John Mahoney

End of the Line Pub and Fritzie

ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, NS | Where to start? Yesterday was so filled with good stuff.

The drive from Mahone Bay to the Annapolis Valley across the short width of Nova Scotia was uneventful. The tiny hamlets scattered along Route 10 were clumps of houses with names: New Germany, New Canada, Mushamusha River. Um, boring...

Middleton didn't look promising, lunch-wise, so we moseyed on down to Bridgetown, on our way to Annapolis Royal and our B&B at Clementsport.

The End of the Line Pub, housed in a renovated Dominion Atlantic Railroad station, is one of those pockets of excellence that bring joy to the heart of a hungry sojourner.

Joanne Acker, a single mother of three, owns it. Andrew is the quick-witted wait-guy and "Second in command," and Pretty Woman is the wait-lady.

Pretty Woman isn't her name -- I neglected to ask and then it was too late and now it's six ayem and I don't want to offend her by referring to her as What's Her Face.

Andrew doubles as the dreadlocks-wearing drummer in the pub's Thursday night honky reggae band. True fact.

The ambience is old train station, the draft beer cold and soothing, the frites crisp and hot, the scallops heavenly, and the onion rings divine. Plus, the prices are low.

Go there and eat your fill.

Joanne has her own website: www.endofthelinepub.com -- check it out.

We met Fritzie -- Friederike Mittellehner from Austria -- when we stopped to paw over some antiques. I'm not an antiques freak -- I stayed in the car and pondered life. The Silver Fox came out and said I just had to have a look at some stuff. Grudgingly, I did.

Wow.

Fritzie does 'dressed sculptures.' They are not puppets, although they are jointed. They are not marionnettes, athough some are strung. They are definitely not dolls, although they wear fancy costumes.

They are not like anything I've ever seen and she sells them in Europe for up to $1500 each.

She creates the head, hands, and feet from clay and has them batch-fired. She designs the costumes and creates them in her small studio overlooking the ocean.

They just come to her, she says.

I asked if all those faces and bodies were in her head. She said yes.

I asked if she slept well at night. She said yes, very well, thank you.

How did you come here, I asked. She said she was meant to be here, it was a place of peace where she could work at her thing, and that she never had to be nice to people when she didn't want to because she sold her creations in Europe.

I see, I said.

See this, she said, and she picked up a death doll. It was all about the death of her father and it was fecking grim. She removed the little cloth hat. There was a large penis emerging from the back of the head.

Interesting, I said. Yes, she said.

Fritzie lives with Wm. Dick in a trim white house on the Old Post road high above the ocean. He is a retired Canadian Army officer and intensely into dealing old stuff for stiff prices. I'm going to post some photographs I made of her sculptures next week. Come back and see them.

And then there is The Fat Pheasant in Annapolis Royal, a yupped village in the Valley that is charming.

Linda and Dan Doherty came from Trenton, Ontario five years ago and opened The Fat Pheasant. Lucky local folks, lucky travelers.

Her creamy onion and garlic soup is simply the best I've ever eaten. No disrespect to the Silver Fox, who is the best soupmaker I know. In fact, she liked it so much she finished my bowl.

The rest of the meal was of the same high calibre. There was a fine jazz singer playing keyboard. Low ceiling up stairs, brick exterior wall, low lighting, a pair of tall and lovely young women serving food. One of the girls was Linda and Dan's daughter, the other a friend. The kitchen staff are all local young people. trained by Linda.

If you get to Annapolis Royal, be sure to visit Linda at The Fat Pheasant. She does good work.

We leave the Olde Port of Clements B&B this morning for the one o'clock ferry at Digby. Jim and Christine Povah are our hosts. They moved here from Vancouver Island. Jim is an artist and their home is his art gallery. His website is at http://www.pemberley.ca.

I'll be back in touch from Calais, Maine, tomorrow.

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