Black Ducks of Sydney

February 02, 2005

Black ducks of Sydney. It’s a beautiful stream in summer. Winding wide and slow through the gentle dip in a willowy park it passes under a filigreed covered bridge in the shape of an off-white domed gazebo. Making its way to the nearby harbour it passes discreetly under the main street as the tranquil bead of traffic heads into town. This is a logical place for ducks. The urban well. Children and retirees will know to bring stale bread here. Tourism ensures the ducks this quadrant will remain verdant and delicious.
I’ve never been in this town when it was at its prime. I first arrived at a time when the coal and the cod had either begun to leave or were gone. This wasn’t any Springsteen song either. The singing never stops here and the tragic nature of the subject matter often seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t know whether the songs actually bring on the tragedy but they are more than just a soundtrack to all this sad beauty. Atlantic Canada was revealed to me on these terms but in the dead of winter. The picture of this park is just as beautiful at 25 degrees below zero but, at times, it is not as comfortable to be outdoors pondering. On this day it is winter and the 150 year-old houses that ring the park are dead stoic. Large milky dagger edged blankets of ice hang from the eaves and bright pastel colours do their best to deliver a note of optimism. The wind has taken solid shape in the waves and arcs of the drifting snow -- a calm negative image to its constant force. The larger arcs ramp up to shoulder the roadways in massive heaps. The graders and plows have done an admirable job pushing back against the flow of nature and carving hard vertical edges to the drifts that line the roadsides -- head high to a full grown man. The creek under the gazebo is frozen for half its visible length and as it nears the road it does a strange thing for water any shallower than 5 metres. It remains unfrozen. It passes through the culvert under the road and empties in a shallow splay into the frozen bay. The Sydney harbour itself is covered in a layer of ice and snow and the warmer creek water must sneak in under it. On the other side of the culvert on the dark brown delta of the creek huddle the dark brown ducks. There are a few birds that remain in full summer bright colours. Heads of iridescent emerald, bright white bands and smoky gray splashes are, however, not the norm with this crew. Of the hundred or so ducks most are camouflaged against the brownish black-coated rocks of the creek bed. It is as if they have been painted with the same unflattering brush. There are species of black ducks but these are the ones not intended to be black. Something is wrong here. The ducks have chosen the warm water directly in the outflow of several 8 inch PVC pipes poking from the banks of the creek. A gas station and a utility building of some sort sit higher up on opposing sides of the creek. Their backs are turned. They have business to do in the street. These ducks are quiet. No quarrel or flurries of movement. They expend only the energy required to stay awake. Their choice is to stay.
There are miners and fishermen still here in Cape Breton but not too much mining and fishing. While the adaptation process is slow the home fires still have just enough heat. Plenty have left. It could be said that nature’s way would be to move the flock to a new nesting ground. In winters like these it is a matter of migrate or perish. I’m not sure but I believe its right for ducks to migrate. I’m sure that before towns existed raccoons, and rats also lived in the wilderness. Now they wouldn’t know what to do with the crayfish in a stream or the…whatever rats used to eat before MacDonalds fries. Ducks have wings. This means they have options. Even just a hundred miles south they could enjoy temperatures closer to zero. Here the steam from your breath moves out in a quick wisp and is gone. The outer shell of a “weather proof” jacket turns instantly crisp and crinkly. The upper reaches of your nostrils freeze together with each successive inhalation and frost slowly reaches down from your eyebrows and into the blurry fringes of your field of vision. The closest fishing boat is so icebound that it appears more like one of those dry-docked and landscaped theme restaurants than an actual functioning vessel. It must have seemed quite hospitable in the mines on days like these. The greatest antidote to the cold, however, is the bright and clear serenity of a day like this. These ducks are opportunists beyond logic. Why leave a warm spot even if it appears to be your prison? The beauty that is revealed after the longsuffering winter must be worth the price. Chemical poisoning aside these ducks abide by the same love of Cape Breton that so many others will never shake. This is home. Bad lungs and a bad back but everyone understands me here. Black ducks of Sydney.