BROOK VILLAGE — Karen Allen and Timothy Burns have made it through their first winter. For a small retail business in rural Nova Scotia, that is typically a milestone.
There aren’t many tourists beating down Highway 395, between Whycocomagh and Mabou, in February. But the Brook Village Grocery has kept its doors open ever since Sandy (Tulloch) MacDonald opened them for the first time during the early 1860s.
“Oh, I think they’re doing pretty good,” said Lawrence Mac-Donald, who sold Allen and Burns the store last summer.
“They’re pleasant and well liked in the community. Plus, they’ve got energy and some great ideas.”
As much as anyone is an owner of a community’sgeneral store, they are its caretaker. They make their impression on it and the community it serves and then hand it over to another generation.
MacDonald left Blackstone, a few kilometres up the road, as a teenager bent on seeing the world.
His career in the air force saw him stationed at a radar station in rural British Columbia then Japan,Germany, Ottawa, New Brunswick and Halifax.
He retired at 48.
The kids were grown but he and his wife, Mary, weren’t done yet. So they bought the store in 1997, started volunteering and immersed themselves in Brook Village.
“You get to know everyone so well,” said MacDonald. “And you become a jack of all trades. People don’t just come by to buy things, maybe they need something faxed or they need a quart of oil in their vehicle.”
The hours are long and the margins of the small store don’t justify staff — for MacDonald that meant nearly 70 hours a week at the store when he was technically retired.
In 2012 MacDonald figured it was time to pass it on and offered it up for sale. But he wasn’t willing to be the one who closed the doors on the only store for 30 kilometres, when no buyers stepped forward.
It was five years before Allen and Burns were out for a drive.
“We saw the sign and Tim said: ‘Some young people need to move here and bring that store back to life’,” remembered Allen, 31.
“I said, ‘Well, Tim . . .’.”
Allen had been a brewer at the Gahan House on the Halifax waterfront and Burns did
inventory analysis for a company in Quebec. Both are originally from rural Nova Scotia — Allen from Maryvale and Burns from Falmouth — they’d given up those careers to move to Cape Breton.
“There is actually opportunity here,” said Allen. “You just have to make it for yourself. You can do anything here, if you do it well, you can make it work.”
They want their tenure at the helm of Brook Village Grocery to be known for a renewed focus on local products. On Tuesday,
they were selling Whycocomagh Bay Honey, bread from Mill Road Social Enterprises, Galloping Cows preserves and Blue Marsh Farm garlic, along with other local products.
Although the tannery, two other stores and a forge — that were in Brook Village when Sandy Mac-Donald arrived from Scotland — are long gone, Brook Village is still a busy little place. There are four large dairy farms along the road and new houses going up.
“There are more young people around here thanyou would think,” said Allen. “They’re doing all manner of things. If you want to stay in Cape Breton you do what you have to to make that happen.”
On Tuesday, Burns, 29, was making small talk with the customers that came and went.
The snow was melting. And he was already looking ahead to the Monday night square dances that will be starting in June at the parish hall across the road.
“The best dances in the province,” said Burns.
