It’s what this shot doesn’t show that was the real highlight of the moment.

On Friday, I was at Skmaqn—Port-la-Joye—Fort Amherst National Historic Site on PEI. I was there to be interviewed on camera for a film about the history of the site.

The location selected to film my bit—which probably took 30 minutes—was a wooden folding chair located surprisingly close to the edge of sandstone cliff. Maybe a foot from the edge. The drop over the edge was perhaps 12 to 20 feet.

It was when I was first seated in that chair, that I took this shot.

I wouldn’t have been injured too badly had the chair collapsed—it was ocean below not rocks. The chair stayed where it was put, and I didn’t lean back at all. And the interview went well everyone said.

Had I been facing the other way, and seen how close I was to the edge, I might not have been able to find my words as well as I did.

The fellow seated on the left, with papers in his hand, is Jesse Francis. He and I are soon to release our second book, “Ancient Land, New Land”, which incidentally is about the same site where this filming took place.

Also noteworthy in the photo is the fellow on the far right. He was not dressed warmly enough for the seaside location, so Parks Canada’s Barb MacDonald went into the nearby visitor centre and found something for him to wear. Yup. It was a Compagnies franches justaucorps exactly like those worn at the Fortress of Louisbourg.