According to legend, about five hundred years ago a Mi’kmaq named We'jitu - We’ to his friends – was told by his wife in no uncertain terms to pop down to the ocean and get a couple of pounds of fish for dinner . When he arrived at the shore, he stumbled upon a shortish Italian who greeted him with the following , now famous, lines: “ Ciao. Mi chiamo Giovanni. Excuse, non parla Italiano ? My name is John . I am the discoverer of this land ”.

We’ shrugged his shoulders, chatted for a while longer then sauntered back to his village. Arriving home, he petted the dog, took out the garbage, spotted his wife and told her about a leak in the roof he had just noticed.” Oh, and by the way”, he added, “ it appears that we have been discovered”. “That’s nice dear”, his wife replied, “ did you remember the fish ?”.

This scene would repeat itself from time to time over the next few decades. Conversations would go something like this:

We’ Jr. : “I’d like to just sit and carve for the afternoon. Are we expecting company?”
His Wife: “ Oh yes dear. It’s 1605 , remember . The French are supposed to pop by and discover us.”
We’ Jr.: “Is that it?”
His wife:” Well, the Scots said that they’d be by in a bit, after the English have made their discovery. Oh, and don’t forget about the Germans. They are running a bit late, but they still want to come over and discover us. Maybe after dinner, they said “.
We’ Jr.: “ Bugger it. I’m going out to hunt. You deal with them”.

Thus, on the whole, the ‘discovery’ of Nova Scotia appears quite unoriginal : European sails about, bumps into a piece of land, slaps a ‘found’ sticker on it, then repeats the process. But recently there has been a bit of a re-write. The new plot goes something like this: European sails about, bumps into land, sees that someone has scratched “General Zheng He was here” on a rock close-by, and realizes that as discoverers go, he is a bit of a late bloomer. After this initial scare, he decides to have a look around, and seeing that he can’t find any Chinese milling about, concludes that the land is now his after all.

Why does this re-write include the Chinese, an observant reader might ask? Well, many centuries ago (or some long time ago as we natives would say) it appears that the Chinese suddenly developed a hankering for pewter napkin holders and lobster tails. “Right” one of them said, “I know just the place”, and off they popped to our lovely shores.

Once here, so the theory goes, they looked around, found that the place had a certain rustic charm but realized that there was something missing: a wall. Being Chinese, they had heaps of experience in these matters and constructed one post haste.

For anyone who has ever spent a summer in Cape Breton, it quickly becomes apparent that a wall – although undoubtedly interesting – will not fulfill the human need for entertainment for too long. Having stared at their new wall with satisfaction for a few months, the Chinese decided that enough was enough. They went and bought some pewter card holders for their wives back home, scoffed down one last lobster tail, and headed back, satisfied that their time had been well spent.

It must be added, that this version of our history is still rather speculative . Once their apoplectic fits have subsided, our brave historians will no doubt try to carve a few holes in this new fangled theory. I for one, don’t believe a word of it, since I was there when our province was first discovered by an Austrian couple going by the name of Herr and Frau Hinkelhuber.

The historical occasion starts two weeks ago, at our very own airport, where I happened to be for some reason or another. While trying to guess which flight would be delayed and which one would be cancelled, I was approached by a reddish and rotund gentleman, who looked rather confused .

“Where am I ?”, he began the conversation . I told him , that he had the good fortune to have landed in the best city in the world (not counting Avon), to which he replied “so this is not England?”. I repeated the geographic details, and showed him our exact coordinates on a globe that I happened to have with me for occasions such as this. He looked surprised and pleased . “ Liebchen”, he yelled to his wife. “ we have discovered Nova Scotia! Phone home and tell the Chancellor! ”.

From there, things progressed rapidly. Within a week, the first Austrian settlers arrived by charter airplane, planting their flag smack downtown Halifax. They brought along a few trinkets which they traded for Yarmouth and surrounding communities. A month later, a few of us started to wear Lederhosen and learned to yodel, while our politicians were busy ingratiating themselves to our new colonial masters by learning the Austrian anthem and erecting statues to Mozart and Stifter.

Today, a certain bewilderment amongst the general population can still be detected. Not everyone is happy with our mandatory weekly waltzing lessons and the new marzipan donuts now served at every Tim Horton’s . The confusion continues to spread far and wide, except amongst the Mi’kmaq: they had seen it all before.