A Semester Across Canada - Part II
Part II - The Maritimes
This post continues from the previous one: Part I - British Columbia to Quebec.
…Leaving Quebec City, we began the trek to Fredericton. There are many united churches here from the British. Lots of brick and Victorian-style houses as well. First touch of the Atlantic from Canada! After that, we drove to Saint John, New Brunswick. We went to the reversing falls, where the water under a bridge creates a waterfall in both directions depending on the tide.
In Saint John we saw the old buildings built by the loyalists in the early 1800s. In Fundy National Park, we got a campsite at Headquarters campground, which looked out over Alma. As we got there, we heard a Great horned owl before we walked to Alma and saw the low low tide and the ships resting on the ground. We went to Holy Whale Brewery while in Alma, which is built within (and themed like) an old church.
The drive along to Hopewell Cape included covered bridges from about 1900. We went to the Hopewell Rocks at 9:30 for the low tide of 2.2m. We walked through the beach, and I panicked a bit at the end about being caught by the tide and made us run back. We got very muddy from the clay of the seafloor. We drove back up to Hopewell Rocks later on to see them at high tide at 3:00 (11.4m).
In Moncton, we drove up the magnetic hill optical illusion that makes it seem like your car is rolling uphill. We also saw a pheasant flying! Shediac was next, home of the biggest lobster in the world and also famous for seafood. We decided to get one lobster roll to experience it, although I was not a fan. After that, we drove across the very long Confederation Bridge to PEI. Lots of Acadian presence here, including flags and painted items on people’s houses. The dirt here is very red as well! We drove up to the North Cape, and saw the red cliffs and wind turbines.
We drove to Cavendish National Park and walked along the beach there. The sand was lovely, and the rocks were smoothed by the waves. Further along was Green Gables heritage site, and we saw the house that L. Montgomery based Anne’s house on. St. Peter’s Harbour lighthouse was next, and we walked around the beautiful white sand dunes there. At Greenwich National Park, we did a short hike over a boardwalk that went through the marsh to the sand dunes at the end.
Cavendish beach
We went to Charlottetown following the coastal road. We checked out a few shops and looked at the old brick buildings. We decided to leave PEI since everything was closed for the fall, so we drove to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and looked around at the historic buildings and the shops. We drove along the #3 highway that went along the coast, and went through absolutely beautiful towns. All the buildings are very bright and different.
We drove to Peggy’s Cove, and were blown away by how beautiful it is. The landscape looks like a mix between the alpine and a fishing village. The original houses still stand where the fisherman first built them, and their descendants still live and fish there. The rocky area with the lighthouse is also stunning, and we watched as huge waves crashed and formed deep out in the sea. We walked back through part of the town as the sun was setting to see the houses.
Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
In Halifax, we went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and learned about ships, shipwrecks, and the Titanic. We explored the citadel, which was significantly better than the one in Quebec. We walked down to the University of Halifax and then to St. Paul’s graveyard. The graveyard was from the mid-1700s to 1900, with a grave plot for the British man who burned down the Whitehouse, a famous ship captain, and someone who had been murdered, with the murderer's name on the stone. This man was sentenced to be hanged, but was pardoned by the Queen when she came into power and was giving royal pardons to celebrate. This was the graveyard talked about in one of the later Anne of Green Gables books, when she goes to University (which was based on a Halifax university). To lighten the mood, we took a tour of Alexander Keith’s brewery, where we got a bunch of samples, and then they played us some traditional tunes.
We got to Aulds Cove, right before Cape Breton, where I glimpsed a dolphin! We stopped on the side of the cove and saw around 40 dolphins in two groups jumping and swimming to catch fish. We watched them for a long time (we even had binoculars) and also saw a couple of seals and around 5 bald eagles trying to find food.
The beginning of the Cabot Trail, later on, was beautiful, and we got to see the highland mountains. It was a very pretty hike through a grassland area that had been made that was because of an overpopulation of moose, so they had conservation efforts going on to keep the moose out of certain areas. We saw out over the Atlantic and the winding highway along the cliffs. We also saw a pod of porpoises! On the hike out, we also found a black salamander with bright yellow spots crossing the trail. We drove around the top of the trail and took a winding and steep road to Meat Cove, at the Northern tip of the island. We drove through Niels Harbour and watched enormous waves crash up into the rocks, which sent a huge spray up over them to where we were standing.
After a bit more exploring, we got on the ferry to Newfoundland, the last province on our list. It was around a 6 ½ hour ferry ride total. We drove to Springdale to see Glassy Beach, which is the coolest glass beach I’ve ever seen. The glass pieces are huge, and many were deformed by the water and merged with small stones. Some of the metal in the water also formed into huge masses like silver nuggets. We drove through to the lighthouse on Iceberg Bay. We brought the binoculars and saw humpback whales! It was pretty chilly, but we watched them for a while.
We got to St. John’s and drove to Signal Hill, an old fort looking out over the city and ocean. It was incredibly windy, but we looked around briefly and saw the city spread out beneath us. We then drove to Quidi Vidi to look around, a gorgeous dotting of small buildings along the shoreline (home to my new favourite brewery). We drove to kilometre 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway so that we could say we drove the entire thing. We then drove through St. John’s and saw more of the beautiful jellybean houses before we went back to the hotel. In Saint John's, we checked out ‘The Rooms’, which was a lovely museum. We learned a lot about the Newfoundland Regiment in the First World War, before they were a part of Canada. Unfortunately, I had caught a bad cold by this point, but we drove down to the other side of the inlet from Signal Hill and looked out at the beautiful houses on the side of the hill and at the city in front of us. We also saw the remains of the old 18th-century fort there.
A highlight of the trip was watching the sunrise at Cape Spear. Cape Spear is the most easterly point in North America and therefore the first sunrise in North America. We drove to Shipwreck Conception Bay to see the shipwreck there, and made a trek to Gros Morne Park. This drive followed along the Viking route, and we stopped at Lobster Cove lighthouse to look around. We went back to Rocky Harbour, a beautiful small town along the fjord. We kept driving and saw the gorgeous flat-topped mountains of Gros Morne, up to the Viking settlement, L’Anse Aux Meadows.
This contained reconstructed sod buildings, as well as the remains of the settlement that were buried and looked like little hills. We also saw a community graveyard by the water. After that, we drove a few minutes to Norstead and saw replicas of how a Viking village would have looked, and some broken-down boats along the coast. Sadly, all of the interpretive events and interiors of the buildings were closed.
Raleigh, the next up, was a historical fishing village where around 150-200 people live. We looked at the wonderful wooden dock and then saw the town quickly.
Driving to Stephenville, it began to snow, so we put on Christmas music and began to think about heading home. Along the road, we saw woodland caribou! The herd crossed the road right beside us. We got to Stephenville and saw their famously long aeroplane runway. We then drove to Picadilly, the French area of Newfoundland. We drove all the way out on the tip to Long Point, where we found beautiful rocks.
We meandered back to the ferry over the next couple of days, in mid-November, and began the long drive home, full of new memories!
