Saturday morning, we broke camp and, after breakfast in town, hit the road. We drove Southwest, towards St. Stephens, hoping that the border checkpoint wouldn't be too busy, not being located on a major trucking route. Sadly, we were wrong – it took us three hours to cross, though the time in the booth was less than two minutes. As on the way up, all the officer wanted to know is whether we bought anything in Canada. He was surprised when we said (untruthfully) no, but took us at our word and waved us through. The traffic was light, but the drive still long, and we didn't hit J.'s parents' house in Schenectady until after ten.
The following morning, after a sugar-laden breakfast, I left J. behind to visit with her folks for a couple of days and drove the rest of the way home. To signal the end of the trip with perfect timing, the weather was overcast. Around Union, NJ, the skies opened up with a torrential rain, and the three lanes of the Garden State Parkway ground to a crawl. A far cry from the empty highways and sunny days of Eastern Canada. I finally rolled in around dinner time, the normally seven-hour drive stretched to almost ten, not quite ready to face the daily grind.
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Monday, September 10, 2007
Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick: Day Seven
We spent our last full day of fun in Canada hiking. It promised to be another sunny, unseasonably hot day. After a leisurely morning at the campground eating oatmeal and drinking tea, we drove briefly into town to mail some postcards from Alma's one-room post office, then, on a ranger's recommendation, headed for Laverty Falls. The trail wound through the woods, descending gradually towards a stream. The vegetation was typically northern, though less scraggly than in Cape Breton, being at a lower elevation. Eventually, the trail vanished and we were walking along large flat rocks alongside the stream. The Canadian Park Service, we realized, are far more cavalier about blazing the trails than their US counterparts. A group of hikers coming towards us asked, in French, whether they were following the trail correctly, then immediately repeated the question in English. I gave directions in French.
From that point on, the trail followed the stream for the most part. Every now and then, we came across small waterfalls. Some emptied into pools of water deep enough to swim in, but we pressed on for Laverty Falls proper, which we reached after another half-hour or so. Probably 50-60 feet high, the waterfall emptied into a large pool. A family with two small children had preceded us, the kids now happily splashing around in the water. We waited for them to leave, eating some Cliff bars in the meantime. When they moved on, leaving only two teenage couples drying themselves off on a nearby rock, we changed behind a thicket of trees and jumped in. The water was cold but not frigid, and very invigorating. Getting under the waterfall itself proved to be more challenging than it looked from the shore – the flow of water away from the spot where it hit the surface was quite strong – but I did eventually grab hold of a rock and pulled myself up onto an outcropping directly under the rushing water. Never having swam in a waterfall before, I was surprised by how loud it was – deafening, actually. We splashed around for a few more minutes, then climbed out and dried off before hitting the trail for the return hike.
We were back in Alma by around 4:00, sweaty and grimy. Too early to eat dinner, but having eaten no real food since breakfast, we were starving. Parkland Village Inn, where we stayed the night of our arrival in Alma, had a patio overlooking the beach – now enormous due to the low tide – and the ocean way in the distance. The breeze coming in off the water was surprisingly chilly – enough to make us put on our fleece jackets even though we were sweating a scant few minutes earlier – and amazingly refreshing. We ordered some local lager and fried scallops – the restaurant offered a choice of foods, but not preparation methods. Everything was fried. The beer showed up in plastic cups, and under most other circumstances I would have turned my nose up at it, but after a day of hiking and swimming, sitting as we were breathing the cold, salty air, it tasted wonderful. The scallops – well, words fail me yet again. The frying did no damage. The cornmeal coating was neither heavy nor greasy, providing just a bit of crunch for interest. Enormous, succulent, and perfectly cooked – just a hint of translucent gray in the very center of each giant mollusk – they almost overwhelmed you with the half-sweet, half-salty flavor of the ocean.
Needless to say, instant noodles and canned sardines back at the campground were a huge letdown by comparison, but such is the fate of a camper. We were in the tent by 10:00, exhausted and already feeling a little sad in anticipation of having to leave Fundy the following morning.
From that point on, the trail followed the stream for the most part. Every now and then, we came across small waterfalls. Some emptied into pools of water deep enough to swim in, but we pressed on for Laverty Falls proper, which we reached after another half-hour or so. Probably 50-60 feet high, the waterfall emptied into a large pool. A family with two small children had preceded us, the kids now happily splashing around in the water. We waited for them to leave, eating some Cliff bars in the meantime. When they moved on, leaving only two teenage couples drying themselves off on a nearby rock, we changed behind a thicket of trees and jumped in. The water was cold but not frigid, and very invigorating. Getting under the waterfall itself proved to be more challenging than it looked from the shore – the flow of water away from the spot where it hit the surface was quite strong – but I did eventually grab hold of a rock and pulled myself up onto an outcropping directly under the rushing water. Never having swam in a waterfall before, I was surprised by how loud it was – deafening, actually. We splashed around for a few more minutes, then climbed out and dried off before hitting the trail for the return hike.
We were back in Alma by around 4:00, sweaty and grimy. Too early to eat dinner, but having eaten no real food since breakfast, we were starving. Parkland Village Inn, where we stayed the night of our arrival in Alma, had a patio overlooking the beach – now enormous due to the low tide – and the ocean way in the distance. The breeze coming in off the water was surprisingly chilly – enough to make us put on our fleece jackets even though we were sweating a scant few minutes earlier – and amazingly refreshing. We ordered some local lager and fried scallops – the restaurant offered a choice of foods, but not preparation methods. Everything was fried. The beer showed up in plastic cups, and under most other circumstances I would have turned my nose up at it, but after a day of hiking and swimming, sitting as we were breathing the cold, salty air, it tasted wonderful. The scallops – well, words fail me yet again. The frying did no damage. The cornmeal coating was neither heavy nor greasy, providing just a bit of crunch for interest. Enormous, succulent, and perfectly cooked – just a hint of translucent gray in the very center of each giant mollusk – they almost overwhelmed you with the half-sweet, half-salty flavor of the ocean.
Needless to say, instant noodles and canned sardines back at the campground were a huge letdown by comparison, but such is the fate of a camper. We were in the tent by 10:00, exhausted and already feeling a little sad in anticipation of having to leave Fundy the following morning.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick: Day Six
Our first full day in New Brunswick was dedicated to experiencing Fundy’s famous tides first-hand, in a sea kayak. We had arranged a tour in advance, with a local outfit called Fresh Air Adventures. The departure time was 8:15 a.m., and they were emphatic that because of the unforgiving nature of the tides, we could start no more than five minutes late. So we were up and out early, into a town that was still sound asleep. A real breakfast was out of the question, but luckily, a convenience store across the street from our hotel was open enough to sell us two styrofoam cups of abysmal coffee, some bananas and two surprisingly decent blueberry muffins. We breakfasted on a picnic table outside the store, already enamored of what was promising to be a spectacular day as far as the weather was concerned.
Fresh Air was a scant two blocks away, a two story clapboard house on a half-acre of lawn, a couple of hundred feet away from where a stream flowed into the bay. The lawn was strewn with kayaks. The owner – his name escapes me now and I neglected to write it down – was very nice if a bit servile in his manner. A former schoolteacher, we later found out. He introduced us to Robert, our guide, a local about our age, who gave us the rundown of basic safety, five minutes worth of instruction on how to paddle a kayak, and showed us ho to put on paddling jackets and spray skirts. He then gave us an amazing piece of news: we were the only people on the full-day tour. A couple dozen feet away, the half-day tour was going through their safety briefing – at least fifteen people. I was very glad to have paid the extra money. Robert and I carried the boats to the water while J. followed with the paddles, and we were off.
The Bay of Fundy was not identifiable as such – despite the crystal-clear day, we could not see the Nova Scotia side. We paddled West, in the direction of the bay’s mouth. We were moving into the wind, so we stayed close to shore to avoid the worst of it. Most of the time, Robert kept his boat close enough to ours to allow for conversation without raising our voices. He made a few comments about the bay, the famous tides, and the local wildlife. A porpoise flashed its fin a couple of hundred yards astern – scant consolation for the previous day’s dearth of aquatic life.
After a while, the tide began to recede, opening up rocky beaches along the shore. At one point, Robert pointed to a hole in a rock outcropping that jutted out into the water. The hole was easily twenty feet above the surface as we passed. “Once or twice,” he said, “we paddled a boat through that hole at high tide.” We paddled on, contemplating the landscape. On one hand it was a generic Northern coastline – sheer cliffs of brown rock topped with scraggly pines. On the other, being on the water, a mere six inches away from the surface, bathed in the uncharacteristically bright sunlight reflecting off the bay’s surface, inhaling the invigoratingly salty wind with every swing of the paddle, was breathtaking. There was no other place I would have rather been at that moment.
Eventually, the shoreline curved and we faced directly into the wind. Though we were paddling with all our might, progress was slow. J. had to take breaks every couple of minutes, and when I was the only one paddling, the best I could hope to achieve was to keep the boat from drifting backwards. Another rocky outcropping loomed in the distance. “We could go as far as that rock,” Robert said, “or we can turn back now. It’s up to you.” Erring on the side of caution, we turned back. Soon it was time for lunch. We pulled up on one of the rocky beaches we passed on the way out, now a lot wider since the tide was approaching its low point. Unbeknownst to us, both boats’ holds had been stuffed with gear – a camp stove with its fuel canister, plastic dishes, a wok, and several containers of food. Robert quickly set up and a few minutes later we were enjoying delicious chicken burritos with peppers and onions, pink lemonade, and generous pinches of dulse – local reddish-brown seaweed dried into flakes, salted, and served as a snack or lunchtime side dish, the way potato chips might be served elsewhere. The beautiful weather was holding up, the wind that was buffeting us on the water a few minutes earlier was now a gentle breeze, and sitting on the coarse sand, sated and slightly intoxicated by the intensely fresh salty air, we were as far away from the daily grind of home as we would ever be on the entire trip. Robert started to explain the Fundy tides.
Due to the combination of the Earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbit around the Earth, the tide cycle is six hours and 13 minutes everywhere in the world. Additionally, the Earth’s axis, which is not completely true but “wobbles” a bit as it rotates, produces a sloshing effect in the world’s oceans. The length of the Bay of Fundy happens to be such that a single “slosh” takes exactly six hours and 13 minutes to travel all the way to the innermost point of the bay, combining with the natural cycle in phase and augmenting the change in the water level. New Brunswick’s celebrity is somewhat ersatz, it turned out – the highest tide ever was recorded on the opposite side of the bay in Nova Scotia – an even 54 feet! The explanation over, we chatted about this and that. Finding out that Robert was from a small town in the French-speaking part of New Brunsiwck, I dusted off my French. We had no trouble understanding each other, though the conversation was admittedly brief. More curious was the fact that Robert had to look for off-season work anew every year. His guiding at Fresh Air was steady (he had been doing it for four years) and provided a place to live for the season, but he could only do it June through October, and was on his own the rest of the year. The previous winter, he was lucky to get a job with the provincial government, assisting on a research project in Moncton. Unfathomable to me, but liberating, I am sure, if you can handle the lack of permanence.
The remainder of the trip was short, and we were out of the water by 2:00 p.m. The launch site was bone-dry by now, and we disembarked on another beach, met by Fresh Air’s owner and driven back into town. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable and spectacularly organized trip. The folks at Fresh Air deserve major props for their work. If you are ever anywhere in the vicinity of Fundy National Park, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you make a detour and take a paddling trip with them.
The long hours of Northern daylight left us with quite a few hours of productive time, so on a whim we decided to check out Hopewell Rocks, about 20 kilometers East of Alma. Small islands with some trees and shrubs at high tide, they are exposed for the giant rocks that they are when the water recedes, leaving odd-looking clumps of vegetation atop otherwise barren formations. Curious enough, and certainly a good way to demonstrate the tides’ drama, they are also a tourist trap par excellence. Save for a mini-gang of Quebecois bikers (far thinner and more fit than their typical American counterparts), we were the only visitors who did not arrive by tour bus. I can report, with some disappointment but little surprise, that the slice of Canadian society who chooses the bus tour mode of sightseeing offers no respite from its American brethren’s lack of taste, discretion, or personal fastidiousness.
Hopewell Rocks dispensed with, we drove back into Fundy National Park proper, found our campground and claimed the site – camping at last! After a surprisingly satisfying dinner of instant noodles and canned sardines cooked on my trusty single-burner Coleman, we retired, exhausted but elated, into the tent, reasonably confident that the raccoon that had paid a brazen visit to our campsite an hour or so earlier would be our biggest natural threat.
Fresh Air was a scant two blocks away, a two story clapboard house on a half-acre of lawn, a couple of hundred feet away from where a stream flowed into the bay. The lawn was strewn with kayaks. The owner – his name escapes me now and I neglected to write it down – was very nice if a bit servile in his manner. A former schoolteacher, we later found out. He introduced us to Robert, our guide, a local about our age, who gave us the rundown of basic safety, five minutes worth of instruction on how to paddle a kayak, and showed us ho to put on paddling jackets and spray skirts. He then gave us an amazing piece of news: we were the only people on the full-day tour. A couple dozen feet away, the half-day tour was going through their safety briefing – at least fifteen people. I was very glad to have paid the extra money. Robert and I carried the boats to the water while J. followed with the paddles, and we were off.
The Bay of Fundy was not identifiable as such – despite the crystal-clear day, we could not see the Nova Scotia side. We paddled West, in the direction of the bay’s mouth. We were moving into the wind, so we stayed close to shore to avoid the worst of it. Most of the time, Robert kept his boat close enough to ours to allow for conversation without raising our voices. He made a few comments about the bay, the famous tides, and the local wildlife. A porpoise flashed its fin a couple of hundred yards astern – scant consolation for the previous day’s dearth of aquatic life.
After a while, the tide began to recede, opening up rocky beaches along the shore. At one point, Robert pointed to a hole in a rock outcropping that jutted out into the water. The hole was easily twenty feet above the surface as we passed. “Once or twice,” he said, “we paddled a boat through that hole at high tide.” We paddled on, contemplating the landscape. On one hand it was a generic Northern coastline – sheer cliffs of brown rock topped with scraggly pines. On the other, being on the water, a mere six inches away from the surface, bathed in the uncharacteristically bright sunlight reflecting off the bay’s surface, inhaling the invigoratingly salty wind with every swing of the paddle, was breathtaking. There was no other place I would have rather been at that moment.
Eventually, the shoreline curved and we faced directly into the wind. Though we were paddling with all our might, progress was slow. J. had to take breaks every couple of minutes, and when I was the only one paddling, the best I could hope to achieve was to keep the boat from drifting backwards. Another rocky outcropping loomed in the distance. “We could go as far as that rock,” Robert said, “or we can turn back now. It’s up to you.” Erring on the side of caution, we turned back. Soon it was time for lunch. We pulled up on one of the rocky beaches we passed on the way out, now a lot wider since the tide was approaching its low point. Unbeknownst to us, both boats’ holds had been stuffed with gear – a camp stove with its fuel canister, plastic dishes, a wok, and several containers of food. Robert quickly set up and a few minutes later we were enjoying delicious chicken burritos with peppers and onions, pink lemonade, and generous pinches of dulse – local reddish-brown seaweed dried into flakes, salted, and served as a snack or lunchtime side dish, the way potato chips might be served elsewhere. The beautiful weather was holding up, the wind that was buffeting us on the water a few minutes earlier was now a gentle breeze, and sitting on the coarse sand, sated and slightly intoxicated by the intensely fresh salty air, we were as far away from the daily grind of home as we would ever be on the entire trip. Robert started to explain the Fundy tides.
Due to the combination of the Earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbit around the Earth, the tide cycle is six hours and 13 minutes everywhere in the world. Additionally, the Earth’s axis, which is not completely true but “wobbles” a bit as it rotates, produces a sloshing effect in the world’s oceans. The length of the Bay of Fundy happens to be such that a single “slosh” takes exactly six hours and 13 minutes to travel all the way to the innermost point of the bay, combining with the natural cycle in phase and augmenting the change in the water level. New Brunswick’s celebrity is somewhat ersatz, it turned out – the highest tide ever was recorded on the opposite side of the bay in Nova Scotia – an even 54 feet! The explanation over, we chatted about this and that. Finding out that Robert was from a small town in the French-speaking part of New Brunsiwck, I dusted off my French. We had no trouble understanding each other, though the conversation was admittedly brief. More curious was the fact that Robert had to look for off-season work anew every year. His guiding at Fresh Air was steady (he had been doing it for four years) and provided a place to live for the season, but he could only do it June through October, and was on his own the rest of the year. The previous winter, he was lucky to get a job with the provincial government, assisting on a research project in Moncton. Unfathomable to me, but liberating, I am sure, if you can handle the lack of permanence.
The remainder of the trip was short, and we were out of the water by 2:00 p.m. The launch site was bone-dry by now, and we disembarked on another beach, met by Fresh Air’s owner and driven back into town. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable and spectacularly organized trip. The folks at Fresh Air deserve major props for their work. If you are ever anywhere in the vicinity of Fundy National Park, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you make a detour and take a paddling trip with them.
The long hours of Northern daylight left us with quite a few hours of productive time, so on a whim we decided to check out Hopewell Rocks, about 20 kilometers East of Alma. Small islands with some trees and shrubs at high tide, they are exposed for the giant rocks that they are when the water recedes, leaving odd-looking clumps of vegetation atop otherwise barren formations. Curious enough, and certainly a good way to demonstrate the tides’ drama, they are also a tourist trap par excellence. Save for a mini-gang of Quebecois bikers (far thinner and more fit than their typical American counterparts), we were the only visitors who did not arrive by tour bus. I can report, with some disappointment but little surprise, that the slice of Canadian society who chooses the bus tour mode of sightseeing offers no respite from its American brethren’s lack of taste, discretion, or personal fastidiousness.
Hopewell Rocks dispensed with, we drove back into Fundy National Park proper, found our campground and claimed the site – camping at last! After a surprisingly satisfying dinner of instant noodles and canned sardines cooked on my trusty single-burner Coleman, we retired, exhausted but elated, into the tent, reasonably confident that the raccoon that had paid a brazen visit to our campsite an hour or so earlier would be our biggest natural threat.
Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick: Day Five
The following day, we had made arrangements to sail Ingonish Bay on a whale-watching tour. Several outfits, all of them roughly the same in size and the boats they use, ply the bay during tourist season. Ours was the exception – called Sea Visions, it uses the Avon Spirit – a replica 1880s freight schooner and whenever possible conducts the tour under sail. The Avon Spirit was built locally a decade ago, as part of a project to preserve the ship-building tradition in Nova Scotia. Once a mainstay of Nova Scotia industry, it has stopped being commercially viable around World War II, and most of the last generation of craftsmen to have practiced it are no longer around. In an effort to preserve what it views as a fundamental part of its heritage, the government of Nova Scotia has funded the building of several very authentic, save for Caterpillar diesel V-6s, replicas of late XIX-century schooners of the type that had once sailed up and down the Canadian and New England coasts delivering consumer goods to seaside communities. Launched in 1996, the Avon Spirit served as a training ship for four years before being sold to its current owner for a surprisingly reasonable CDN 400,000. He added some modern navigation equipment and entered the tourist trade, where it remains to this day.
We boarded along with about three dozen fellow passengers and headed out to sea. Once we left the vicinity of the dock, the crew – only three people, two of them college-age kids evidently doing their summer jobs – raised the sails. Fully rigged, the ship is a breathtaking sight, especially from its deck. Unfortunately, though it seemed breezy to us, apparently it takes a lot of wind to move the ship at a respectable speed, and the engine remained on for the duration of the cruise. The weather was beautiful, the vibration and the noise from the engine intrusive, but not excessively so, and we had a reasonably pleasant ride. Crucially, however, in two and a half hours on the water, we did not see a single whale.
It was almost lunchtime when we docked, and after some very satisfying seafood salad sandwiches at a local bakery, it was time to say good-bye to Nova Scotia and head on to our next destination. In the interest of time, we had to forego driving around the northern tip of Cape Breton and instead headed back along the Cabot Trail, retracing our tracks of two nights ago. This time, however, we saw everything we missed on the way up. One curiosity was a tiny Indian reservation, barely half a kilometer wide, that advertised itself with “Tax Free Shopping” signs – not an insignificant draw as sales tax in Canada can be as high as 13%. A greater one was the Gaelic College, located, ironically, in Englishtown, NS. More of a cultural and crafts center than a real school, its chief distinction to the passerby are road signs in Gaelic found within twenty or so kilometers in either direction on the Cabot Trail.
We hit the mainland in need of gas and a snack, which we found at that most Canadian of places – Tim Horton’s donuts. Though not the best donuts in general, they handily beat both Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme, and is the only major corporation I know of that really lives up to its motto – “Always Fresh.” The glazed sour cream donuts in particular are delicious – dense without being heavy, sweet but not cloying, and small enough to be enjoyed with a minimum of guilt. We would return to Tim Horton’s twice more.
We were headed to Alma, New Brunswick, and though New Brunswick is Canada’s smallest province, it is still big, and the hopes of having dinner in Alma were dashed early. Instead, we made a half-hearted attempt to find interesting food on the outskirts of Moncton, NB. We never did, but the short drive along the road leading into town shocked me a bit – a church on every block, sometimes two, many of uncommon Evangelical persuasions. Were we headed into Canada’s Bible belt? When we finally did stop for dinner – at a Subway attached to a gas station – the impression of having been teleported to rural American South was reinforced. Guys in wife-beaters and mesh truckers’ caps gassing up their beat-up GMC Sierras. Young women with overbleached hair and bad skin smoking outside with vacant expressions on their faces. A camo-painted quad in the corner of the shop, the grand prize in a local sweepstakes. Though New Brunswick is officially bilingual (the only province to be so, in fact), we were only hearing English.
The last hour of drive was once again in the dark, and once again along a small, deserted road. Luckily, the mountains were far less forbidding, and we were once again spared a moose encounter, though we did see two foxes along the road, their eyes glowing eerily. We checked into the surprisingly luxurious Parkland Village Inn in Alma around 11:00, tired but ready for the next day’s adventures.
We boarded along with about three dozen fellow passengers and headed out to sea. Once we left the vicinity of the dock, the crew – only three people, two of them college-age kids evidently doing their summer jobs – raised the sails. Fully rigged, the ship is a breathtaking sight, especially from its deck. Unfortunately, though it seemed breezy to us, apparently it takes a lot of wind to move the ship at a respectable speed, and the engine remained on for the duration of the cruise. The weather was beautiful, the vibration and the noise from the engine intrusive, but not excessively so, and we had a reasonably pleasant ride. Crucially, however, in two and a half hours on the water, we did not see a single whale.
It was almost lunchtime when we docked, and after some very satisfying seafood salad sandwiches at a local bakery, it was time to say good-bye to Nova Scotia and head on to our next destination. In the interest of time, we had to forego driving around the northern tip of Cape Breton and instead headed back along the Cabot Trail, retracing our tracks of two nights ago. This time, however, we saw everything we missed on the way up. One curiosity was a tiny Indian reservation, barely half a kilometer wide, that advertised itself with “Tax Free Shopping” signs – not an insignificant draw as sales tax in Canada can be as high as 13%. A greater one was the Gaelic College, located, ironically, in Englishtown, NS. More of a cultural and crafts center than a real school, its chief distinction to the passerby are road signs in Gaelic found within twenty or so kilometers in either direction on the Cabot Trail.
We hit the mainland in need of gas and a snack, which we found at that most Canadian of places – Tim Horton’s donuts. Though not the best donuts in general, they handily beat both Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme, and is the only major corporation I know of that really lives up to its motto – “Always Fresh.” The glazed sour cream donuts in particular are delicious – dense without being heavy, sweet but not cloying, and small enough to be enjoyed with a minimum of guilt. We would return to Tim Horton’s twice more.
We were headed to Alma, New Brunswick, and though New Brunswick is Canada’s smallest province, it is still big, and the hopes of having dinner in Alma were dashed early. Instead, we made a half-hearted attempt to find interesting food on the outskirts of Moncton, NB. We never did, but the short drive along the road leading into town shocked me a bit – a church on every block, sometimes two, many of uncommon Evangelical persuasions. Were we headed into Canada’s Bible belt? When we finally did stop for dinner – at a Subway attached to a gas station – the impression of having been teleported to rural American South was reinforced. Guys in wife-beaters and mesh truckers’ caps gassing up their beat-up GMC Sierras. Young women with overbleached hair and bad skin smoking outside with vacant expressions on their faces. A camo-painted quad in the corner of the shop, the grand prize in a local sweepstakes. Though New Brunswick is officially bilingual (the only province to be so, in fact), we were only hearing English.
The last hour of drive was once again in the dark, and once again along a small, deserted road. Luckily, the mountains were far less forbidding, and we were once again spared a moose encounter, though we did see two foxes along the road, their eyes glowing eerily. We checked into the surprisingly luxurious Parkland Village Inn in Alma around 11:00, tired but ready for the next day’s adventures.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick: Day Four
Tuesday would finally have us hiking in Cape Breton National Park, but first there was a bit of a problem that we needed to address. Our initial plan was to camp in the park, but the one campground reservable in advance, and the one I therefore reserved, turned out to be at the opposite end of the park in Chetticamp – a 113 km drive around the tip of Cape Breton. We would then have to come back early the following morning for our whale-watching cruise on the Ingonish end of the park. A bigger issue, however, were bears. Perhaps out of thoroughness, but quite possibly out of the high likelihood of an encounter, Parks Canada provides exceptionally detailed information about bears and handling an encounter with them, all the way down to recognizing the signs of a bear's aggression and how to behave during an actual attack. J. was instantly petrified, and I, frankly, was none too keen either on the idea of having to play dead in the tent in the middle of the night, while the cuddly-looking 300-pounder dined non-chalantly on some of that tasty Trader Joe's trail mix pried from the trunk of our car. Luckily, the minimalist but perfectly situated Island Inn where we were staying had a room available Tuesday night, and a very reasonably priced one at that, so the decision to wimp out was a no-brainer. The following night's lodging secured, and the Inn's miserly, unsatisfying complimentary breakfast consumed, we were off for the trails.
Our first hike was the Franey trail, only 7.4 km, but with a 330 m elevation change. We climbed steadily as the old-growth mixed hardwoods of the Acadian forest gradually gave way to the shorter, more uniform black spruce of the taiga ecosystem at higher elevations. Challenging to be sure – rated “moderate” by Parks Canada, it would no doubt be classified as “strenuous” in the US – but, not surprisingly, well worth the effort. The views from the top were nothing short of breathtaking – two of the highest peaks on the island – Cape Smokey in the east and Money Point in the north – framed the Middle Head Peninsula jutting out into the ocean directly below. Deep green of uninterrupted pine transitioned abruptly into the calm but forbidding steel gray of the ocean waters. A microscopic white speck of a church on the peninsula reminded you that everything here is far bigger than you would like to think. Far bigger than you, or anything your ilk is likely to build. The weather was overcast, but it only added to the gravitas of the landscape. We sat on the flat granite rocks, replenishing our reserves with some Cliff bars and water, contemplating the vastness of it all and enjoying the intense solitude of the spot. Eventually, some footsteps roused us from our reverie – a family of German tourists, in excellent English, asked us whether they needed to go back the way they came. Telling them that they didn't – the trail was a loop – we waited until their voices receded in the distance before starting down ourselves.
It is on the descent, the trail now wider and more open, that the wisdom of that morning's decision not to camp was painted for us in stark colors. Just as we were expressing disappointment and not having seen any of the supposedly abundant wildlife, the rustling of an obviously large animal came from the shrubs on our left, followed by a growl and a rattling kind of sound. J., contrary to everything she has just read in the brochures, froze dead in her tracks, her face ashen with fear. Telling her to keep going and not make eye contact, I tried to see the animal out of the corner of my eye. I never did. Realistically, it was probably a moose – we were seeing countless piles of moose scat all along the trail – but it will forever remain etched in our memories as a near-encounter with a bear.
Our first hike was the Franey trail, only 7.4 km, but with a 330 m elevation change. We climbed steadily as the old-growth mixed hardwoods of the Acadian forest gradually gave way to the shorter, more uniform black spruce of the taiga ecosystem at higher elevations. Challenging to be sure – rated “moderate” by Parks Canada, it would no doubt be classified as “strenuous” in the US – but, not surprisingly, well worth the effort. The views from the top were nothing short of breathtaking – two of the highest peaks on the island – Cape Smokey in the east and Money Point in the north – framed the Middle Head Peninsula jutting out into the ocean directly below. Deep green of uninterrupted pine transitioned abruptly into the calm but forbidding steel gray of the ocean waters. A microscopic white speck of a church on the peninsula reminded you that everything here is far bigger than you would like to think. Far bigger than you, or anything your ilk is likely to build. The weather was overcast, but it only added to the gravitas of the landscape. We sat on the flat granite rocks, replenishing our reserves with some Cliff bars and water, contemplating the vastness of it all and enjoying the intense solitude of the spot. Eventually, some footsteps roused us from our reverie – a family of German tourists, in excellent English, asked us whether they needed to go back the way they came. Telling them that they didn't – the trail was a loop – we waited until their voices receded in the distance before starting down ourselves.
It is on the descent, the trail now wider and more open, that the wisdom of that morning's decision not to camp was painted for us in stark colors. Just as we were expressing disappointment and not having seen any of the supposedly abundant wildlife, the rustling of an obviously large animal came from the shrubs on our left, followed by a growl and a rattling kind of sound. J., contrary to everything she has just read in the brochures, froze dead in her tracks, her face ashen with fear. Telling her to keep going and not make eye contact, I tried to see the animal out of the corner of my eye. I never did. Realistically, it was probably a moose – we were seeing countless piles of moose scat all along the trail – but it will forever remain etched in our memories as a near-encounter with a bear.
Similarly to Acadia, our second hike was, though not completely flat, far less challenging. We hiked out to the tip of the Middle Head Peninsula we saw from the mountains a short while earlier. Starting at the Keltic Lodge resort – the only hotel on the peninsula and the ne plus ultra of luxury lodging on Cape Breton – we walked along the rolling green hills that gave Nova Scotia its name. Canopies of pine periodically opened up onto gorgeous views of the coastline. Here, you were one with the ocean. A small fishing village had once been located on the peninsula; it was abandoned when the once plentiful salmon was no longer a viable catch, its disappearance nominally blamed on acid rain but never definitively diagnosed. Today, no trace of the village remains. We reached the meadow at the end of the trail and cooled off in its plush grass for a while – it had become sunny and unseasonably warm by this time – listening to the seagulls and cormorants clamoring for their favorite perch on a giant rock just off shore, before returning by way of more beautiful views of the coast.
Showered and changed at the inn, we were faced with the prospect of finding dinner, now that the camp-appropriate instant noodles and canned fish were no longer an option. The Ingonish area of Nova Scotia, though officially incorporated into four towns – Ingonish Falls, Ingonish Beach, Ingnonish Ferry and Ingonish itself – is really just an ongoing chain of widely-spaced houses and businesses along the Cabot Trail. There is no town center or “main drag” of any sort, and restaurants are few and far between. After consulting the dreaded AAA Tourbook – a tome which, when it comes to restaurant recommendations, appears to be willfully ignorant of the very concept of good food, we decided to try The Atlantic – the more casual, less expensive of the two restaurants at the Keltic Lodge resort. The choice proved to be serendipitous, not because of the food but the view. We arrived to discover a full dining room and a patio that was completely empty despite the peak dinner hour. Puzzled initially, we realized, not without some shock, that the 25 or so degrees centigrade was simply too warm for the locals. Eventually, several outdoor tables were filled with some Americans and Germans, but by then we were already seated at what I am convinced is the absolutely best dinner table in the whole world. The entire coastline, now completely bathed in the softening glow of the setting sun, unfolded before us as we leisurely sipped on glasses of Ontario-brewed Sleeman, cool (to us) ocean breeze gently rippling the canopy of the table's umbrella.
The meal itself was satisfying if not particularly memorable. The highlight was the mussels – truly local, they were raised an at aqua farm a few kilometers away in Cape North, and tasted it. Small but intensely flavorful, they were easily the equals of the ones we had in Maine. Steamed in some local beer with no other embellishments, they made me question the whole garlic and white wine school of shellfish cooking for a moment. Skeptical of dishes that aspire to be creative at a restaurant I have not researched, I opted for fish and chips, made with regionally, if not locally, caught haddock. The fish was good – fresh, and not overloaded with batter, but not particularly distinctive. The fries, utterly forgettable. J. opted for a haddock sandwich and some seafood chowder, a Nova Scotia-wide specialty. She praised the chowder and, like me, was ambivalent about the haddock.
The cumulative effects of the day's activities would have precluded any late-night revelry even if there was any to be had in Ingonish, and by ten o'clock we were asleep, mercifully free of any threat of an ursine invasion.
Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick: Day Three
Monday morning found us at the Cat Ferry terminal, five minutes past the requisite 7:00 a.m. arrival. The scene was one of complete chaos, and at that moment, it seemed impossible that all the cars could get checked in and put on the ferry in an hour. After a brief parking lot dance with a long-wheelbase GMC Yukon, we joined one of about a dozen lines of cars, roughly half of them with Canadian plates, to wait for embarkation.
The Cat, which runs between Bar Harbor, ME and Yarmouth, NS, Monday through Wednesday, and between Portland, ME and Yarmouth the rest of the week, is a remarkable vessel. Built in Australia in 1998, it is one of the fastest ferries in the world, with cruising speeds of up to 40 knots (about 55 mph). At full power, its water jet engines expel enough water to fill an olympic-size swimming pool every 33 seconds. Designed to transport 900 passengers and 240 vehicles, including 14 tour buses, it makes the voyage from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, once an overnight affair, in a hair over three hours.
Amazingly, the entire mad cauldron of cars and motorcycles was loaded onto the ship in about 45 minutes. We drove into the cavernous hold, directed by staff in bright red overalls wedged the car between a railing and a red Chevy Aveo from Quebec, and squeezed ourselves between rows of tightly parked cars towards the stairwell, taking the liberty to fold others' rearview mirrors as we passed. Clearly, the ferry was designed to be used in a part of the world where the average size of a passenger vehicle is quite a bit smaller than in North America. Once on the passenger decks, the atmosphere was far more inviting. Rows of airline-style seats (but with more legroom), a cafeteria in the middle, a gift shop, several sitting areas with large movie screens. After the Aussie-inflected safety video, we were underway, only a few minutes past the scheduled 8:00 a.m. departure.
The Cat really is fast – a quick glance at the water outside tells you that you're moving far faster than any boat you may have been on in the past. To me, it felt amazingly solid – no vibration, no noise, just the gray waters of the Atlantic speeding past. Once on the open ocean, however, the ship did pitch noticeably, and therein lay its biggest problem. J. got exceptionally sea-sick and spent the entire crossing in her seat, with her head on the table, unable to take advantage of the open rear deck or the surprisingly decent breakfast at the cafeteria. This was, all told, the biggest misadventure of the entire trip.
We arrived in Yarmouth on schedule, losing an hour in the process – Nova Scotia is in the Atlantic time zone. After another 45 minutes or so we passed through the border checkpoint, where we were interviewed by a very polite young officer who asked us all the same questions we used to get asked before Sept. 11th – why we were in Canada, how long, and whether we were bringing anything not for personal use. Make no mistake – crossing the border, at least the one with Canada, in either direction, is not about security. It's about taxation. As long as we convinced the guard that we didn't have anything that we would sell and avoid taxes, we could have had a trunk full of nuclear explosives. After a lunch at a random pub across the street from the dock (mediocre sandwiches and excellent smoked haddock chowder), a stop at a tourist information office and another at a Canadian Tire store (a kind of industrial Target) to buy propane for our camp stove, we were finally on the road to Cape Breton around 3:00 p.m.
The advantages of being a large, sparsely populated country are most readily apparent on the Canadian highways. The major roads – roughly the Canadian equivalent of our Interstates – were uniformly excellent, had very little traffic, particularly long-haul truck traffic, and as a consequence no road construction to speak of. The disadvantages are equally apparent, however – we didn't reach Canso Causeway, which connects Cape Breton Island to the mainland, until almost 10:00 p.m.; the town of Ingonish Ferry, where we were staying, was still two more hours away on the Cabot Trail – a much smaller, twisty mountain road. My paranoia of having to face any form of law enforcement in a foreign country didn't help -- it confined us to driving within 10 km/h of the speed limit, which alternated between a semi-generous 100 km/h and an almost-brisk 110, dropping to 80 in the mountains. We finally arrived in Ingonish Ferry around midnight, after a final 100 km on the Cabot Trail, keeping our bloodshot eyes peeled for moose.
The drive did offer a priceless moment of realization that there still are pure places in this world, and that rural Nova Scotia is one of them. At one point along the way, we had stopped at a tourist information office to call our hotel and arrange for late arrival. The staff – two high-school-age kids, a girl and a guy, unfailingly polite and friendly, asked us to sign the guest book. While I was on the phone, J. went to sign, and discovered that the previous visitor, as a stupid joke, signed in as Paris Hilton. J. commented. With complete seriousness and a straight face, the girl asked, “Who's Paris Hilton?” Ah, to be so far away!
The Cat, which runs between Bar Harbor, ME and Yarmouth, NS, Monday through Wednesday, and between Portland, ME and Yarmouth the rest of the week, is a remarkable vessel. Built in Australia in 1998, it is one of the fastest ferries in the world, with cruising speeds of up to 40 knots (about 55 mph). At full power, its water jet engines expel enough water to fill an olympic-size swimming pool every 33 seconds. Designed to transport 900 passengers and 240 vehicles, including 14 tour buses, it makes the voyage from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, once an overnight affair, in a hair over three hours.
Amazingly, the entire mad cauldron of cars and motorcycles was loaded onto the ship in about 45 minutes. We drove into the cavernous hold, directed by staff in bright red overalls wedged the car between a railing and a red Chevy Aveo from Quebec, and squeezed ourselves between rows of tightly parked cars towards the stairwell, taking the liberty to fold others' rearview mirrors as we passed. Clearly, the ferry was designed to be used in a part of the world where the average size of a passenger vehicle is quite a bit smaller than in North America. Once on the passenger decks, the atmosphere was far more inviting. Rows of airline-style seats (but with more legroom), a cafeteria in the middle, a gift shop, several sitting areas with large movie screens. After the Aussie-inflected safety video, we were underway, only a few minutes past the scheduled 8:00 a.m. departure.
The Cat really is fast – a quick glance at the water outside tells you that you're moving far faster than any boat you may have been on in the past. To me, it felt amazingly solid – no vibration, no noise, just the gray waters of the Atlantic speeding past. Once on the open ocean, however, the ship did pitch noticeably, and therein lay its biggest problem. J. got exceptionally sea-sick and spent the entire crossing in her seat, with her head on the table, unable to take advantage of the open rear deck or the surprisingly decent breakfast at the cafeteria. This was, all told, the biggest misadventure of the entire trip.
We arrived in Yarmouth on schedule, losing an hour in the process – Nova Scotia is in the Atlantic time zone. After another 45 minutes or so we passed through the border checkpoint, where we were interviewed by a very polite young officer who asked us all the same questions we used to get asked before Sept. 11th – why we were in Canada, how long, and whether we were bringing anything not for personal use. Make no mistake – crossing the border, at least the one with Canada, in either direction, is not about security. It's about taxation. As long as we convinced the guard that we didn't have anything that we would sell and avoid taxes, we could have had a trunk full of nuclear explosives. After a lunch at a random pub across the street from the dock (mediocre sandwiches and excellent smoked haddock chowder), a stop at a tourist information office and another at a Canadian Tire store (a kind of industrial Target) to buy propane for our camp stove, we were finally on the road to Cape Breton around 3:00 p.m.
The advantages of being a large, sparsely populated country are most readily apparent on the Canadian highways. The major roads – roughly the Canadian equivalent of our Interstates – were uniformly excellent, had very little traffic, particularly long-haul truck traffic, and as a consequence no road construction to speak of. The disadvantages are equally apparent, however – we didn't reach Canso Causeway, which connects Cape Breton Island to the mainland, until almost 10:00 p.m.; the town of Ingonish Ferry, where we were staying, was still two more hours away on the Cabot Trail – a much smaller, twisty mountain road. My paranoia of having to face any form of law enforcement in a foreign country didn't help -- it confined us to driving within 10 km/h of the speed limit, which alternated between a semi-generous 100 km/h and an almost-brisk 110, dropping to 80 in the mountains. We finally arrived in Ingonish Ferry around midnight, after a final 100 km on the Cabot Trail, keeping our bloodshot eyes peeled for moose.
The drive did offer a priceless moment of realization that there still are pure places in this world, and that rural Nova Scotia is one of them. At one point along the way, we had stopped at a tourist information office to call our hotel and arrange for late arrival. The staff – two high-school-age kids, a girl and a guy, unfailingly polite and friendly, asked us to sign the guest book. While I was on the phone, J. went to sign, and discovered that the previous visitor, as a stupid joke, signed in as Paris Hilton. J. commented. With complete seriousness and a straight face, the girl asked, “Who's Paris Hilton?” Ah, to be so far away!
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