The "Unavoidables" En Route to Our Eastern Apex

July 26 - August 20, 2006
Saranac Lake, N.Y. - Louisbourg, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
16,409 miles to date
2,853 miles this leg


Today, August 20, we crested the eastern-most point of our round-the-continent road trip: Louisbourg on the magical tip of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia—what we consider a little piece of Ireland that has washed up on North American shores. The official longitude: 59 degrees, 58 minutes west of Greenwich. That’s 62 degrees of longitude (or more than one-sixth the circumference of the globe at that latitude!) traveled from Port Townsend, which lies at 122 degrees, 45 minutes west.

We’ve turned the corner. From now on, every mile traveled is a westward one. We can hardly believe it.

Cape Bretons justifiably consider their homeland to be the center of the universe, so when locals find out we’re from the west coast and are traveling by car, they often are curious how long it took us to drive here. “Two weeks? Three?” they guess, without waiting for our answer. Cape Breton (like Port Townsend) is pretty much on the way to nowhere, so they don’t imagine we are just passing through.

But the answer is: it’s taken MORE THAN SIX MONTHS to reach our eastern apex. Yes, we can now say we’ve been traveling for more than half a year, as we crossed that official threshold on July 20 OR August 9, depending on how you measure it. It was January 20 that we embarked on our shake-down cruise and February 9 when we waved goodbye to Port Townsend for the last time and noted the odometer reading for all subsequent mileage counts. We can hardly believe MORE THAN 16,000 MILES, either!

We’ve been so fully engaged by our travels these last three-plus weeks that I [Shelly] apologize for the delay in posting this new entry. And rather than offer a day-by-day replay, I’m going to try a new format, called GOOD NEWS BULLETINS, followed by descriptions of our wonderful hosts.

GOOD NEWS #1:
We now have four potential hosts lined up for a future trip to Newfoundland, when we started this journey with none. But you’re correct in assuming we won’t be headed to that rocky isle with the half-hour time-zone change on this particular journey; Nova Scotia maintains the prize for our most far-flung Canadian province. Daydreams of visiting Newfoundland were grudgingly abandoned when we discovered a round-trip ferry ride with a vehicle would cost $500 and we knew we didn’t have enough time in our schedule to give the island its proper due.

GOOD NEWS #2:
Jeff has kept his body gluten-free for six months, the threshold suggested to see if an allergic reaction to wheat, barley, rye, etc. was causing his terrible eczema, and the good news is that his skin rashes have nearly cleared up. There’s a pale pink patch remaining on his right wrist, so he’s determined to keep up the new diet until that disappears. Congrats to my resolute hubby, because it’s not been easy to avoid gluten while eating out and being a guest in others’ homes. And thank goodness for corn chips, Mesa Sunrise breakfast cereal (made in Canada), and gluten-free oreos.

GOOD NEWS #3:
We found a dentist’s office on Prince Edward Island that squeezed us into their schedule on short notice for a teeth cleaning. We didn’t want to skip this important preventative procedure, and it confirmed we are both cavity-free. We are following the fabulous advice I saw on a designer handbag patterned with life-enhancing quotes: “Dance, sing, floss, travel.”

GOOD NEWS #4:
Also in P.E.I., we stayed with a family that had enough extended family over for dinner to eat a gallon of ice cream so that we could replace our “one-gallon holding tank” with the new plastic bucket. Our old bucket was past its prime and was starting to smell. This is good news indeed!

GOOD NEWS #5:
My hair is now long enough I can put it in a French twist and most of it stays up!

GOOD NEWS #6:
Matilda’s water pump died in the most convenient place at just the perfect time: an hour before a scheduled oil change at Canadian Tire in Levis, Que. We’d made the appointment and driven down the strip to get some groceries when Jeff noticed coolant dripping from the engine. After panicking to think it might be a blown head gasket, he guessed the water pump had failed, and the Canadian Tire mechanic (who had Volkswagen experience, thank god!) confirmed Jeff’s diagnosis. The mechanic ordered the part and made the repairs the next morning. We were able to sleep in Matilda in the parking lot that night, dine on sushi within walking distance, and while away the day of delay by biking a wonderful waterfront rails-to-trails path.

GOOD NEWS #7:
We are traveling through blueberry country during blueberry season. Mmmmmm…we love these sweet little gems, and for only $3-4 CDN a pint, we’ve been eating them nearly every morning with our breakfast granola/flakes. We had a marvelous blueberry experience in Quebec, when our host took us to his uncle’s blueberry farm on opening day of U-pick season and we were advised to meander down the rows of Patriot bushes, selecting the biggest, ripest berries we could find—and then the big box we picked was on the house.

GOOD NEWS #8:
The Maritimes recycle! What a relief to have easy access to three containers for sorting waste: trash, recyclables, and compostables. Prince Edward Island is running a pilot program for all its residents and public places, so on all the street corners and in the theatres, are these wonderful, clearly labeled bins (see photo). The pictorial symbol for “compost” is usually a hot dog in a bun and a banana peel! New Brunswick and Nova Scotia provide the same bins, but more sporadically. We have just hated to throw away recyclables on this trip, but when even our hosts didn’t have access to municipal recycling programs (this was worst in the South), we gradually stopped separating our trash. Now we’re back to the routines we keep at home, where we compost food waste in a garden bin and recycle everything we can. The Maritimes have it right; why can’t this be done elsewhere??

GOOD NEWS #9:
Jeff and I are still speaking to each other, although sometimes we shout. After six months of very close proximity, our skins are paper-thin to each other’s irritations, and we often have to remind each other to “let it slide.” We know our relationship is more important than a slipped timeline or missed turn.

GOOD NEWS #10:
Best of all, we managed to outrun the oppressive east-coast summer heat by heading to Atlantic Canada. We unpacked the jeans, fleece jackets, Smartwool socks, and the second sleeping bag on August 10 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, where the bracing ocean breezes helped temperatures dip to the high 40s (Fahrenheit) at night. We stopped sweating east of Quebec City, and gloated to hear of a heat wave in Montreal when we were wearing jackets on the Gaspesie.

A final, related GOOD NEWS ITEM: we will be exiting Canada later this week and expect our gas bills to drop significantly. You thought $3/gallon was high? We’ve been paying around $1.20 CDN/Liter ($5 US/gallon) ever since we crossed the border. But we haven’t whimpered. We think the price of gas needs to more closely reflect the true costs of obtaining it. And if that ups the budget for a road trip like ours, so be it.

Now let me introduce you to some charming folks…

After the last entry ended in Montreal, we dipped across the U.S. border to visit two college friends from Shelly’s maritime studies program. Todd and Hilary hooked up after graduation and now live in Saranac Lake, N.Y., in the middle of the Adirondacks. They just bought a house to go with their canoe, and a highlight for us was strapping that canoe on Matilda’s racks and going off to paddle Moose Pond for an afternoon. Also memorable was our “Dutch Tub experience” in the woodsy backyard of the new house. One night Todd lit a fire in the coils of their European-designed, wood-fired hottub and we boiled and barbequed our dinner over the flames while the water was heated for an after-dark, champagne-toast soak. Every Dutch Tub is sold with a wok that sits on top of the fire basket, and that’s where we cooked our corn and potatoes. Then we flame-seared skewers of shrimp and vegetables. The tub is designed to be drained after each use, so no chemicals in the water, and when empty it is easily moved around.

Todd, an architect by training and an entrepreneur by nature, has just signed on as the U.S. distributor for Dutch Tubs. Plus he’s opening a workshop and gallery in Saranac Lake at the end of this month in which to build and display furniture of his own design. He also wears a couple of hats at the nearby North Country Community College, teaching computer graphics classes and working in admissions. Hilary, an employee of the Nature Conservancy, five years ago created and now coordinates a park-wide invasive plant campaign that is viewed as a national model. She has just started grad school part-time at SUNY-Albany to further her conservation career. Adirondack Park is very lucky to have two such talented and dedicated people living in their midst, and I am proud to call them my friends!

We took a car ferry across Lake Champlain and crossed back into Canada from Vermont. It was an easy day’s drive from Burlington to Quebec City, where we were hosted on the outskirts (a suburb called Charny) by two Francophones named Valerie and Martin. We met them through a website new to us called The Hospitality Club that we checked out after Global Freeloaders failed to provide any contacts near this city we dearly wanted to visit. Val and Martin had joined the Club in preparation for a backpacking trip to Europe next summer, but were the consummate hosts for us, their first Club guests. Both spoke excellent English, although after Martin used the word a dozen times, I laughingly pointed out that only three of the four syllables are pronounced in “vegetable”! But Valerie is studying communications and is proficient enough to freelance as a French-English written translator. Martin is an elementary school counselor/social worker. For strangers we met out of the blue, we lucked out to encounter two such beautiful people.

Val and Martin toured us around Quebec City on a Saturday and that’s where I found inspiration for this entry’s title. We had strolled the narrow, cobbled streets of the old (early 1700s) riverfront city, then climbed to higher ground to seek a lunch spot. Perusing a restaurant menu that was presented in both French and English, I noted the appetizers, the entrees, and---the “unavoidables”?? Fortunately Valerie could provide a better translation: the “must-haves,” which in French is “les incontournables.” I like to think we seek out the “unavoidable” experiences on our travels—not the ticky-tacky tourist stops, but authentic, memorable activities.

Translators like Valerie are desperately needed in a province where French is the official language but visitor services see the need to reach out to English-only speakers like ourselves. Valerie says it is all too common to rely on Google translation, which can have hilarious results. I have to share one particularly garbled paragraph I photographed in an exhibit on polar explorer Capt. Joseph Bernier in the otherwise excellent Maritime Museum of Quebec in the town of L’Islet:

Below a glass case containing the captain’s hat:
In the maritime environment, whether it is for the comfort, to protect itself from the rain, from the sun or to distinguish the hierarchical levels of the members the crew, all

Elder Cape Breton Fiddle
This priest fiddled up a storm, with his sister on piano, but I most loved this image of two fellow musicians observing from the stage wings.

the heads are put on. Cap for the captain and the officers, the beret for the sailors, the south-wester against sea sprays and rain, woolen hat by cold time, all these hairstyles are so many headgears which cross seas on all the vessels.

We thought Quebec City, perched on high ground at a point where the broad St. Lawrence narrows in anticipation of entering the continent, was a most beautiful city. On our bicycles we explored both sides of the river, riding the cheap commuter ferry from Levis to Quebec, and visiting The Citadel that once protected the still-walled city. We didn’t even mind spending an extra day in Levis when Matilda’s water pump needed replacing (see GOOD NEWS ITEM #6 above!).

On August 1 we again headed east to follow the shoreline of the Gaspe Peninsula, a region of Quebec bragged about by all the residents we met, much as we Washingtonians might tout the beauty and charm of the San Juan Islands as “unavoidable.” And their praise was justified. In our four days, we thought “the Gaspesie” to be some of the most scenic land we’d seen, with vistas along the Gulf of St. Lawrence comparable to those in coastal Northern California. But the region is sparsely populated, with houses still clustered in tiny villages. The dwellings themselves, usually two-story clapboard farmhouses primly buttoned up against what must be very harsh winters, provided the charm. We could swear no one in Quebec dries their laundry in a dryer during the summer months, judging by the miles of clothesline flapping with sheets, shirts and pants.

We were also cheered to see more Westfalias on the road on the Gaspe than we’d seen since Northern California, sometimes 20 a day passing us, most with Quebec plates. (This was compared to maybe one American-style motorhome sighted per day—and these looked oversized on the steep, curvy roads.) We talked with some of the Westy drivers and surmised that Quebecers share our personal preferences for traveling in a Westfalia because of its economy, efficiency, ease in traveling off the beaten path, and relative closeness to the ideals of camping (e.g., we have yet to see a Westy with a satellite dish on top.)

A real highlight at the start of this peninsular drive was an overnight with Valerie’s family in La Pocatiere, Que. A couple nights after parting from Val and Martin in Charny, we met up with them again in the countryside. They grew up in neighboring small towns, and want to return there and settle down after Val’s studies are complete. Once we’d spent some time in the place they consider home, we completely understood why. They are wrapped in the loving web of their extended families in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Valerie’s parents, Monique and Dominique, can see the St. Lawrence from one side of their house and their 240 acres of soybeans, peas and wheat from the other. Martin’s family owns a large farm tract in nearby St.-Jean-Port-Joli on which many relatives live and where his uncle Regis runs a blueberry farm (see GOOD NEWS ITEM #7). We met Martin’s father Nat out in the fields, helping with the berry harvest. Someday we are going to take up Val and Martin on their offer to come back and visit during Quebec City’s famous winter ice carnival, and try to get them out to Port Townsend for our Kinetic Skulpture Fest! (They went gaga over the pictures of the float test I have in my photo album.)

It was with some relief that we crossed into New Brunswick, where English was once again the dominant language. We jumped back on a highway and made good time to the south, stopping at a community center to hear the Miramichi Fiddlers in concert after seeing a poster in a shop window. That night we couldn’t find a campsite near the popular Flowerpot Rocks on the Bay of Fundy, so we pulled into the driveway of a family having a yard sale and said, “We don’t want to buy anything, but could we park here overnight?” They didn’t hesitate to say yes, and our visit led to their granddaughter’s first encounter with a banjo, courtesy of Jeff. They offered us an electrical outlet to plug into, and we were as snug as could be. We haven’t often made these “cold encounters,” but it goes to show we could if we needed to, for budgetary reasons or simply for company. However, we enjoy camping a few days between hosted stays because we can relax and not have to be anyone’s guest.

We were next happy to be guests on Prince Edward Island, with a family we connected to through Global Freeloaders. Again, we were the first guests they had hosted through the website, and they couldn’t believe the perfection of the match. What was the likelihood that we’d know what CJ was talking about when he said “bodhran tipper”?! CJ turned out to be a sensational bodhran (Irish drum) player, and he had the biggest collection of tippers (double-headed drumsticks) we’d ever seen. He even tried to teach Jeff his signature trick of beating on a pint glass of Guinness. CJ’s wife, Kim, is Acadian (French ancestry), with lots of family in the area, and we met two dozen of them at a reunion at her great-uncle’s beach cabin. It was a real treat to be invited to share in their mussel boil and campfire sing-along.

CJ and Kim are both teachers and they were taking the entire summer off to spend time with their two little girls, Aisling, 20 months, and Deirdre, 6 weeks. Before settling down to raise a family, CJ and Kim were adventurers in their own right, teaching English for two years in Taiwan, then backpacking for six months through Asia. It was a pleasure to spend four nights in their basement “guest suite” in the town of Miscouche as we explored the island from North Cape to Charlottetown.

Before we leave P.E.I., I have to explain to all the “Anne of Green Gables” lovers reading this that the extent of our (well, my) Anne-sightseeing was going to a matinee performance of “Anne of GG: The Musical” in Charlottetown. By myself, while Jeff wandered the waterfront and bookstores. In retrospect, know he would’ve enjoyed the performance, but it really was the sort of thing that deserved to be shared with a “bosom friend.” Girls, you know who you are—I was thinking of you! But in 1998 I’d had the distinct pleasure of going on an Anne of GG pilgrimage to PEI with my parents, sister Jill and best friend Sierra (yes, the curly-haired gal we keep running into on THIS trip!). So I didn’t plan to drag Jeff to L.M. Montgomery’s birthplace or anything. We visited an experimental wind farm instead. Did you know PEI meets 5% of its electricity needs with wind energy, with a goal of upping that to 10% by 2010?

On August 10 it was on to Nova Scotia, where we treated ourselves to four-day passes for the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival. We had a water-view campsite in the municipal campground right next to the main stage, and every night were treated to a four-hour/five-performer concert. In the mornings we took workshops on basic step-dancing (let me emphasize BASIC) and ballad-singing, and in the afternoons we walked between performances at a wharf, park bandstand and church. We fell in love with soloist Rose Cousins and a band from Winnipeg called House of Doc. The town’s signature schooner, Bluenose II (pictured on the Canadian dime), was away on her summer goodwill tour, but we marveled at the maritime flavor permeating Lunenburg, with a maritime museum on the waterfront, a public pier as a focal point, and a shipyard at one end of the downtown. Add to that its steep hills and Victorian homes, and Lunenburg felt as much like Port Townsend (home!) as any town we’ve visited so far. It felt good.

Next we drove across Nova Scotia to the Bay of Fundy shore, where we accepted a very kind offer to visit a family in Lawrencetown with only a very slim connection to us. Richard knows Jeff’s dad Jim through the fly-fishing business. Jim, an avid fisherman, builds rods in eastern Washington and Richard has bought some of them for his fly-rod collection, but the two have never met in person, only over the Internet. But as the saying goes, “A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met yet.” It wasn’t long into our three-day stay that we bonded with Richard and Pat and their three grandchildren, Brendan (16), Kaitlyn (8) and Rebecca (16 months). Fifteen minutes after our arrival, Brendan had me on the back of a four-wheel ATV, chasing sunset photos across their hayfield, and Richard had Jeff in his “fishing room,” explaining this and that about his impressive collection of fly-fishing rods, reels, flies, and miscellaneous paraphernalia. (Those who want to know what Richard has for sale or trade can email him at richarddur@nw.sympatico.ca.)

Again, our hosts outdid themselves in entertaining us, taking us to the Annapolis Valley Exhibition (like a county fair, only with a “sheep rodeo”—see the photo!) and planning an overnight at their “fishing camp” cabin on nearby Lake Rumsey. Richard cooked his famous camp stew and we had a concert that night where Kaitlyn joined us in singing “You Are My Sunshine.” The audience at this point included Pat’s sister Bev, who stopped in unannounced for a couple of days en route from her home in Newfoundland (see GOOD NEWS ITEM #1) to visit her son in Ontario (keep reading). It will help you to understand how Bev livened up our little party if I tell you she arranged to go sky-diving her first day in Lawrencetown and at dinner had lots of great stories to tell from that escapade and others she is constantly getting herself into! Her son must’ve caught the bug from her: he is solo bicycling across Canada, from west to east. It’s wonderful to meet people, even secondhand, whose adventures make ours look like peanuts. It’s inspiring.

At last we come to the present and Cape Breton. This is our fourth and final night on this magical isle, and all we have are GOOD NEWS MINI-BULLETINS:

We can now say we’ve driven the incredibly scenic Cabot Trail;
We went whale-watching from Cheticamp and met a pod of pilot whales;
We waded at Inverness Beach and took the plunge at Ingonish Beach;
We found a message in a bottle washed up on the latter beach that was dropped off the southern tip of Cape Cod, Mass.!!;

Freckle-Faced Wonder
I couldn't resist including this photo of a freckle-faced Nova Scotian gasping at one of the feats of the fair.

We were treated to four-and-a-half hours of music and dancing at the Festival of Cape Breton Fiddling in St. Ann’s;
We sampled Acadian fish cakes and found them good;
We visited the Fortress of Louisbourg on “a good day.” That would be today, August 20, but on this eastern tip of Nova Scotia, warm weather is never a guarantee. It was a tolerable day to be outside for several hours, walking around the reconstructed village, but it was overcast, gusty, and spat rain. We were glad we were wearing clothing that could serve for a Pacific Northwest winter. Our tour guide, born and raised on the fitful bay, tried to impart to our group how lucky we were to be visiting “on such a good day.” Said she, “It’s a bad day when seaweed hits you in the face.”

Love that line! Until next time…make some good news of your own. Cheers!

---

---