Jack and Zack and the Chaloupe

Chaloupe

Hullo again – Yes, it’s us – the famous two-headed calf! The rain is pouring down so we won’t go out today, but yesterday, when no-one was looking, we slipped down the back stairs, past the Senator Stage we told you about last time, and peeked into the boat workshop. The men were working outside so we did a bit of exploring – there were all kinds of tools – old ones were hanging on the wall and rather scary ones sat on benches. Zack pressed something and a silvery round object with sharp teeth whizzed round very fast and made a loud buzzing noise – wow – we hid fast because a man poked his head in and looked very puzzled…’No-one here’ he said, and pulled out a plug. We found a heap of sawdust – that was great – we kicked around in that for a bit…yeah – it flew all over the place, but I sneezed several times and we had to hide again as the man came back in. He seemed a bit cross about the mess we’d made and muttered about the ‘need to sweep up’. We heard them talking about a canoe which I think was what we were hiding under -if we were a bit bigger we could have walked it out of the workshop, on our back, but perhaps they would have spotted a canoe moving around with 4 legs under it! Yes, they were certainly building a canoe – we rather fancy a trip on the Waugh River – holding the paddles could be a problem…but… we could drift up with the tide and back down again when the tide went out; navigating could be a problem – we might get taken out to sea…that’s a frightening thought ….Headline in local paper – ‘Canoe found at sea with two-headed calf‘ – perhaps we’d better not try it.

Anyway, we managed to get to another wood structure which had a much larger, partly built boat on it. Zack said it was called a scallop, but he is hopeless – it is a chaloupe. I had heard talk about this – these boats were built by early French settlers – the Acadians, in the 1700s; they used the boats to ship food to some place called Louisbourg where there was a big fort (whatever that is) and lots of soldiers. The English didn’t like this so they got rid of the Acadians. I don’t know if Zack and I are French or English – I guess we are just cows…or bulls…or calves!   I quite like the idea of being Captain of the ship…Haul up the anchor…heave to…. walk the gang-plank…splice the main brace…..no idea what it all means but it sounds good! Zack could be cabin boy – if there was a cabin….oh well – nothing like dreaming.

‘Zack – don ‘t do that!’ He’s chewing on a rope…‘It’s holding a flag in place…stop, before you…’   Too late, and there goes the flag- flying toward the stage – and there go the men running after it. It’s starting to rain so guess we had better slip back inside the Heritage Centre, while everyone is occupied elsewhere. There are more buildings we need to investigate…another time, I guess….so we’ll be back again! Come on, Zack.