This series of blogs chronicles the Intrepids’ adventures driving round North America in an electric car. So far we have covered 18,000km from LA to Alaska and across Canada to Newfoundland without so far running out of electricity. After exploring the Rockies and the Prairies, this blog sees us honing our french with the Acadians in Quebec and getting lost in the fog in the Maritimes.
Canada is vast, spreading almost 8000km from west to east but we have finally covered every km of the Trans Canada highway from Victoria and Prince Rupert in British Columbia to arrive at Cape Spear, the eastern-most point in Canada in Newfoundland and the end of the road. It feels like the end of the world, with banks of fog rolling in from the Atlantic, where the warm waters from the Gulf Stream meet the Labrador current in Iceberg Alley. There are no icebergs today, it’s too late in the season and anyway they’re all melting too fast but the whales and puffins are loving the late summer weather. We sit on the shore on a warm evening at dusk, drinks in hand watching a family of humpbacks cavorting a few hundred metres away, feeding on the abundant squid and mackerel. Them not us, we’re eating cod and oysters.
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| Armchair whale watching, Kings Point, Newfoundland |
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| Oysters, PEI |
Cod, the mainstay of the Newfoundland economy for 500 years and a standard part of the British diet, boiled to within an inch of its life and smothered in parsley sauce and mashed potato, was fished almost to extinction 50 years ago plunging the region from Maine to Labrador into a deep depression. Up till then most of the cod that wasn’t consumed by english schoolboys was wind-dried on racks, salted and sent in barrels to Portugal, the Caribbean and west Africa where it was their main source of protein, especially on Fridays. If you’ve ever eaten bacalhau, bacalao, klippfish, morue or saltfish you’ll know just how delicious it is (not). However, fish stocks have begun to recover and cod is now back on the menu, but this time round it’s line caught and more expensive than salmon, particularly the cod tongues which are even more of a delicacy than sea urchins. Here in Newfoundland, whale watching, puffin tours and exploiting the off-shore oil reserves have replaced cod as the main source of livelihood, closely followed by craft beer brewing and distilling; whisky, gin, rum, vodka - you name it, the newfies have distilled it and we’ve sampled it.
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| Anne of Green Gables house, PEI |
But it’s not just fish and alcohol; Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province is justifiably famous for potatoes and Anne of Green Gables who’s house we visit, whilst the Montrealians have perfected bagels and smoked meat, the Canadians in general relish poutine (chips in gravy and curds) and on Fogo Island off Newfoundland we discover cloudberries, bilberries, blueberries, wild strawberries and raspberries, cranberries, bearberries, crowberries, partridge berries, bakeapple berries and even a plant whose leaves taste exactly like oysters. But more of that later.
After leaving the prairies behind, we spend time in Ottawa where we stay right in the city centre which has fabulous art galleries, museums and markets. They do a passable version of Sydney’s Vivid, lighting up their parliament house at night with a stirring tale of Canadian history and glories, and a daily changing of the guard with scarlet tunic’ed soldiers wearing real bearskins and marching with bagpipes. There’s a canal with a flight of 8 hand operated locks in the city centre and an international Ribfest in full swing, with BBQ smells drifting across from city hall which prove difficult to resist.
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| Parliament House, Ottawa |
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| Ottawa |
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| Best Ribs, Best Sauce, Ottawa |
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| Going down with Alice, changing of the guard, Ottawa |
Then it’s across the river to Quebec, an enormous province stretching along either side of the Gulf of St Lawrence where everyone speaks french, but with an american accent and where they haven’t quite mastered the art of wine making, although to be fair their pinot noirs have come a long way from the icewines of a few years ago. It’s a short drive east to Montreal along the river where an airBnB awaits. Unlike our digs in Ottawa it’s miles from the city so we develop a close working knowledge of the Montreal metro, which proves to be very fast and efficient but with definite similarities to the Parisian metro. The old city is fascinating with narrow cobbled streets lined with restaurants and bars. We discover a secret bar accessed by a special knock on a non-descript door, like a speakeasy and in a thunderstorm we climb to the top of Mont Royal from which the city got its name.
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| Quebec city on a blustery day |
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| Time out in Old Quebec |
Travelling on we soon reach Quebec City, and another AirBnB, this time in the centre of the old city, near where General Wolfe (aided of course by none other than the ubiquitous Cpt James Cook) surprised the living daylights out of the French by scaling the unassailable cliffs below the Plains of Abraham. Interestingly but perhaps not surprisingly, whilst Quebec City is full of statues and monuments to the glories of the republic, including Joan of Arc and General de Gaulle, poor old James W and James C barely get a mention. On that point, it's also interesting to note how subjective history is and how who relates it totally affects one’s worldview. Nobody in Australia knows that Cook’s major achievements were in mapping North America and that bumping into Australia was merely a sideline. Equally almost nobody who has survived an English history education knows anything of the great Expulsion of the Acardians, when tens of thousands of largely french speaking early settlers in north east America were forcibly deported by the English in the 1760s in case they sympathised with the French, who were fighting the 7 years war at the time. Many died or drowned in the process and large numbers ended up in Louisiana where the Acadians became the Cajuns. However large swathes of Canada’s Atlantic provinces, and northern Maine remain fiercely Acadian, with their red white and blue flags, stars on their houses and Arcadian traditions. We visit many Arcadian villages and on Acadian National Day, August 15th happen to be at the Acadian Heritage Village in New Brunswick and join in the parades and festivities in the epicentre of Acadia in Caraquet.
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| Acadian village on Acadia day |
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| Acadian lighthouse in national colours |
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| Boardwalk, New Brunswick |
During our travels along the coast of Quebec and into New Brunswick we whale watch in the Gulf of St Lawrence spotting white beluga and minke whales and shoals of seals, dine on lobster at Shediac, the supposed lobster capital of the world, and feast on mussels on Prince Edward Island, the smallest and flattest of Canada’s 10 provinces and, after Ireland, the potato capital of the world. PEI as it’s generally known is connected to the rest of Canada by a 15km long bridge and by a ferry, but after we set out to return via the ferry which goes from the eastern end of the island, we find that its suffering from mechanical failure so have to back track to the bridge to get back to New Brunswick and on to Nova Scotia. There we explore Halifax, and have dinner on the waterfront watching the ferries ply back and forth to Dartmouth, then drive down the coast to Lunenburg a world heritage historic town and out to Peggy’s Cove to see Canada’s most celebrated lighthouse.
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| Dusk, Halifax waterfront |
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| Peggy's Cove Lighthouse, Nova Scotia |
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| Lunenburg, NS |
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| Lunenburg, Nova Scotia |
Continuing our push eastwards we drive along the indented west coast of Nova Scotia via the curiously named Sober Island Brewery (they have a charger so we have to stop and visit) to Sydney, NS, the place Australians only know of because it keeps popping up when one’s trying to book a flight online to the real Sydney. It’s not a particularly inspiring place as far as we can see but since it’s dark and raining we may not have done justice to the city which used to boast the largest steel works in North America. The following morning, from nearby North Sydney, we catch a ferry for the 6 hr crossing to Port Aux Basques in Newfoundland to commence our exploration of the eastern reaches of Canada.
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| Ferry to Newfoundland, North Sydney, NS |
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| evening sun, Port Aux Basques, NFL |
We expect it to be rugged and remote, bleak and barren but it’s warm and sunny, with the isolated hamlets we had anticipated actually quite large towns and cities. The western coast is quite spectacular and we venture into the Gros Morne national park with its fjords and wild coast. A lack of electricity prevents us from journeying to the northern tip where the vikings settled long before anyone thought of sending Christopher Columbus to rediscover the place. There are mountains in the east and west, the centre of NFL is more of a plateau with lots of lakes and forest, penetrated by long inlets. It’s much larger than it looks on the map. At about 900 km across it’s not much smaller than England so it takes us several days to make our way to St Johns at the end of the Trans Canada Highway where we celebrate the completion of the journey with an ale from the Quidi Vidi brewery at Quidi Vidi, a little fishing village just outside St Johns. After admiring the multi coloured timber houses which characterise St Johns, we head even further east to the lighthouse at Cape Spear, the eastern most and windiest place in Canada. In the evening we share stories with a fellow tesla-driving couple in one of St John’s many traditional pubs.
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| St Johns, NFL |
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| the end of the road, end of Trans Canada Highway, Quidi Vidi, NFL |
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| Gros Morne National Park, NFL |
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| Cape Spear, the easternmost point of Canada |
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| St Johns, NFL |
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| NFL sunset |
Looking at the map to plan our return journey, we spot a tesla charger on a tiny remote island of Fogo far to the north. Investigation reveals that it’s at the Fogo Island Inn, and further investigation reveals that it’s one of the world’s most extraordinary hotels with a six month waiting list. Since they just happen to have a vacancy we just have to go, if only to visit possibly the most isolated tesla charger in North America. It turns out there is a ferry and that we can just about get there. Expecting a small quaint traditional inn blending into the C18th fishing community we are greeted by an extraordinary structure on stilts sitting on bare rock metres from the ocean. It’s warm and hospitable, the food is amazing, there are whales out of the bedroom window and hand quilted quilts and hand made furniture made by the islanders who are all part of the venture. We join a walk with the resident geologist and his ballerina wife, climb to the top of Brimstone Head, one of the 3 corners of the Flat Earth, and are taken by local author and cod fisherman to visit the four artists’ studios in unique, isolated structures scattered around the island which the hotel supports.
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| Fogo Island |
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| Fogo Island Inn |
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| The most remote tesla charger? |
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| Newfoundlanders, right at home |
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| I guess we were warned |
Back in Nova Scotia, and not stopping to admire the sights of North Sydney, we drive around the scenic Cape Breton on the Cabot Trail where we stay in another Acadian village and visit North America’s only single malt distillery at Glenora. Set in a small wooded glen, with a brook running through it, the distillery bears a strong resemblance to Edradour distillery in Pitlochry which we have visited a couple of times. Its whitewashed buildings with bright red doors, its layout and design of the malting room and stills are all very reminiscent of Edradour, and the whisky isn’t bad either. But as Nova Scotia is lying directly in the track of the fast approaching Hurricane Dorian, we make our way south as fast as possible, riding out the storm near the other Saint Johns in southern New Brunswick. While we are sleeping the hotel carpark becomes the centre for a convention of cherry picker trucks which have been drafted in from Maine in anticipation of the storm. Eighteen trucks surround our car when we leave early on Saturday morning with their platforms raised like preying mantises on wheels. The rain becomes pretty intense and the wind makes driving difficult - it’s surprising how much extra fuel is used when there is a strong headwind and where there’s a lot of water on the road which the car has to push away. It affects any car but with an electric car you’re much more aware of it because the energy consumption is monitored in much more detail. The storm peaks in the late afternoon as we reach the Algonquin hotel in St Andrews close to the US Canada border, and which like its Scottish namesake is a popular golfing destination, although it lacks the cachet of the Old Course.
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| Not the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney NS |
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| Peaceful evening on Cape Breton Island, but where are the moose? |
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| Cape Breton, NS |
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| Surf's up, Cape Breton |
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| Stormy evening, NS |
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| Cherry picking convention, NS |
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| Riding out the storm, where are the mashmallows? |
Our Canadian sojourn which started with a visit to the fabulous Buckhardt Gardens near Sidney BC 12,000 km ago, ends in a similar vein, after passing through Sydney NS, with a visit to the beautiful Kingsbrae Gardens at St Andrews, NB. The sun is out and the gardens have been freshened up by yesterday’s storm making a fitting end to our Canadian journey. However we still have 2 more ferry voyages before we can leave, the first involving a crossing to Deer Island and then one to Campobello Island where afternoon tea with Eleanor Roosevelt awaits. She and FDR used to summer there in a ‘cottage’. As she said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams …” and “Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
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| Kingsbrae Gardens, St Andrews, NB |
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| Algonquin Hotel, St Andrews NB |
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| The last canadian ferry, Campobello island, NB |
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| Eleanor's cottage, Campobello Island, NB |
Then it's across the bridge to Lubec to see if Uncle Sam will let us back in to finish the trip, leaving us with lots of unanswered questions about Canada, such as:
- why is the smartest building in most small towns and villages the funeral home?
- why do Canadian new car yards carry so much inventory?
- do Quebecers feel they are french people living in Canada or Canadians who speak french?
- why are there so many churches?
- why is the US called America when Canada is larger?
- where are all the moose?
- why are the partitions in public toilets so far off the floor?
- who thought that soggy chips in curds and gravy was a good idea?
- why are the roads in Montreal so bad? (don't blame the weather - it's colder in Alberta)
- who designed the amazing museum in Winnipeg? and
- why was Winnie (from Winnipeg) the Pooh?
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