The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Residents grappling with last year’s mass shooting
PORTAPIQUE — Joy Laking's eyes cloud over, her face tightens in obvious mental anguish and her words come slowly, haltingly.
“It's been a source of depression, and I had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and those symptoms have all, you know, resurfaced. I wouldn't say I'm dealing very well ...,” the Portapique painter and, arguably, its most famous resident says.
“I was really affected. I don't handle conflict and I was for 20 years working on a book on the beauty of Nova Scotia. It was finally done and, all of a sudden something like that happened, you know. I lost three friends and I knew the shooter and his girlfriend. Not as friends, but they were acquaintances. And I knew some of the others.”
The "others" of whom she speaks are the victims who were gunned down or left to burn in their homes during the 13-hour mass shooting rampage that began in this community during the latenight hours of last April 18 and which ultimately claimed
the lives of 22 people and an unborn baby.
Unlike her thoughts of the moment, it is bright and colourful here in Laking’s home gallery, where one sits surrounded by her framed artwork of landscapes, shorelines, bobbing-boat scenes and so many other natural aspects that constitute Nova’s Scotia’s body and soul.
Too often these days, Laking’s thoughts return to a dark place in her mind, created over a 28-year abusive marriage that serves as the source of her PSTD. Despite the fact her previous union is 21 years behind her — and she has now been married to her “wonderful” current husband Jim Wyatt for 15 years — those bad times have returned unbidden as a form of fallout from last year’s tragedy.
Thankfully, Laking says, she has both a “marvellous” psychiatrist and therapist who helps her work through her depressive moods. But as “marvellous” as her mental analysts may be, even they cannot turn back the clock nor restore the well-being she previously enjoyed.
“Well, I learned how debilitating depression can be. I hadn’t really experienced it to that extent before,” says the woman who would otherwise describe herself as a “kind of Pollyanna.”
Since the earth-shattering events of last April, Laking says she doesn’t even follow the news anymore, despite the habit-forming practice her mother had instilled during her teenage years.
“I was in high school and she would despair and say: ‘Well, you have to know what’s going on in the world,’" Laking says. “I used to listen and read the news and now it just bothers me, so I just listen to audiobooks from the library . ... I just don’t want to hear about it.”
Laking still paints these days, of course, but the unconditional trust she once had for strangers and people, in general, has been replaced by the loss of her previous Pollyanna outlook on life overall.
“I absolutely love Portapique, and I love the river, and I love the land, and I love the bay, and I love living here and painting here,” she says, drawing out the last “love” for emphasis.
“And, until all this happened, I absolutely loved all people, everybody I met was just great. You know, offering me places to stay and being kind, even a taco truck in Truro (while she was painting there) came and gave me a taco. People are just really nice, if you are sitting out all day painting. It’s a marvellous place,” she says. "But then you realize, it isn’t all marvellous.”
A short distance away on Portapique Beach Road, former neighbours of the man who tragically turned so many lives topsy turvy, are tending to some spring trimming in front of their property when a stranger stops for a chat.
The couple watched flames light up the night sky as the shooter’s house and those of other neighbouring structures burned to the ground after the rampage had begun. Without having a clue about what was happening they ran door-todoor warning others about the fires burning in the woods behind their properties.
“We’re victims of this but we’re not victims in the sense that, we didn’t lose family. But you’ve got people here that lost family members,” says the husband of the couple, who asked not to be named.
The couple says they are doing their best to move on with their lives. But, in the words of some big-city reporter who warned them about being “inundated” by the media with the dreaded anniversary nigh upon them, they expect the traffic to build up again on their once-quiet road.
“I kind of get a little bit more emotional about it as the anniversary comes,” the man says. “Because when it happened, it was just unbelievable.”
But, on the other hand, the traffic-of-the-curious has never entirely quelled, they say, given the number of sightseers who continue to drive past in hopes of seeing the infamous shooter’s house.
“There’s nothing to see here,” the woman says, of her message to outside intruders. “I don’t have a story. We’re just living and we’re doing.”
The house, of course, is no more and the shooter’s property has been purchased by the provincial government to prevent it from falling into private hands at the risk of it becoming a museum of sorts for the macabre.
“That should be left to Mother Nature. I want the grass to come back and I don’t want anything in there. I just want that left alone,” the woman says. “I didn’t want it to turn into a museum . ... Keep it clean, keep it beautiful.”
Halifax realtor Mark Lummis has owned a cottage on Portapique Beach Road for almost six years. Last year’s events have had an impact on him as well, though he readily acknowledges that his perspective on things differs from those of permanent residents.
“I wouldn’t really say it’s affected me as much as somebody who’s living there year-round. I do find myself thinking about it quite often and thinking about how things have changed in the community and when I am down there, how things just feel different. Going down to the beach isn’t the same. Really, nothing is quite what it was,” he says.
“I think it might be internal to me mostly.”
One big difference is that the camper trailers that once populated a section of the beach are now gone, after the property owner sold the land they once occupied.
The mood of the area has also changed, Lummis said, though he isn’t sure of how much that has to do with the mass murders, the COVID pandemic or a combination of both.
“It doesn’t feel as homey down there without all the campers on the beach,” he says.
“But when I do go down to the beach, you just have this, in the pit of your stomach, a sense of foreboding, kind of thing. And when I drive down there and I see all the no trespassing signs it just doesn’t feel as welcoming as it once did.”
That is a perspective Laking can also relate to — though, for her, it stems from the inside, looking out — a loss of herself with which she continues to struggle.
“People have always been fantastic and it just reminded me that things aren’t always what they seem,” she says.