We began our day in Bouctouche on a small island where, in summer months, one can travel back in time and experience Acadian life with a village and show called Le Pays de la Sagouine. We were treated to comedy, music, dancing and stories, followed by a drink made from rum, fruit juice and a secret ingredient. Once again, since Mom couldn’t drink, I had hers and mine.
In Bouctouche itself, with a population of between two and three thousand, we had lunch. The area, with its population mostly descended from the Acadians, is completely bilingual, with most people speaking French unless spoken to in English.
After lunch, we visited the Olivier Soapery where we received a demonstration of soap making. Located in St-Anne-de-Kent in New Brunswick, the soapery uses recipes developed in France, Spain and Italy along with natural ingredients and Acadian methods to create their products. The guide we had telling us their history and about their products had a decent sense of humor as she kept us laughing throughout. One thing that I remember her saying was that a particular soap that contained several edible ingredients and smelled delicious should not be eaten as it would make us “fart bubbles”.
We spent the night in Moncton, which had first been settled in 1733 and is the largest city in New Brunswick. The capital of New Brunswick, however, is Fredericton, which began in 1690. We had lunch there the next day before visiting the King’s Landing Historic Settlement. It is a living history museum dating to the early 1800s where guests can experience some of the life of that period by trying some hands-on farming, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, among other things. They have costumed interpreters on hand, much as in Colonial Williamsburg and Plimouth Plantation. Many of the items made at King’s Landing are for sale in the shops there. Mom and I visited a church, three houses, the ox barn, the General Store, the Blacksmith’s shop (my dad’s father had been a blacksmith as had his father before him), and the King’s Head Inn.
One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to St Andrews by the Sea in order to do some whale watching out in the Bay of Fundy. St Andrews was founded in 1783 when some buildings were floated on barges from Maine just after the American Revolution. The waters in the area were also where my ship’s captain ancestor sailed, so I was elated to be out in a boat in the same place and seeing a lot of what he would have seen.
Nearer St Andrews we saw several small, rock islands covered with seals. I decided to use my video camera to try to capture what we saw (it’s too hard to go back and forth between a video camera and a photo camera when trying to capture quick action), so I only got two photos. In addition to the harbor seals, we also saw minke whales, fin whales, and humpback whales. I managed to capture some great video footage of every whale we saw. Whenever one was spotted, I got the camera on them so, if they did anything like leaping or spouting, I was already recording.
We spent the night in Saint John, which was originally settled in 1604 and was the first city to be incorporated in what was to become Canada in 1785. We began the following day by exploring the Old City Market and then seeing the Reversing Falls. This is a unique phenomenon where the high tides of the Bay of Fundy reverse the flow of the river within a gorge in the middle of the city. In the narrowest part of the gorge are some strong rapids.
There are several covered bridges in the vicinity of Saint John, so we visited the town of St Martins to see a few. Afterwards we drove along the Fundy Trail. Where the highways were, there were very tall chain link fences, which were to try to keep moose from running out on the highways and getting hit by cars. Around the trail itself on the scenic drive, there weren’t any fences. But the road speeds were much slower than the highway speeds, so hopefully drivers would be able to spot any moose in enough time to stop.
The tides in the Bay of Fundy have a wide range (about 28 feet) from low tide to high tide. One of the places that demonstrates this at its utmost is Hopewell Rocks. The rock formations were created by the extreme tides that can vary as much as 52 feet in this location. At low tide, people can walk around on the ocean floor.
We spent another night in Saint John before heading back to Halifax. En route, we spent some time at Peggy’s Cove, which is on Saint Margaret’s Bay in Nova Scotia since 1766. Originally a fishing town, its main industry now is tourism. That makes sense as it is very picturesque.
We had lunch in Lunenberg, another colorful, coastal town and went through Mahone Bay before reaching Halifax. Our last adventure was to sail on the tall ship Silva around the Halifax Harbor. I loved that. When it was moving along quickly, it felt like we were skimming along above the water instead of on it.
I guess 2007 was my year for having difficulties getting home. We were supposed to catch a flight from Halifax to Toronto and then another from Toronto to Minneapolis. The first flight was canceled so we had to re-book. We managed to get a flight to Boston, but our luggage had already been checked through to Minneapolis and loaded on another plane. So when we got to Boston and had to switch terminals with no luggage, they became very suspicious. We were each taken aside (Mom was 80 by this point), searched and questioned. Fortunately I had kept the original tickets, our luggage receipts, etcetera, so they finally decided we were okay and let us on the plane. We didn’t get to Minneapolis until about 10pm. Our luggage had beat us by several hours and was waiting there for us. We were relieved to be reunited.
