Originally called Birchdale Lodge, construction began in 1911 by
Omer Roberts. It operated as a hunting and fishing lodge until
1920. Omer Roberts died in 1921, and the lodge was purchased by
people from Yarmouth who, in turn, sold it to Lloyd Ring in 1930.
The lodge was closed during WWII and in 1945, Lloyd sold the lodge
to his son Selwyn. Selwyn sold the lodge to an American, and it was
this American who sold the lodge to the Spiritual Life Insitute
(SLI) in 1972. The SLI changed the name of the lodge to Nova Nada
and it became a Carmelite hermitage.
The monks who lived there, without electricity and running
water, for 25 years. At this time, J.D. Irving purchased an
adjacent parcel of land and began clear cutting operations. The
noise from harvesting operations began to invade the stillness of
the monastery. The monks requested a two mile logging buffer around
the monastery, but that request was denied by J.D. Irving. The
monks were supported in their plight by the Sierra Club of Canada
and other organizations, but the struggle was not conducive to
monastic life so in 1998, the monks left. Three years later, the
monastery was sold, and now operates as a secular retreat.
The cache is located just outside the entrance to the former
monastery. GPS accuracy at the time of placement was 7m. There are
signs alerting visitors that this is private property, but there
aren't any No Trespassing signs.
The day I placed the cache I did take a walk down to the lake.
It was just beginning to snow and the lake had a thin layer of ice
covering it. The only sound I heard was the sound of falling
snowflakes. So peaceful. Not hard to understand the plight of the
monks at all.
**UPDATE**
After this cache was published, I received a few tidbits of
information from a local, who was not directly involved in this
story.
It seems as though a group of interested citizens who were
curious as to what all the fuss was about, loaded up in a bus and
headed out to the area to have a picnic lunch. The lunch was
enjoyed within 1/2 mile of active harvesting operations, and all
was calm.
Eventually, it was felt locally that this became not so much an
issue between the monks and J.D.Irving but an issue between the
Sierra Club and "Big Business"
As always, there are 2 sides to every story.
This cache placed as part of the
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