There is no doubt that many plants designated as “weeds” are harmful and must be controlled. A recent alert on milkweed spelled out, for example, the devastation this plant can wreak on agricultural land and livestock if allowed to spread.

Another recent news release on the adverse affects of ragweed pollen made it clear that weeds are no friends of man. A booklet published in 1986 by the department of agriculture and marketing – Weeds of Nova Scotia – designates at least 100 plants as weeds that must be controlled or eradicated. Over five times this number of plants are designated as weeds by the federal government. The publication Weeds of Canada lists over 500 plants that make our lives miserable in one way or another.

Weeds are our enemy; living in an areas with an economy largely based on agriculture, most of us realize this.

However, some weeds have a beneficial side. A number of plants designated as weeds have been used for centuries as foods and to treat various ailments. A simple example is the homeowner’s curse, the dandelion. The roots, leaves and flowers of the dandelion can be used in various ways – the greens in salads (you can buy them in some supermarket produce sections) and as a spring tonic; the roots dried, ground up and used as a coffee substitute; the crown as a vegetable; the flowers as a potent wine.

With apologies to those who, due to their livelihood, wage an on-going battle with unwanted plants, following from various sources are some of the alleged uses for the most common weeds.

Milkweed: This scourge of farm land is said to be a versatile wild vegetable. The young shoots of the plant, the newly opened leaves, unopened flower buds and the young pods are shown in wild food guides as vegetables. One wild food guide mentions that in the 18th century, French Canadians made brown sugar from the nectar secreted by milkweed blossoms but the exact process has been lost.

St. John’s Wort: A deadly weed that, when eaten by livestock, has disastrous consequences. While it has no known food value, this plant is being seriously studied for its medicinal properties. AIDS researchers believe St. John’s Wort may contain a chemical that will combat AIDS. The juice extracted from flowers of St. John’s Wort may be used to treat wounds, burns, sunburn and the pain of neuralgia and sciatica according to the Canadian Journal of Health and Nutrition.

Red-Root Pigweed or Green Amaranth: A nasty weed that is rightfully lambasted in government publications on weeds. The wild food guides list several uses for this plant – as a green, using the young leaves and tips of the plant, and in bread and gruel, using the seeds. The plant is being investigated for medicinal uses. One of my reference books notes that this plant was once cultivated by Indians as a grain crop, the seeds being used to make meal.

Chamomile: Listed in Weeds of Nova Scotia and Weeds of Canada and sold as an herbal tea at coffee shops. Used as a mild tranquilizer. Several recent studies indicate that an extract of chamomile may be useful in preventing stomach cancer and to treat skin infection. In Europe chamomile is used in throat sprays and in various ointments and lotions.

The summer flu flattened me recently, leaving a headache that wouldn’t go away. Aspirin and acetaminophen failed to dull the pain. I suffered for several days before I found the cure for the headache in my kitchen cupboard. I had been off coffee for nearly a week while the flu ran its course. It dawned on me that the persistent headache was a symptom of caffeine withdrawal.

You may not believe that someone who averages one cup of coffee a day would have withdrawal symptoms. But this is exactly what happened. I made a cup of instant coffee, drank it and got instant relief; several minutes later the headache disappeared.

If coffee hadn’t cured my headaches before, I wouldn’t have thought of trying it. Several people mentioned having head pain for days when they gave up coffee and this also prompted me to try caffeine for my headache.

Obviously, I’m hooked on coffee and in one sense this makes me a drug addict. I’m not alone, however. Millions of people world-wide kick-start their day with a mug of java. The consumption by North Americans alone is estimated at billions of cups annually.

You may think it nonsense to suggest anyone who needs a daily injection of caffeine is an addict. You’ll change your mind about this if you try to give up your daily cup of coffee. As for coffee or the caffeine in it being a drug – used here in the sense that a drug is an substance that causes addiction or habituation – you can argue with experts about the pros and cons of this.

Coffee is definitely addictive but, on the other hand, it’s a pleasant, stimulating drink. One or two cups of coffee a day may do you more good than harm. I’ve seen reports that a mild coffee habit greases the workplace and makes people more productive and, in some cases, more creative. While the reports came from food companies that control the coffee bean market, there’s some truth in them.

You probably heard the latest report: that you can safely drink as many as five cups of coffee a day without worrying about caffeine increasing your blood pressure and increasing cholesterol levels. The report didn’t associate blood pressure and cholesterol with caffeine, but both are affected adversely by high coffee consumption.

There may be other problems as well for people who drink coffee excessively. From the Nutrition Almanac:

“If consumed in excess, coffee can cause increased nervous symptoms, aggravate heart and artery disorders and irritate the lining of the stomach. (Coffee may also cause) vitamins to be pumped through and out of the body before they can be properly absorbed.”

On the negative side as well, the book Drugs Through the Ages includes coffee in its history of drug addiction and mentions its “psychoactive properties.” Webster’s dictionary defines psychoactive as “affecting the mind’ or behaviour.”

On the positive side, a cup of black coffee contains only three calories, has no cholesterol and only a trace of fat. Coffee also has a smattering of nine minerals, two vitamins and carbohydrates. Add two per cent milk and you almost but not quite have a health drink.

Local writer Eileen Harris called with some interesting comments after the column on aboiteau. Ms. Harris tells me that where she grew up in the eastern end of Kings County, aboiteau was always pronounced “abatoe”, (abba-toe) with even emphasis on the syllables. This was the standard, accepted pronunciation, she said. She had never heard aboiteau spoken with the “R” sound, (ar-ba-toe), which I said was probably the most common usage.

Anyway, arbatoe or abatoe, natives know what we mean when we use the word and this is what counts. What the locals may not know is what people mean when they talk about the dykes. As Ms. Harris pointed out when she called, it’s common for natives to confuse dyke with dyked land, that is, calling the seawalls and reclaimed land behind the walls “the dyke”, and making no distinction between the two.

Correctly, speaking, the dyke is the sea wall that contains rivers and ocean, while the land behind the walls is the dyked lands. So to answer the question posed in the heading of this column, a dyke is not a dyke when it’s the land the walls protect from ocean and river.

As I said, most locals make no distinction between dyke and dyked land. Even farm families who, for generations, have been farming the dykes make no distinction. Esther Clark Wright makes note of this in her wonderful book, Blomidon Rose. “If a neighbour reports that her husband is down on the dyke,” Ms. Wright says, “she probably means that he is haying on the dyked lands, or ploughing or tending the cattle pastured there.”

Ms. Wright notes that only here in this area of the Valley do we generally fail to make a distinction between the dyke and dyked land. Where there are dykes elsewhere in the province, Wright says, the dyked land is generally called marshland.

Growing up within a stone’s throw of the dykes and dyked land, I learned early that “the dyke” meant everything – the wall and the dyked land. When local waterfowl hunters speak of hunting on the dykes, the common meaning is the arable land, not the walls. Marshlands are the wet, swampy areas behind the sea walls. Hunters, and most people in fact make a distinction between marshland and the dykes.

It is my experience that people will occasionally establish a difference between the sea walls and dyked land by referring to the “dyke wall.” I’ve heard people mention bird watching on the dyke wall, walking on the dyke wall and hunting ducks on the dyke wall. People use “dyke wall” only to indicate the section of dyke they are using, however. This usage to me is a clear indication that people take the dyke to mean the sea wall and the dyked land. Why else would they call it the “dyke wall?”

Another distinction rarely made is the difference between the two types of dykes we have here – running dykes and cross dykes. The former “runs” along rivers, by the way, and can be seen on major and minor streams in this area. The latter were generally built across rivers with a gate or aboiteau. Another mystery is why we spell dyke with a “y.” Does it have something to do with the possibility that the ancestors of the Acadians learned the art of dykemaking from the Dutch?

When I was walking down the meat aisle of a grocery store yesterday, the clerk mentioned reading my column on old-time weather forecasting. “You left out one of the best weather signs,” the clerk said. “My grandfather always said you could tell the weather from the way the brine worked in a batch of sauerkraut.”

Sauerkraut brine predicting the weather? It sounds bizarre and you may certainly scoff and snicker. However, the clerk’s mention of the connection between ‘kraut and stormy weather kindled long-forgotten memories. I recalled that when I was a boy, it was a tradition to store wooden buckets of sauerkraut in our basement. I also remembered my father saying on more than one occasion that brine rose to the top of the ‘kraut bucket when storms were approaching.

This is all folklore foolishness, of course, but not that long ago people believed there was a sauerkraut and white magic connection. For example, in Folklore of Lunenburg County (published 1950 by the Museum of Canada), sauerkraut is mentioned in more than one strange context. From the chapter on foods, toasts and crops: “Kraut is best without any green leaves on and should be made in the growing moon, as brine rises then and falls when the moon is emptying.”

“To make kraut, cut the growing cabbage in the growing moon and you will always have broth on the cabbage.”

And; “Brine rises in the growing moon. When it is done I draw the brine off and add ice water and I always have good kraut.”

As a sauerkraut lover, I recall sneaking into the basement, lifting the stone that kept the barrel cover in place and dipping into the ‘kraut. At times the brine was over the cover and at times the cover was dry. Maybe brine does mysteriously rise and fall in the ‘kraut barrel according to moon phases or highs and lows in barometric pressure – thus indicating weather changes. Generations of old-time weather prognosticators couldn’t be wrong, could they?

Now if someone told me ‘kraut brine had curative powers, I’d be less inclined to be sceptical. This is another old, old bit of folklore, but there appears to be some truth to it. Sauerkraut juice is believed to be good medicine and recent investigations indicate that maybe it is. Health experts tell us vegetables of the cruciferous family are cancer fighters and it’s possible their fermented juices are also effective.

Besides ‘kraut brine, it seems I also neglected to mention another natural sign that forecasts the weather. “Sun dogs are supposed to forecast weather changes,” a family member said after reading the column on old-time weather forecasting.

I chastised myself over that omission. How could anyone forget sun dogs, not to mention moon dogs? There was a Gypsy in our household when I was growing up and she always “told the weather” by sun dogs and moon dogs.

“Sun dogs in the evening, a storm is coming,” she’d say. A moon dog in winter, according to the Gypsy, meant the weather would remain cold and snowy for days. A moon dog in summer, on the other hand, indicated a spell of high humidity. Then there was the Gypsy’s favourite line about the moon holding water (a quarter-moon tipped on its side) which indicated heavy rains in the immediate future. Strangely, I can’t recall how accurate the Gypsy’s forecasts were.

The man you’re looking for lives a couple of houses north of the Canning aboiteau,’ I said to a friend when giving directions.

Like most long-time residents of the Minas Basin side of Kings County I said “arbatoe” for aboiteau and this brought a puzzled look from my friend. “Okay, I know where Canning is.” he said, “but what’s an arbatoe? Is that Valley slang?”

Fresh from the wilds of Ottawa, my friends wasn’t familiar with everyday Valley speech. “R-BA-TOE,” I said, emphasizing each syllable and then spelling the word. “It’s from Acadian French, I think, and it’s a Seagate that controls the flow of salt water.”

I added a weak “1 think it’s a seagate anyway,” since I wasn’t sure exactly to what the word referred. Seagate, sluiceway, or maybe the sea wall around the gate and sluice. I don’t know if aboiteau is one of these or all of them combined. I know that if I refer to the aboiteau and pronounce it ‘arbatoe’ when talking with locals, they not only know what I mean generally, but they know exactly where the aboiteau is located.

Few dictionaries have the word “aboiteau” in them; I found it in one, and one only, and the definition given was simple – seagate that controls tidal flow. Locally, however, most people think of the aboiteau as the wall around and beside the seagates. You often hear water fowlers mention hunting ducks “on the aboiteau,” for example. In this case they mean the wall running over and away from the seagate.

The word “aboiteau” is interesting since, besides place names, it is one of only a few Acadian words still in use in the colloquial language of Kings County. The Acadians began building dykes soon after they settled beside the Minas Basin. Into their dykes, usually on streams and rivers, they placed sluice gates with valves that permitted drainage of fresh water and shut out salt water. The Acadians called their sluice gate and valve arrangements by a name that has come down to us as “aboiteau,” which, as I said, over the generations has come to mean something more than a sluice with a valve that controls salt water.

The origin of the word aboiteau appears to be a mystery. In the 1935 blossom festival magazine, Berton E. Robinson mentions “aboiteau” in an article on dyke building by Acadians. Robinson says the word presents a mystery. “Aboiteau (is) a word whose origin is lost,” Robinson writes. “One spelling, ‘abateau’, suggests that is might come from ‘abbatre’, to beat back; but there is not standard spelling and no standard pronunciation. The word, however, is in daily use in the Valley.”

Even today, 61 years later, Robinson is right. While the spelling of ‘aboiteau” may now be standard, pronunciation isn’t. The most widely used pronunciation is “ar-ba- toe”, which is the way I pronounce the word – and which I am certain is incorrect. Some people, foreigners no doubt from outside Kings County, try to pronounce the word the way it is spelled – “a-boit-toe.” I’ve also heard “aba-toe,” and “arbor-toe,” the latter being the second most common pronunciation.

Native Valley people, it is said, know what dykes are. You can tell if someone is from Kings County, it is also said, by asking them to pronounce “aboiteau.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if snow had fallen overnight when the thermometer plummeted recently. While putting on a sweater and a jacket in late June is unusual, most of us folks of the older generations have seen snowfalls before in this month. It seems to me there were June flurries sometimes in the last decade, but I’ll check that out later.

As for being surprised by the cold snap, no one should have been. With the weather channel’s continuous forecasts and weather updates being churned out on the radio every 10 minutes, how could anyone have been caught unaware?

Speaking of forecasts, isn’t it amazing how everyone is preoccupied with the weather. Almost an obsession, isn’t it? Seems to me the subjects people like to take about most, in order of preference, are the weather, themselves, the weather, their children, the weather, food prices, the weather, politics, the weather…

It wasn’t that way in our great-grandpappy’s day, by the way. The nearly total dependence on television and radio weather forecasts, that is. Great-grandpappy had his own methods of weather forecasting and they had nothing to do with flicking a switch and turning on the radio or TV. Great-grandpappy’s weatherman – or weatherperson if you prefer to be correct – was the barnyard, the sky and the creatures great and small that made up the natural world around him.

Great-grandpappy looked to the sky to determine the possibility of rain for example. Remember the poem you learned in childhood about red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning? Great-grandpappy believed that most storms that approached came from the east and travelled west, so a red sunrise meant the possibility of approaching storm clouds. When the sky was red at sunset, the storm clouds had passed over.

To great-grandpappy, gray morning skies and soft-looking clouds meant good weather to come. But if the clouds were close to the horizon and moved swiftly, cool weather and rain were at hand. Rolled or ragged clouds signified heavy winds on the morrow. But great-grandpappy didn’t worry if the clouds had dark edges since, to him, this meant light winds only.

Some of great-grandpappy’s natural weather signs were accurate. You’ve probably noticed that frantic feeding activity of birds often presages a storm, especially in winter. Great-grandpappy’s belief that highflying birds meant good weather in the offing also has some truth in it.

Old-time weather watchers observed insects, birds and even farm animals to get a handle on coming changes. The following “weather signs” were, handed down from generation to generation and, until the advent of the modern day weatherman, were taken as gospel:

• Dogs intently sniffing the air frequently; stormy weather coming.
• Farmyard fowl huddling together and picking feathers; a drastic weather change.
• Beetles and spiders suddenly becoming active; a drastic weather change.
• Dry weather followed a heavy dew.
• Flies bite harder and are more persistent on approaching storms.
• Broken spider webs, stormy weather in a day or two.

“The potential of the fine, sandy beach along the shore of Long Island as a tourist attraction was recognized in the latter part of the 19th century when picnics were there,” Eileen Bishop writes in a collection of essays (privately published as Eileen’s Short but True Stories).

Ms. Bishop might have added that beaches all along the Minas Basin shore have been luring people for hundreds of years. First the Micmacs, then the Acadians; and, in turn, the Planters and Loyalists; all found that the unobstructed beaches of Minas Basin were useful for various reasons.

It wasn’t until 1886, however, that the commercial potential of Evangeline Beach was tapped. Tourists were probably the last thing Charles A. Patriquin had in mind when, in partnership with Franklin P. Rockwell, he opened a picnic area and playground on the beach. Patriquin probably hoped that, at best, the beach would be patronized by local families, church groups, schools and so on. But in 1900, Evangeline Beach was attracting thousands of summer visitors and a hotel was erected.

Today, Evangeline Beach is a quiet haunt of cottagers and campers. People still enjoy its beaches, but the glory days of the ’30s and ’40s when Evangeline was one of the most popular day and night spots in western Nova Scotia are gone.

Evangeline Beach may have peaked in popularity during World War Two when servicemen made its dance hail, the romantic “Starlight Room”, the place to be on Friday nights.

In earlier days, however, Evangeline Beach was the summer destination of thousands. When W.M. Black purchased Evangeline Beach in 1909, cottages, a dance and meeting hall and stables were erected. Black was said to be one of the first in the area to own an automobile – which he used to transport guests from the Grand Pre station – and he showed foresight by offering gasoline and oil at the beach.

There were many attractions for “locals” and tourists. A tourist brochure from 1909 mentions “exquisite bathing” only a few feet from beachfront cottages. The hotel dining room was open in season, serving meals described as satisfactory, but “not elaborate.” A large building curiously named “The Casino” was available for concerts, picnics and private parties and dances. Among the shade trees near the beach were picnic grounds. Later owners added swings, slides and teeter-totters for kids and another building with a curious name, the “Yellow Canary”, which offered ice cream and other refreshments. From a bandstand in front of the hotel there were nightly concerts during the peak of the tourist and vacation season.

Just after the turn of the century, Evangeline Beach offered fully furnished cottages from $3 to $6 per week, with meals included starting at $1.50 a day per person. Bathing suits could be rented for $.10 a day, row boats for $.30 an hour.

Since Patriquin first opened Evangeline Beach 110 years ago, six owner/operators have left their mark on the area. With a bit of nostalgia perhaps, people of our parent’s generation will best remember the beach from the dance years when bands the likes of Mart Kenny and “Moon” Landers provided the accompaniment for burgeoning romances.

Except for a handful of dubious, far-fetched ghost stories, I once heard a lecturer say, in effect, that Nova Scotia is too young a land to have any true mysteries.

The comeback, of course, is “hogwash.” One could immediately point to the widely known “Money Pit” at Oak Island, which has baffled people since it was discovered two centuries ago. At least 15 separate expeditions have failed in attempts to solve the Oak Island mystery and the final chapter is yet to be written.

When he spoke at the service club meeting, the lecturer to whom I referred may not have known the connection Nova Scotia may have with ancient civilizations. It is unproven, but there is speculation that the Carthaginians traded with the Micmacs in ancient times. This speculation comes from markings found on a rock near Shelburne – which a Harvard professor said was proof that by 410 A.D., Carthaginians were crossing the Atlantic and trading with the Micmacs.

Along the same line is the Yarmouth Stone, a 400-pound boulder with markings that appear to be ancient writing. The Yarmouth Stone was found in 1812: Over the year, the “inscriptions” on it have defied the efforts of translators and interpreters. Over the years, the markings have been said to be of Norse, Japanese, Mycenian, Micmac and Basque origin, and the natural product of erosion.

There is speculation that Nova Scotia was visited by various ancient civilizations hundreds of years before Columbus. Frederick Pohl discusses this speculation in his book, Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus (1961). The 1976 book by Barry Fell, America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World, also mentions ancient visits to Nova Scotia. Closer to home, Lunenburg County author, George Young, writes about the same subject in his 1980 booklet, Ancient Peoples and Modern Ghosts.

Some historians and folklore students have speculated that the Micmac god, Glooscap, was an early European visitor. Glooscap’s origin remains a mystery, but attempts have been made to prove he was an ancient visitor to these shores. Frederick Pohl presented evidence that Sinclair explored Nova Scotia around the year 1398 and spent a year with the Micmacs. Glooscap, Pohl said, may be the memory of an amazing man who, to the Micmacs, would have indeed appeared to be godlike.

There is also a local mystery that may never be explained. When he explored the area around the Minas Basin in 1606, Champlain made a baffling discovery. In a harbour near Cape Split, Champlain found what he described as a “very old cross.” Champlain wrote that this was evidence of Christian visitors to the area before the French arrived.

Also baffling and very much a Nova Scotia mystery is the reference on old maps of a community called “The Cross.” In his book, Holy Grail across the Atlantic, Michael Bradley mentions this mysterious community and says it is the site of ancient ruins.

The community is described as being situated almost midway between Mahone Bay and the Bay of Fundy. Where would that put it? Around New Ross or the Forties or perhaps around East Dalhousie?

Who says Nova Scotia is a dull little province with no mysteries?