Local charity elects new board president
Tourists flock to Bird Island Boat Tours
SYDNEY — United Way Cape Breton has elected a Parks Canada employee as its new board president.
Chris Bellemore, an Ontario native who moved to the area six years ago, has been volunteering with the umbrella charity for the past year and a half as a board director. “As someone who was new to Cape Breton, Chris wanted to become involved in community volunteerism in a more meaningful and impactful way,” said United Way Cape executive director Lynne McCarron. “Chris adds value to the board and his willingness to learn has provided him with great leadership qualities.”
For his part, Bellemore has 15 years of experience in co-ordinating volunteers and working with non-profit groups in the areas of facilitation, public relations, event planning, marketing and community development. And he said he’s looking forward to helping lead an organization that has prioritized the funding of local programs aimed at reducing child poverty in Cape Breton. “Child poverty continues to be our primary focus and I’m excited to see where the alignment of partners and resources will us in the coming year,” said Bellemore, who works with Parks Canada as an engagement and partnering specialist.
He replaces past president Brenda Boutilier.
The Cape Breton Post
More people are flocking to Cape Breton to see Atlantic puffins than ever before.
This season, Bird Island Boat Tours saw a 30 per cent increase in the number of people who boarded their 37-foot Cape Islander the Puffin Express this season.
Ian Van Schaick said they took 3,679 people to Hertford and Ciboux islands (known collectively as Bird Islands) off Big Bras d’Or where the stout little seabirds with their penguin-like black-and-white markings and broad, colourful beaks nest each year. That’s 851 more than last season and a 48 per cent jump from the 2,597 people the tour had averaged each of the previous five years.
Van Schaick, who serves as first mate and captain on the tours, credited two factors with the bump in numbers — free admission to Parks Canada sites as part of the country’s 150th birthday, and Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House.
“We actually ask tourists every tour, ‘What made you come to Cape Breton this year? Why this year?’ and the most common answer is the Canada 150,” he said. “And some of them are still running away from Trump — that is still benefitting us — but the big one this year was definitely Canada 150, the parks being free.”
Van Schaick, who operates the seasonal business with his father Vince and mother Sheila, said a children’s book — “There Once was a Puffin” — has also fostered a fascination with the bird, particularly in the United States. The book
by poet and nature writer Florence Page Jaques, which begins “Oh, there once was a puffin/Just the shape of a muffin,” is often cited by tourists as the reason why they wanted to take the tour.
“They actually had to memorize that poem, but being in the States, in let’s say Alabama or something, where there’s not a lot of puffins, they never saw this bird. It was always in the back of their minds: What does this puffin look like? And then they come to Cape Breton and they realize ‘Oh, there’s a tour that you can see puffins. Wow!’ That’s the big draw for my dad’s generation.”
Van Schaick said Hertford and Ciboux islands, which are known collectively as Bird Islands, are ideal nesting sites for the puffins because they are free of humans and rodents, they are protected from prevailing southwest winds, and there are plenty of capelin — the sardine-like fish they feed on — offshore.
“The reason why you don’t see puffins on every island is because they need all four of these characteristics,” he said, noting that the sheer cliffs have plenty of rock holes where the birds and their chicks are safe from predatory gulls.
But it’s not only puffins that bring people out for the boat ride, which lasts about two hours and 45 minutes and includes about an hour and 20 minutes of cruising around the islands looking at wildlife such as the puffin’s close cousin, the razorbill, as well as black-legged kittiwakes, bald eagles, northern gannets, various gulls and cormorants, and grey seals.
Still, the puffins are by far the star attraction, arriving in May and leaving at the end of August, spending the rest of the year floating around on the waves and swimming underwater to eat fish at depths of 100 feet.
“East, west, north, south is not as important as where the fish are. They’ve tracked puffins on other islands where they do studies and tracked them more than 3,000 nautical miles from nesting site,” he said of the birds, which break off into small all-male or all-female flocks of six to 12 before returning to their nesting colonies.
“What I find amazing is they actually spend eight to nine months away from their partner, that they mate with for life, come back, have a chick and then spend another eight to nine months of the year away from their partner.”
For more information about the tour, which runs from May 7 to Sept. 9, visit www.birdisland. net.