at the lobster-crossing sign, then stepping through a gap in the dunes. As soon as she hits the beach, Monica kicks off her shoes, takes a deep breath, wiggles her toes in the warm sand, and starts to walk.
Monica is on the beach every chance she gets. “I can walk for miles,” she says. “I just lose all track of time. Half the time I don’t even realize how far I’ve gone.” But that doesn’t mean Monica isn’t paying attention. Not for a minute. Like any beachcomber worth their salt, she is constantly on the lookout for things like seashells, starfish, washed-up lobster traps and coloured glass – things she can put in her Zen gardens. But sometimes even a professional can be surprised.
“At first I thought it was just a big, smooth rock, but when I tried to lift it, I thought for a minute I had found a dinosaur or an alligator skeleton.” In fact, Monica had stumbled upon the skeleton of a Beluga whale. “It took me two-and-a-half months to find all the pieces that I did.”
Then Monica pulls out a worm-eaten board that still leaks sand. It has two hand-made copper nails punched through it – a plank from a late 17th-century shipwreck. Heavy seas often wash treasure onto the beach, but as this weathered wood attests, they can bring disaster as well. In June, 1959, an unexpected storm ravaged the Escuminac fishing fleet. Twenty-two boats went down and 35 men lost their lives.
Monica manages the Escuminac Beach and Family Park for her parents, Joseph and Mary McIntyre. That means when she isn’t helping her father put together a steaming pot of fish chowder, or making sure everything is as it should be in the campground, she is free to get back to the beach, alone or with a camper. Monica loves to introduce people to her stretch of sand and dunes – and to the fishermen at Escuminac Wharf, just down from the campground.
“One couple wanted to go out on a boat, so I made a call and out they went. When they got back, the woman was so happy. She’d had such a good time that she gave me a big hug and then gave me the sweater she had been knitting for her daughter.” They even lose the odd camper to the fishermen; “People go out with a fisherman and end up making friends with him. Next year they come back and stay at his house.” Not that Monica minds – it’s all part of being a member of a tight-knit fishing community.
Inscribed on a small piece of driftwood in Monica’s house is a saying that pretty well wraps up her philosophy to beachcombing and to life, “It’s not what you look at, it’s what you see.” Take a barefoot walk down the beach with Monica and you will end up seeing a lot more, and seeing it with a smile and a laugh.
301 Escuminac Point Rd.
Escuminac
506-228-3707