The Storyteller

A true story by Erick Sahler

“Think it’ll snow?” he asked, jumping from his small car into the chilly Cape Breton twilight.

Before I could answer, he launched into a hour-long monologue with a 15-minute encore illustrated with a stack of old family photos.

He was Brendan Terry Allen, 68, a lifelong Cape Bretoner with the Celtic gift for storytelling. Cape Breton is on the northern tip of Nova Scotia — “New Scotland” — a land whose people are deeply connected to the sea.

Brendan spoke in a melodic cadence that was pure poetry. He was an expert on the fishery — the current lobster glut, the pure white meat of shrimp-eating cod and how to identify the “right whale” for harvest. He told of shipwrecks, of family and friends lost at sea, and of the unbearable tragedy of a young girl struck and killed just this week by a drunken driver. He told us about the region’s newly diverse culture — hard-working Germans, friendly and helpful Portuguese and a Korean shrink who sneaks in the back door of the psych ward at North Sydney’s hospital to treat patients but avoid dealing with pushy family members waiting in the lobby.

Brendan knew all about the ferries that make daily voyages to Newfoundland. He told us which ships were the fastest, where they were built and how, if they had to, they could make the seven-hour run in just two hours. He told us about ice boat pilots, required for ships to enter the St. Lawrence River in winter, and the difficulty maneuvering against the giant floes of ice.

He told us about the heaven on Earth that is Cape Breton, and how to get to a secret place “so beautiful even my wife with dementia remembers it.”

At first I thought it was a joke, part of the artistic exaggeration of his storytelling. The expression on his face said otherwise.

We empathized with his situation and he thanked us. It was genuine, heartfelt gratitude. Then he stopped talking.

Shut down.

Silent.

I prayed I hadn’t offended him.

“It’s really hard,” he said. “No one knows how hard it is.”

I let his words hang there because it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t need to talk all the time. Maybe he just needed to be heard.

Even in a place of such beauty, even with a long life well-lived, at some point the challenges and uncertainties can multiply until they become crushing. And maybe sometimes a person just needs to have that acknowledged, even if it is by a stranger on a chilly summer night when it feels like it’s about to snow.

On a chilly summer night, Brenden Terry Allen of Cape Breton started talking. An hour later, he was still going.