Today we are going into our third Maritime province of this trip. New Brunswick. It is also one of the four Atlantic provinces, which add Labrador/Newfoundland to their ranks. New Brunswick is not an island, but is rather part of the mainland, adjacent to Maine and Quebec to the south and west and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy to the north and east. The province is 83% covered in forest,…
In 1908 the literary world was visited by one of its great soon-to-be successes. That’s when Lucy Maud Montgomery published her classic tale of an orphaned waif named Anne Shirley, who gets relocated to a farm on the north shore of Prince Edward Island at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The farm is owned by two middle-aged siblings who, as childless and unwed brother and sister, are accidentally chosen to raise Anne in…
The weather concerns for this week of riding in Nova Scotia have always focused on how much rain we would get. In terms of temperature, my weather app has been telling me that it was staying with highs in the mid 70s all week across the region. It looked like we weren’t gonna get any rain, but of course yesterday, we got rained on in the Highlands. Today the temperature dropped by 15° and got…
Ive heard about the Cabot Trail for years and it always sounded like such a romantic place. Even in my recent research when I looked up John Cabot, I came away with the impression of a Medieval Marco Polo adventurer who came looking for the Northwest Passage to these chilly environs and at least left with a place named for his explorations. The reality seems instead to be that John Cabot did whatever landfall exploring…
Nova Scotia is a large sausage-shaped island that runs diagonally from the southwest to the northeast. Off the northeast coast by several hundred miles is Sable Island, a largely uninhabited sand bar (six people live there year round), that is mostly made famous in movies like The Perfect Storm, where it is referenced as the furthest most point of land before you go out to brave the Grand Banks on your way towards the bleak…
Oh Canada I’ve had a funny relationship with Canada over the course of my life. My first exposure to the great north country was when I lived in Maine from 1966 through 1968. We had moved to Maine so my mother could start the first women’s Job Corps center on the campus of the historic Poland Spring Resort, home of the famous no-mineral water that went from being a unique upscale cure for Nineteenth Century…
Jumping Into Fall I have the feeling that this year, fall will fly by very quickly. Summer threw us one helluva going away party with a one week heat wave and now it is starting to present us with overcast skies and temperatures in the 60’s, fully 40 degrees from where it was just a week ago. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the cooler weather and I think my succulent garden is happy…
The Joy of Travel It’s 1am at the Toronto Airport and it’s been a helluva trip so far. After spending a week watching the news about the threatened Air Canada pilot’s strike, we got a reprieve in the wee hours of Sunday morning and were assured by the airline that all would be well. I joked to my traveling friends that now all we had to deal with were normal airline delays. Ha, ha, ha.…
Strange Dreams Like most people, if I do dream every night, I only remember those dreams once in a while, usually when I wake up in the middle of one. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about or trying to analyze my dreams, but last night my little Buddy who gets very grumpy when he is awoken, woke himself up and started growling loudly enough to woke me at about 3am. Sure enough,…
Tree Work I believe I have discussed my fascination with trees. My favorite painting is one by an Argentine artist named Rikelme, and it is painted in the fashion of the Group of Seven Canadian artists that painted in the 19th Century in a light Rococo style. It is a lone tree on the rolling Pampas of Argentina. When I went last week to the Mission San Luis Rey and stopped by the grave site…