Hello intrepid virtual travellers….spoiler alert… we all got back safe from the trip. As so often happens, I got back and still had half a trip to write about and 10,000 photos to sort through. But, having settled back into city life and work I can pickup where we left off, with 4 nice new tires and a Maritimes vision!
I set off from Trois Riviers on a rainy day that would have made Vancouver in November proud, foggy, pelting down rain and slick roads. After my very wet walk back to my hotel from the museum I dried off, got the final check done on the new tires and away I went. Pulling out of Trois Rivieres visibility was low, rain was bouncing off the pavement, and I was staring down a lot of km on the A40 before I got to New Brunswick. With my courage screwed up and my wipers on, away I went. I had to stop for gas and conveniently the gas station also had a Tim Hortons and a liquor store at it. Boy Scout motto in mind I decided that I should be prepared. Timbits and whisky in hand, gas in tank off I went East, hoping my GPS could read French maps and that I would make my way to the Hotel I had re-booked in Lac Baker after bailing on them 4 days earlier. Things were going OK, until it got dark. I am not a big fan of the A40 in the daylight, and it did not get any better in the dark. With non-stop road work and pelting rain it was essentially something out of a dystopian disaster movie in which drivers are pitted against each other on a course of random lanes, marked by 8 foot high reflective pillars scattered about the place, bouncing on and off gravel, with pooled water to the running boards, and penalties for going less than 40 km over the speed limit. I am not sure where I placed in the race but I figure I will just never go back to Quebec and not worry about paying my driving under the speed limit fines. I finally found an exit and got off the A40, only to find myself wandering through the back lanes of outer Quebec, at some point passing the border to New Brunswick in the rural pitch black.
After what felt like 1000 km on 1.5 lane wide roads through the woods I finally came out at Lac Baker at 10:00 at night. The Hotel I was staying in was a converted school house, filled with antiques. My room had a cast iron claw foot tub, a very comfortable fainting couch (fitting given the drive I had just had) and a screened in balcony with a porch swing looking over the lake (which I only discovered the next day). Glad to be 1) alive, 2) dry, and 3) not driving any further I cracked by last little bottle of single malt and my box of timbits and settled in for the night. In the morning breakfast was served in the lovely dining room created from what may have been a classroom at one point. The food was excellent and the host lovely. I noticed a picture on the wall of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, with signatures all over it addressed to the host. As it turns out the host opens the BnB in the summer and then goes home for the winter. He had moved to Cambridge Bay years ago with his ex-wife. As it turned out the Northern life was not for her but he loved it and stayed. He had always wanted to open a BnB and he eventually found this old school house, got it for a very good price, and converted it. He has done all sorts of things, raced cars (and has a collection at the hotel, ran big hospitality operations in Nunavut, worked with the Arctic Tourism Board). He is now a “reverse snow bird” who comes South for the summer and heads North for the winter. I met his daughter who helps him in the BnB and had a very nice visit with him before I headed out to drive around Lac Baker (takes about 20 minutes) and carry on to PEI. I was a bit sad that I did not have time to go the long way around on the North Shore and down through the Acadian Coastal route. Next time.
PEI was the next crash with a friend stop. My friend Shannon has lived there many years, teaching and raising her family. The Confederation Bridge is always remarkable if you look up you feel sort of like you are driving across the water. Luckily it was not a windy day, and I was not behind a big truck, so it was a pleasant drive. Once across the bridge it was a fairly short drive through the pastoral countryside of PEI to get to Shannon’s house. I arrived while Shannon was out picking up one of her very busy, bright, and talented daughters so her husband Glen welcomed me and let me into the house. Shannon had warned me about the dog Gracie. She is stand offish and mommy’s dog, so don’t worry if she barks like a loony at you and then hides. By the time Shannon got home Gracie was my best fur buddy and curled up on the arm of the chair. She is still mommy’s dog but, any port in a storm and mom was out!
Shannon came home and we headed to the beach at North Rustico. It is a lovely little community on the beach. The day was very windy and no one in their right mind was swimming. There was however a slightly kamikaze kite boarder on the water in the leeward side of the breakwater He as getting chucked about like a feather, and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying it. We had a walk on the beach and watched the kite boarder for a bit, then retreated to the Island Chocolate shop for coffee and some chocolate. Both were excellent, and the chocolate I got to tuck away for later had a very short life expectancy.
The next day I spent the day with my friend Trilby. I know Trilby from Vancouver theatre. She grew up in PEI with her artists parents. She moved back to PEI to support her mom who lives in a care facility there. She even moved home to her family property. The house was divided from the main property and someone else lives in it, however, the small cottage that her parents used to sell their art from on the side of the road was available. Trilby moved it up into the property and has been making an adorable home of it ever since. She has a big treed piece of property, with walking trails and her cozy little cabin with a wood stove and bright wood décor feels like a lovely retreat, just a few metres from the road. She lives there with her cat, Mr. Milton, and makes films, and jam. The day I visited she was preparing for a 48 hour film competition so I spent part of the day running errands with her. Glad that I did as, when we stopped to pick up donated groceries for the film shoot I found a gallery upstairs in the grocery with the works of local artist Karen Gallant. She paints images of PEI which I would call whimsical, and anything but fluffy. It took me ages to pare it down to three prints to bring home, carefully tucked under my sleeping cushions to make sure they stayed flat all the way back cross the country. Google her and check out her art. From there, we went to have a lovely lunch and walk in a garden.
Next day I was back with my personal tour guide Shannon. For a trip to two more quaint PEI towns. We started in Victoria by the Sea for a walk about town. At the beach they have a “lending library” for dogs and kids. It is like the little libraries that people build in neighbourhoods but it has toys for kids, and sticks for dogs. After lunch we headed for the best known beach in PEI. Cavendish. Home of all things Anne of Green Gables, and red sand and flowers. It is not actually the Atlantic Ocean, but rather the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. I decided to stand in it and take a photo as “Atlantic-ish”. Then we took a nice walk along the beach.
The third friend I had a chance to reconnect with was Debbie, a friend from my Masters program. She and her husband live in a beautiful little house right by the ocean. They invited me over for lunch. Debbie laid on a lovely full meal with desert and even sent me home with several jars of her home made preserves. She served a pickle that they call “chow” which was absolutely stellar. I have not opened the jar she sent with me yet as I want to savour it.
PEI was wonderful. It has all the city things that you might want in Charlottetown but also has miles of farms and quaint rural communities and it really does feel and look like Anne of Green Gables. An interesting thing I did not know was that there are limits for how big farms can be and how much land corporate interests can own. This has kept the family dairy and other farms alive where they have disappeared in may other places. Shannon’s husband Glen is a mechanic for farm machinery, but his family farm is across the back of his property and it was haying season as I left and it was all hands on deck with tractor loads of hay cruising across the property to the family farm. So far NB and PEI are holding up the happy stereotype of being friendly and welcoming.
All good things must come to an end, to make room for a next good thing. I said farewell to PEI (for now) and headed out to Nova Scotia. My friend Nancy (for those of you who have been travelling with me for a while will have met her in Yellowknife when I was there at the tail end of my Northwest Passage trip. She has moved to Nova Scotia and is living in Annapolis Royale. She was busy for the first few days I was there so I started on the other side of NS at Graves Island Provincial Park camping. I scored a nice campsite in the trees and headed into the nearest little town for some groceries. Groceries acquired, I decided to have a little drive about and check out the town. Narrow streets, quaint houses, and cute little harbour complete with yacht club. As I sat watching the water I saw people with instruments pull up and take over the local bandstand. It turns out is was the final concert of the summer by the Mahone Bay Swing Orchestra. Locals turned up with chairs and picnics and enjoyed the sunset concert. It was a low key community affair with friendly dogs with their people and kids running around playing catch.
After a good night sleep in my cozy car I headed out to Lunenburg the next day. I missed Lunenburg the last time I was in NS and I had seen so many pictures I was curious to see what it looked like. True to the pictures it has rows of brightly coloured houses on the hill and a bustling waterfront. The town was named after a British King, but if one based it on the traffic it would be called “looneyburg”, Tiny narrow streets, many one way, with buses and lost tourists all over the place. I can imagine that the locals all decide to go away for the summer. I wandered the streets for a while, had an excellent fish cake lunch, did some shopping at the local distillery, and at an odd nautical shop with all sorts of cool random stuff, where I found some nice beads to work into a piece of jewellery. I have been gathering beads and things to make a souvenir for myself. Lunenburg is also the home of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. It was late in the day so I could only manage most of the museum. I could check out the National Parks display the next day as it was free with my parks pass. Unfortunately, I also did not have time to see the Theresa E. Connor, the last dory schooner to sail from Lunenburg. A staff member approached me in an exhibit and asked if I had seen the schooner and I said that I had not and it looked like I would not have time. He enthusiastically told me it was the best part of the museum and that, seeing as he was working it the following day, I could show up with my day old admission bracelet and come see it the following day. As it turns out it was well worth it. I not only had a very enjoyable visit and learned a lot about how fishing was done at the time, but I also had a lovely chat with the staff member, with each of us trying to convince the other that our coast was better, and calling it a draw in the end and extracting a promise from the staff member to come and check out the West Coast sometime.
As I was getting organized to head back to my campsite I noticed a bunch of people in costumes wandering about the docks, gathering down past the Bluenose II. I thought maybe it was some sort of end of day historical reenactment. As they marched up the road to the plaza by the museum, led by flags and RCMP in red serge I asked someone what the parade was about. As it turns out they were hosting the Mobility Cup, a sailing event for sailors of all abilities, folks with mobility aids, folks who use wheelchairs for mobility and ones who appear to have typical mobility. They then had their opening event with a great welcome from a local Indigenous Elder and local sailing club people. I had never thought about making sailing accessible. I stayed for most of the opening speeches and then went home to my camp site, to ponder ways that sport and travel have become accessible for some many more people than used to be able to participate. On the way back to my campsite I drove the other direction for a bit to see a place called the Village of Blue Rocks. It is a tiny place on rocks outside of Lunenburg. Tiny little roads one car wide wind through the village, one rock to the next passing well kept little houses with iconic laundry on their lines. As the sun started to set, I was able to get some lovely pictures. Stopping briefly on the side of the road, noticing the “local parking only” signs but deciding that I was just stopping as I did not leave the car. Clearly this quiet little town has mixed feelings about the tourists who must invade it all summer. However, by the end of the day, after the buses had all left, I appeared to be the only “come from away” who was driving around and a couple of people even smiled and waved. I can’t imagine what living in a little town with a crazy tourist season would be like. I once thought about taking a cruise to Alaska but then realised that Ketchikan, a town of 8,000 is invaded by up to 17,000 people in a single day in cruise season. My choice to stay to small towns and as far North as I could was a good one.
After my return to Lunenburg to check out the Schooner I headed out to Annapolis Royal to catch up with Nancy. She has only recently moved there and was still unpacking boxes in her fantastic condo. It is in a converted school, with super high ceilings, 10 foot windows, all sorts of light and she has a plan to decorate it in a classic French style. Nancy is a fantastic host and we had such a wonderful time catching up. Nancy is a new friend, who I was introduced to by my friend Sandra when I was headed to Yellowknife and we have stayed in touch on Facebook. Sort of a “friend on the road” but at two ends of the country. Annapolis Royal is a fantastic little town steeped in history with a vibrant current community too. There was a farmers market with food and local arts. I found several gifts to bring back to people, including some hand felted sushi with smiles and eyes. Brunch was at a local bakery with possibly the best croissant breakfast sandwich ever. Nancy attends the local Anglican church, which is the longest continuously operating Anglican church in Canada, since 1710! We went to the morning eucharist and I went back for a tour in the afternoon and learned about the history of the parish. They also interestingly also have services once a year in several historic churches that no longer have their own congregation. They have been maintaining them and keep them spiritually alive with at least occasional services.
On my last day in Annapolis Royal we checked out the historical site and then the wider area. The historical site has one of the best museums I saw on the whole trip and it is all contained in a relatively small building on the grounds. It covers English, French, Scottish, Acadian, and Mi’qmak history of the area, going back and forth like the control of the area has done over the years. The grounds are also lovely hills and trenches of grass, where battlements once stood. After the historical site we headed out to the countryside. We had only a small glitch. My friend is having some health challenges, so I went to walk back to the car so I could come back and pick her up. I took her darling dog Sophie with me. I have never seen such a forlorn little look when she realised that not only had her human left us (to go see the museum, which I would see on my return while she watched Sophie) but I was going to drag her the other direction from her human down the road! I managed go drag the sad pup home and bring her back. She was so happy to see her own human when we got back.
From there we headed out to a little place called Delaps Cover, which Nancy had heard was lovely. It did turn out to be specular in the sun with the waves and wind. We stopped in a place called the Crows Nest. A little local spot which served awesome fresh lemon pepper haddock and topped it off with ice cream out on the patio. It was rather a perfect end to my time there and, with some sadness, I said farewell for now to Nancy and headed out toward Halifax to get part way to my ferry for Newfoundland the next day. I found a hotel just outside of Halifax which turned out to be more of a suite than a room, with French doors between a sitting area and a nice sized bedroom. The staff were very kind and even went and grabbed me a beer jug from the kitchen so I could fill up my cooler with ice from the ice machine for the journey.
The next day I wandered my way through Cape Breton to North Sydney to catch my overnight ferry to Newfoundland. I even managed to miss a turn and ended up taking all the side roads out to the ferry. Happy accident. It was really pretty. I got to the ferry terminal with plenty of time so I read my book and enjoyed the sun. As I was sitting there I saw a long line of ATV’s pull up and line up. I discovered once I got to NL, that one can drive an ATV over on the ferry and then travel all over NL on it. Many of the small towns and secondary roads are approved for ATV’s to share with cars.
Well, that is it for the mainland Maritimes on the way East, next stop Newfoundland. Unfortunately no Labrador this trip as I did not have time to make the loop up through Northern Quebec on the way to NL. Next time for that loop.