PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND - the place of L.M. Montgomery

The little house where Anne was born.  I had looked at lots of these little two storied houses and wondered  about how they were configured inside - but it was remarkably compact there were three small bedrooms upstairs.

I grew up on the books of L.M. Montgomery, who grew up on Prince Edward Island and set many of her most famous books there.  When the grass around me was brown and crackling, and the sun pinged off the corrugated iron roof in inland New South Wales, the place of my dreams had a "Lake of Shining Waters", a shingled barn and a wood with soft green leaves and wildflowers.

"Silver Bush",  or at least said to be the setting for the book.  It was the home of of Lucy Maud's cousins - a place where she spent a lot of happy time and the place where she was married.  "Lake of Shining Waters" in the background in front of the huge white painted shingled barn.  They were offering Matthew Cuthbert wagon rides.  I did not take up the offer, but it added to the picture.

Gog - or Magog.  A pair of green spotted dogs featured in the story of Anne's student years, and they captured my imagination as a child.  And here - in the home of Lucy Maud's grandfather, Senator John Montgomery, was one of the originals - its partner, sadly long since broken.  The house is still owned by a family member, who told me that  Lucy Maud also coveted the dogs and when she visited England later in here life she tried to buy a pair.  She had to do with a pair of gold spotted ones, the race, she said, of green spotted dogs,  being extinct.

I was nervous about visiting Prince Edward Island.  One has to allow for artistic licence and modernistion and all of that kind of thing.  Dream places are easily shattered.  But absolutely, it did not disappoint.   From the rolling agricultural fields, with their shingled barns, to the little white house where Lucy Maud was born, to the austere sparsely north west shoreline, to the soft pink, white and yellow wildflowers growing lushly by the side of the road .... it was the place I had imagined.  I loved it.

Shingled barns and wildflowers.  They were so lush and pretty everywhere on the sides of the road.  There was also a wooden eyrie in a field with an osprey in residence, but I didn't get a picture.  Alvin assures me that it was most unlikely to have been nesting in fall, but it was definitely sitting there when we first went past.

Of course it had its modern conveniences - its service centres, malls and hardware shops, which we found as we headed south for the ferry back to Nova Scotia, but the PEI of L.M. Montgomery is a real place.

Leaving Prince Edward Island on the ferry  - but this is typical of the sparsely settled coast of PEI, with the white shingled lighthouse and the little white church.

We fly back home later today.  The countdown has begun, the books I have acquired have to be disposed of in the least weighty way in the luggage - so the last posts for Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island will have to wait.  It has been a wonderful journey.

NEW BRUNSWICK - Arcady in Canada

The Matapedia Valley leading into New Brunswick.

We arrived in New Brunswick from Québec via Matapedia River Valley, which was absolutely gorgeous, but on the day of our travel it was foggy, moody and very wet.  Driving was a real strain.

We then travelled down the Arcadian coast ....

Now, since we came to Arcadian settlements in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, I have been endeavouring to get my head around who the Arcadians are.  Seems, that the current Arcadian settlements are remnants of one of five colonies of New France - the French state on the American continent, established from 1534.  It included Newfoundland and stretched from the Rockies to Nova Scotia and as far south as Louisiana.  The Arcadians have earlier origins and a different history to the French of Québec, and have their own form of French.  They suffered many resettlements as the British gained control of Canada, and possibly because of this, proudly retain a distinct identity.  The Arcadian flag - the French red, white and blue tricoleur with a gold star - flys in front of Arcadian homes, along with other red, white and blue decorations, and as we moved east we noted more and more houses and barns sporting star decorations, which reference the star on the Arcadian flag.

Arcadian homes.  I got pictures of the flags, but the weather was really damp & windy, so they have not come out well.

The Arcadian villages consisted of small houses strung sparsely both sides of the coastal road.  It looked as if fishing was and probably still is the main form of income.  Although not yet in Prince Edward Island, they reminded me strongly of places described in L.M. Montgomery's books.

Atlantic Ocean at Maisonette.  The bay freezes over in winter and they set up small huts on the  ice  for protection while they fish through the holes.  They can walk or skidoo to the village on the other side.  It was pretty wild the day we were there and the ocean had chewed up a new boardwalk in places.

We reached the Atlantic Ocean at Maisonette, and things fined up for a while, but when they closed in again and we approached the extraordinary Conferedation Bridge to Prince Edward Island, we decided it was time to leave New Brunswick, after only one night - our shortest stay in any of the provinces.

The Confederation Bridge, between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island is 12.9 kms long - boasted as the longest bridge in the world over icy water.  The bridge has high sides, but I felt every inch of those 12.9kms.  It was very scary!!!!   Even Alvin, who is not in the least scared of bridges in general, said it wasn't comfortable to drive, and we returned in a civilized fashion via the ferry.  Still - it was an impressive piece of engineering.  Photo care of the bridge website, http://www.confederationbridge.com/en/

I had to put this in - and I had to try it. "Poutine"  is a popular dish on the East Coast of Canada.  The name is French - so it may be French Canadian in origin.  It consists of hot chips, pulled chunks of mozzarella cheese and hot gravy - which of course melts the mozzarella over the chips.  Good if you are really really hungry - perhaps ....

QUEBEC - More like another country than another province.

Québec - quel horreur!!  At least, on first impressions.

Québec motor way.  My idea of hell!!

We took the short cut through the United States to miss the outskirts of Toronto, but inadvertently got tangled up for most of a day in the endless wastelands of outer Montreal, frequently missing our turns along a route which was no way as continuous or straightforward as the nice young lady at the border information post had promised.  My vision of hell is something like this.

When we escaped from Montreal, we fell lurid outskirts of the very modern, very urban centre of Sherbrooke.  It  seemed to be one long Parramatta Road - all car sales, massage parlours, service centres and more brands of fried chicken takeaway than I would have thought could possibly have co-existed!!  If there was a nice part of Sherbrooke, we did not find it.  The intial introduction to the Province of Quebec was not promising.

Although rain set in thereafter, however, the French flavour of Québec developed and the province grew on me.  Tim Hortons changed from being "Always Fresh" to "Tourjour Frais" and began to offer brioche.  Altogether it seemed difficult to remember that we were on the American continent.

Unusual & very colourful architecture at the  Benedictine Abbey of St. Benoit, Austin, Québec.

We visited the beautiful Abbey of St. Benoit and sampled their cheeses.  We visited the old city in Quebec, looked at the old walls and I tried the pastries (there was a particularly delicious one with an alcoholic filling called "Le Jesuit").  We drove along the St. Lawrence Seaway and sampled the gastronic delights of many small villages, mostly named after French saints, with large Catholic churches and picturesque houses.

Icebreaker at the Québec Maritime Museum

Along the way we found the Québec Maritime Museum, with a fascinating icebreaker on stilts outside
.

Quebec Maritime Museum

In the end, it was hard to say good bye, but pockets of Arcadian French culture kept cropping up in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and although the French of the Arcadians is not exactly the classic French of France, Alvin still managed to get in a fair bit of linguistic practice.

Distinctive Québec houses

Large Catholic churches in small villages - this one at Islet Sur Mer, on the St. Lawrence Seaway,  dated to the mid 18th century.

SOUTHERN ONTARIO - Barns, Mennonites & Niagra Falls

As far as I can make out, Southern Ontario is that part of Ontario more or less that part of the Province which dips down into the United States, along the top of the Great Lakes.  Up until then the border with the US is a dead straight line.  Southern Ontario, however is playing tootsies with the U.S. states of Michigan and New York.  Toronto is not far north of Detroit.

When we reached the city of Sault Ste. Marie at the top of Lake Huron, the landscape flattened out and jagged rocks and pine trees softened into rolling corn fields with substantial farm houses and barns.

The farmsteads in Southern Ontario, except for Manitoulin Island, looked pretty prosperous, as did the townships.

We spent a few days on beautiful Manitoulen Island (a bit like a step back at least thirty years, with tumble down barns and interesting interwoven log fences), in Georgian Bay, at the top of Lake Huron, then crossed by the ferry, Chicheemaun, to the charming tourist village of Tobermory, and down into the lower penninsula between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, avoiding Toronto but catching up with Alvin's family.

The crystal clear waters of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, around Manitoulin Island

From time to time there were signs to watch out for Mennonite wagons, and we did eventually meet up with one or two  - which is more than I can say of the mythical moose, which road signs constantly warn drivers about.

Mennonite wagon in Southern Ontario

We avoided Toronto, and Ottawa, but I had to see Niagara Falls.  Absolutely, tackily touristy and absolutely magnificent.  Nothing can take away the impact of such a force of nature ...  awesome!!  Then, to avoid getting caught up in the outskirts of the aforementioned cities, we decided, on the spur of the moment, to try out my US visa waver and skip to Quebec via the south side of Lake Ontario ... into the US, the New York State route.  Alas, the visa waver was a bit of a myth, only intended, they said for transit through airports ... we we spent a couple of hours twiddling our thumbs in the Border Post waiting waiting waiting with absolutely nothing to do and unable to leave, only to answer the same questions I had answered before on the visa waver ... this time with finger prints taken.  They were very pleasant about it, it was just a pain because while we waited the sun went down and we were forced to stay on the US side of Niagara for the night.  Still - the drive along Lake Ontario the next day was really lovely.

Downtown Niagara on the Canadian side.  

Niagra Falls - the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, with  Maid of the Mist doing her routine trick.    There certainly was plenty of mist, enough to feel like rain, complete with rainbow.  

Wildlife sightings - a field of bison (which I didn't manage to photograph), one small unidentified bat and some Canada geese, real and decoy ...

Little bat enjoying an overday motel visit.

Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia to come, but it has been difficult to keep up after a long day's drive, and we are now almost at the end, due in Halifax tomorrow.

NORTHERN ONTARIO - Lake, Forest, Rocks & Loooong Roads

Northern Ontario is not really north, in any geographical sense that I can see, except that it is north of some of the big urban centres in Ontario, like Toronto and Ottawa.

The views were spectacular.

Much of our route through Northern Ontario - and I don't think there were options - was skirting around Lake Superior.  Settlements were few and far between and the traffic sparse enough to deter the fast food chains and corporate motels.  The forest was deep and dark and the rocks were often spectacular. There were long stretches of deep pink and red rock along the road cuttings, in one place spectacularly bright red and white striped.   Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of that.

Some of the red rocks, but this pic does not do them justice.

Lake Superior is huge.  It is difficult to believe it is not the sea.  We tasted the water just to be  sure!!

Rocky Lake Superior shoreline - amazing colours.

We are still waiting to see a moose ... after all, the road signs keep telling us to avoid them - but I have now definitely seen a dead skunk in the middle or the road ... whether or not it was "stinking to high heaven" I can't tell, because I didn't get out too look.

MANITOBA - Trees, Lakes & Holiday Camps

Manitoba from the road - typically ...

Somehow I expected Manitoba to be more of the same rolling open country as Saskatchewan, but almost as soon as we crossed the border, land got rockier and hillier - the prairies turned into small lakes and and clumps of woodland gradually got thicker, small beautifully shaped pines emerging from cracks in the rock.  The lakes were ringed with camping grounds, holiday homes and bible camps - and Canadian families were making the most of the last of their summer holidays. 

 ... and again, with a bit of Rennie humour.  There was not a lot of Rennie ... 

 At the Firefly B&B at Rennie, we were told that it had been 4 degrees over night and that an early Fall could be expected because of dry summer and cold nights.  Almost immediately we saw occasional patches of delicate colour change in roadside foliage ... so I have some hope that it could be really warming up in Nova Scotia by the time we arrive.

Iclandic Church on Hecla Island 

The prettiest soft dappled green walking trails on Hecla.

One of the highlights of our Manitoba visit was a loop up to old Icelandic settlements of Hecla Island and Gimli on Lake Winnipeg.  Hecla Island was beautiful,  the names on the graves in the church were clearly mostly Icelandic (even the modern ones), and the Iclandic quality of the goodies at the Reykjavik Bakery in Gimli seemed deliciously genuine - but otherwise the interpretation of the Iclandic heritage needs a bit of work.

View from the Rennie Firefly B&B

We heard that a wolf had visited our B&B the morning of our visit, and a squirrel was playing in the trees outside our window, but otherwise no exciting animal sightings from Manitoba, at least that I can recall.   As in Saskatchewan, most rural towns we visited are fading off the map ... 

We passed through Manitoba seemingly all too quickly and now seem to have been crossing Ontario all too quickly - with  brief adventure in the US ... more to come.

SASKATCHEWAN - Prairies and Small Towns

Coming in to Kenaston - from the csr.  The folks of Kenaston SK are very proud of  their grain elevators and sad that they are being replaced by concrete models.  You can buy posters of them.  In one town, the elevator has been moved to a museum - on a trailer with 83 wheels.  The Dauphin Museum book tells me this.

Kenaston 

Saskatchewan was all wide open spaces - rolling grain fields and big skies.  We deliberately kept off the beaten track and avoided the large commercial centres.

The main street of Springside.  Springside Fine Foods was everything - petrol station, coffee shop, grocery store and washrooms.  They looked after us well and gave us free souvenirs when we left.

The towns we passed through were small, dominated by the grain elevators and tractor sales.  They gave a broad main street with few open shops and even fewer people.  I imagine that large farms which would once almost have been small villages, are increasingly mechanised and computerised, employing fewer and fewer people.  In one town the pharmacy also offered liquor outlet and newsagency services - and the local "restaurant" if there is one looks pretty run down.  Their saving grace may be that, since there seem to be no public toilets anywhere in Canada, passersby have to buy coffee to use their facilities.  Most have a small museum with a homemade sign and not enough volunteers.

The post office lady in the Nokomis Museum gave me quite a scare!!

If this sounds critical it isn't.  For my part we seemed to pass through Saskatchewan all too quickly.  The part of me that recognises mid western NSW as home, absolutely loved it.  In all that wide open space I feel I can breath deeply - and absolutely everywhere we have gone, we have been greeted with warmth and kindness.

By the by - we are generally finding accommodation a lot more expensive than expected, although it seems to be settling down to something more reasonable as we reach Ontario ... but even here, as tonight, we have hit a town where everthing is booked out and prices are at a premium again.  AND we have added an otter, scootling across the road on short legs, to our animal sightings.

ALBERTA - Badlands, Dinosaurs & Hoodoos

Hoodoos!!   

As we hit Alberta, the land flattened out to rolling hills & prairies - but we had some very specific things to see in this province.  We were there for the Badlands ... the eroded valleys of the Hoodoos - mysterious eroded rock forms, where the combination of softer sedimentary rock with harder intrusions has created capped pillars, stacked pillars, holes & shapes like lava flows.  Indian people saw faces in the rocks and regarded these "Badlands" as places of especial spiritual importance.

Writing on Walls Provincial Park - site of Canadian Aboriginal pictographs & spiritual significance.

At "Writing on the Walls" Provincial Park, down the south of the Alberta, we decided on a guided tour for an interpretation of the markings and introduction to the startling environment.  The native American pictographs can be dated with surprising specificity, in spite of the confusing overlay of modern graffiti.  In once instance the depiction of Model T Fords has been tracked down to a very specific occasion in the 1920s - other carvings high up are known to be many hundreds of years old.

We then moved north to Dinosaur Park ... where, in another eroded dry river valley, the most amazing complete Dinsosaur skeletons and other fossils have been discovered.  

Dinosaur Provincial Park - site of amazing finds.  Work is ongoing.

Many of these finds are now on exhibition at either the museum at Dinosaur Park, or at the mecca for lovers of paleontology, the Royal Tyrell Museum at Drumheller (pronounced 'tie-rell" I discovered).  Apart from the fossils themselves, a highlight for was the opportunity to watch and talk to students cleaning bones - and the view into the big laboratory.  I don't know where this museum gets its funding, but everything is beautifully exhibited and explained, especially the stories about finding and extracting some of the spectacular fossils.

Death throes of a tyrannosaur, set in stone, at the Royal Tyrell Museum.  It was the second incredible find by the same staff member in two years, and was removed as a single slap - with great difficulty.

Opalised ammonite fossil - about 50cms diameter and absolutely stunning!!  I want one!!!

As we drove out of the town of Drumheller, the scenery continued to amaze.  It is difficult to do justice verbally or photograhically to such an awe inspiring landscape.

(PS - if you double click on the pictures, they will enlarge)

Rockies and British Columbia

Well - Dear Friends ... it feels like we are driving across the large folded maps which Alvin spends so much time perusing - and it takes me back to 3rd class in Grenfell, when I first learned about the Canadian provinces.  Lurking in the background as we travel through the map is the image of an old fashioned class room with wrought iron framed desks, ink wells and roll up maps.

The attractive face of Vancouver, from near Pacific Regional Park.  The Park foreshore was covered
 large granite pebbles and huge driftwood logs.  I picked up a piece of fossilised timber.

Our two night stay in Vancouver were a bit of a washout.  Apart from the pleasant waterfront Pacific Spirit Regional Park, which we happened across as we drove in, all we saw was more traffic and crowds in maze like shopping malls.   I was desperate to replace my camera battery charger but it was a lost cause.  The replacement "univeral charger" has universally refused to recharge any battery of any kind, which I suppose is even handed!!  I am grateful for Alvin's camera.  In hindsight, we could have done with some more R&R before we hit the big smoke with the car.  Our one Airbnb accommodation, in the hills on the far east side of Vancouver was lovely - but we were not in a good frame of mind to enjoy it.

Heading out of Vancouver to the east, we passed through the gloriously lush Okanagan valley, famous for its orchards, without buying a single cherry - because we had stocked in Vancouver ... and famous for its little historic towns, but we passed them all by.  It seemed that we always stopped in souless concrete convenience centres for plastic food because of our need for the petrol / food / toilet combination.  Further east on the prairies, that has improved because there are no big convenience centres on the roads we have travelled in the past few days ... yea!!

I thought we would have our chance for the Okanagen experience when we stopped for the night at Osyoos - but I had that very wrong.  Osyoos is a desert town, a taste of Mexico in the "garden of Eden".    It looked okay from a distance, but close up it was expensive and tacky and in full holiday mode.  Excited anklebiters in their swimmers at every turn.

The attractive face of Osyoos - from a distance

We didn't really start to enjoy ourselves until we got to the Rockies - we stayed two nights in a little town called Kimberly and did a day trip loop up to Lake Louise and round back through Golden.  It was a long, long day - but worth it.  The Rockies lived up to their name.  They were really truely rocky and absolutely magnificent ... at every turn, and even as they faded into the distance as we headed for Alberta ....  and the peaks were replaced on the skyline by windmills.

Lake Louise was teaming with tourists, but otherwise we had our other mountain stops almost to ourselves.

En route we have seen a black bear scampering across the road right in front of our car (I bet his mother was cross!), two bison in a field just as I was telling Alvin they were extinct (!!), one dead deer type animal to prove that the graphic road signs tell it like to is, and one squirrel performing for the customers in a golf club ... (we do get really desperate for the coffee/toilet opportunities sometimes).

This stuffed grizzly was the feature display at the Kimberly local museum, along  with the story of the boy who shot the bear to save his friends.

Last views of the Rockies from the Petrol Station & Convenience Centre, shared by an army of Recreational Vehicles ...