| The Road Home by Mark Giberson, BA '76 |
| Editor’s note: Former director of university relations and alumni affairs Mark Giberson, BA ‘76, will be one of about three dozen Canadians who’ll be sharing their memories about the Trans Canada Highway in a 90-minute television documentary that’s due to air later this spring. The Longest Road, a co-production of the National Film Board and Calgary-based Interstate 80 Entertainment Inc., celebrates the highway’s 50th anniversary. Mark was selected from several hundred Canadians who responded to an invitation from the producers to talk about what the highway has meant to them. Mark’s segment of the show was shot outside of Fredericton in mid-November. The program is expected to be broadcast in June on History Television, A-Channel and SCN. Here’s Mark’s story.
The Trans Canada brought me back home. It helped me to understand the importance of place; the power of memory; the meaning of family. My journey began in the fall of 1972. I was 17. A kid going off to university—in another country, no less. A year earlier, I had decided that my future was in Canada: an attractive alternative to jail, since I had no intentions of registering for the draft. I was an American back then, living in a small town in southern Maine. The Vietnam War was all but lost, but that hadn’t stopped the Selective Service from calling up young men my age to go off to the slaughter. That wasn’t for me. I had finished high school a year early to avoid being in the United States on my eighteenth birthday—the day on which, by law, young men were duty bound to report to their local draft boards. I had applied to and been accepted by St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. A mere 300 miles from my home town, but a world away, in Canada. I made the trip to New Brunswick with my father. We had spent a couple of days in northern Maine, visiting my Uncle Frank and Aunt Iva before crossing over to Canada and motoring down to Fredericton on the Trans Canada. My father didn’t approve of my decision. I suppose, as a traitor, I was something of an embarrassment. Relations between us had been strained. We’d given up discussing the matter, but underneath the silence there was that unmistakable taste of animosity; disappointment. We’d been on the Trans Canada about a half hour or so when my father looked over to me and said, “That’s funny. We must have passed at least a half a dozen exits since we got on this road and every one of them goes to Sor-Tee. That must be one helloffa big town. Why have I never heard of it before?” I looked at my father in disbelief. His expression hadn’t changed. He was serious. “Sortie is the French word for exit,” I explained. “The signs here are bilingual: they’re in English and in French.” My father broke into a roar. I followed his lead. We laughed until we cried. And then, it got quite again. A few miles farther down the road I looked over again at my dad. Tears were streaming down his face. But this time, there was no laughter. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “The Tobique. That exit sign we just passed. It said, ‘the Tobique’.” I was mystified. “I haven’t seen nor heard of that place since I was a boy,” he said. “My father used to come over here fishing. With his relatives. My god, my father must have come along this road, or one like it.” I knew that my grandfather had moved to Maine from New Brunswick when he was a boy. He had died when my own father was just 15. We had ties to the Gibersons in New Brunswick. We were United Empire Loyalists, in fact. But we’d long since lost touch with our roots. Thanks to the road signs along the Trans Canada, my father was reconnecting to his past. And, in the process, he reconnected with me. More signs evoked more memories. Bath. Bristol. Perth-Andover. The sweet sounding names of little towns along the upper reaches of the Saint John River valley. My dad began telling me stories about his father. Memories stretching back 40 years. The stories, punctuated with tears. And then he said this:”You’ve come home, boy. You’re bringing the family back to where we began. My dad was a Canadian, and now, you’re going to be one, too. I’m proud of you, boy. You’re doing the right thing.” |
By
the St. John River. Mark Giberson, BA ‘76 (left),
gets instructions from director Kevin Alexander (second from left) as
director of photography Sean Hening (third from left) and sound engineer
Gary Bruckner (fourth from left) record the moment.