PORTAPIQUE, N.S. — White paint is chipping on the old Portapique Church. Truth be told, the whole building has fallen into a bit of disrepair, worn down by time and weather. But still it stands.
On Tuesday, April 21, Cees van den Hoek and a friend were placing flowers at the front and putting lattice work up and beginning the steps needed to give it a facelift.
After the church stopped operating about 15 years ago, van den Hoek bought the building to house an antique store. It’s been vacant for a while now and while his plans were to sell it he’s decided to allow it to be used for the time being as a place to put memorials to the victims of the killings that began just a few hundred yards away on the weekend.
“I put my address out there so people can mail things and we’ll post them for them,” he said. “People from wherever in the country can send mail to me and I’ll put them up for them.”
He believes a place of healing like this is important, particularly because of COVID-19 restrictions, most people can’t come to pay tribute as they have in other tragedies.
“It just helps other people deal with it.”
Tributes can be mailed to van den Hoek at 6896 Hwy 2, Portapique, N.S., B0M 1B0 for placement at the church.
'It's a pretty scary thing that it was right here'
At the top of Portapique Beach Road, flowers and other tributes have been left already in honour of some of the victims. On Tuesday, RCMP were still blocking the entrance and limiting access.
In the community, where grief began, people are beginning to work in the yards again – hanging laundry on the line and doing farm work.
Jeff Tanner was painting his transport truck trailer in his driveway. He’s still processing all that happened.
“It’s a pretty scary thing that it was right here,” he said.
Saturday night he had seen the flames of homes burning and then rumours began to spread on Facebook about what was happening. Soon cops and ambulances were parking in his yard.
“You could see the flames of all the places burning down there,” he said.
But still, he says, most people in the community were left in the dark about what was going on.
Public alert questions
“If people didn’t call me, I wouldn’t have known to lock my doors,” Tanner said. “It’s pretty sickening really. I have two little girls with me here.”
Like many people have in the aftermath of the tragedy, he’s questioned why a public alert wasn’t sent to people’s cellphones. But then maybe that wouldn’t have helped because the suspect was driving an RCMP vehicle.
“If he pulled in in an RCMP car and knocked on your door, you’d open it up with a, ‘how are you doing tonight officer’ and been shot anyways.’”
Because it’s a small community, Tanner knew of some of the victims. His kids had played hockey with their kids and he’d see them coming and going.
So far he’s held off trying to explain what happened to his children who are still young. He’s thankful that they slept through most of what happened.
But he feels bad for all those who were directly impacted. He had people call and come to his home, heartbroken because they couldn’t get hold of their families. For hours and hours they waited for answers.
“These people were going crazy that were here,” he said.
For his own part, van den Hoek said he had talked with his kids Sunday about what to do if the killer had come to their door and where to hide. It was a horrible topic for a father to have with his children, but one he felt was necessary at the time.
That night he laid beside them one at a time and talked about it all. He encouraged them to talk to someone if they needed to.
“I told them it’s OK to not be OK.”
