August in Maine and Our Canadian Trip

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August 2013,

Maine: We have been mostly relaxing and enjoying the Maine lifestyle at my brother Garry’s home on Middle Range pond. We went on a day trip to Bath and Brunswick and then on to LL Bean’s in Freeport.

Bath is the home of Bath Iron Works and is known as the ‘city of shipbuilding’ and has been building seafaring ships for nearly 400 years. It is also listed as one of the "Best Small Cities in America" and was deemed a "Distinctive Destination" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation – it is a dead cute town of 8500 persons, many from ‘away’. The short main street is filled with art galleries, bookshops, upscale gift shops and a wonderful restaurant in Solo Bistro (a review of which we posted on Trip Advisor).

Nearby, Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, one of Maine’s three ‘Ivy-League’ Liberal Arts Universities attended mainly by students who didn’t get accepted by Harvard or Yale. The town was settled in 1628 and has around 22,000 residents; the college was established in 1794. A number of magnificent Brunswick homes are recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. The main street features one the local music stores, Bull Moose Music, that has an excellent jazz section and where a few new cds for the road were purchased.

LL Bean is the world famous retailer of clothing and equipment for all outdoor activities from hunting and fishing to hiking and backpacking, skiing and swimming – any kind of outdoor activity you can think of! In 1911 an avid outdoorsman named Leon Leonwood (L.L.) Bean returned from a hunting trip with cold, damp feet and a revolutionary idea. He enlisted a local cobbler to stitch supple leather uppers to waterproof rubber boots, creating a comfortable, functional boot for exploring the Maine woods. This ingenious invention - the Maine Hunting Shoe - changed outdoor footwear forever and, a year later, began one of the most successful family-run businesses in the country. It is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day – there are no locks on the doors! It is a classic Maine icon.

Last night we went to Winthrop to hear David Mallett and his band. Mallett is another Maine icon – a singer and songwriter who has been favourably compared to Jackson Browns, James Taylor and Bob Dylan (he would be the equivalent of Ireland’s Paul Brady). He is the writer of ‘The Garden Song’ which has been covered hundreds of times since the mid-70s. John Denver’s cover of the song made the US national charts in 1979. Another of this songs, ‘The Ballad of the St. Annes Reel’ from his second album evolved into a folk classic played around the world and has been covered by The Dubliners. His concert in Winthrop was a benefit for the local library expansion programme. His voice remains wonderful and the story-songs as poignant and universal as when they were first written. And his new songs are equally compelling. His band consisted of an upright bassist, keyboard, guitar, jazzy violin and himself on acoustic guitar. I have been listening to him since I started seriously listening to music at University in the late 1970s and intend to continue listening until I die or go deaf!

That’s the update for now – we are driving north to Kingfield and Sugarloaf Mountain tomorrow morning and then onward for 3 nights in Quebec City and a further 3 nights in Montreal before returning to Garry’s pond via Burlington and Montpelier, Vermont and through the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire. More facebook updates and photos to follow soon! (With apologies for my Maine friends – this posting is really for the ‘out of staters’!)

Farmington, Kingfield and Sugarloaf USA and Northern Maine to Canada: We have recently returned from a mini-trip through north-western Maine, Quebec city and Montreal Canada, and back through upstate Vermont and the White Mountain National Forest Park of New Hampshire. We had started out of this mini-adventure with the intention of keeping a contemporaneous facebook posting but at the end of each day we were just too tired to write – and for that we offer our apologies. We realize that our report card for this ‘new life adventure’ so far reads ‘must try harder’ and we will endeavour to do so. Now we are back in the relaxing and rejuvenating confines of Garry’s lakeside house, we will try to ‘catch up’!

The first stop on our circular trip was the university town of Farmington, Maine (population about 8000 mostly-Mainers, with about an extra 2000 students from early September to mid-May) . First settled in the 1780s, the area was once territory of the Canibas tribe of the Abdaki Indians. Now it is a very pretty little town and the small university campus sits right at the edge of it. The University of Maine at Farmington, established in 1864 as Maine's first public institution of higher education, is a public liberal arts college. There are a number of wonderful 1870s brick buildings and a fabulous bookstore called Twice Told Books. We have noticed that nearly all of the remaining independent bookstores sell both new and used (or previously-loved) books and have dispensed with the bookshop/coffee shop concept. We had a wonderful lunch at a funky little place called Soup for You. After a brief walkabout we continued north to Kingfield.

Kingfield is an even smaller town, less than 1000 hardy souls (hardy needs be – the winters up here are very harsh). Each house has a long stack of firewood cut, split and stacked and ready to burn. We checked into our B&B at One Stanley Avenue where we met by Dan Davis, a cordial man with a ponytail, in a massive American brand pickup truck. He and a buddy were painting the house and covered in white paint. He told us to let ourselves into the house, room 3, the key in the door and breakfast between 7 and 10. We dropped off the suitcases and headed up the Carabassett Valley onto the ski area of Sugarloaf USA.

This area is a very important part of my teenage years. For about the 6 years before I left home to attend the largest of the university of Maine campuses at Orono in the autumn of 1976, we came here nearly every weekend: skiing in winter, fishing in the spring, and hunting in the fall (I spent the summer weekends competing in horse shows throughout the state). We were very privileged to be afforded this opportunity and I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time; now I am very grateful and thankful to have had this experience and revisit this time period in my life with fond memories and regrets that I did not appreciate it more then.

The entire area has changed and also has remained the same! The camp we used to stay at and where I perfected the art of building a massive fire in a pot bellied stove, has been replaced by a two story house that would not be out of place on any fine estate. The camp next door, however, is still the same A-frame house, unchanged since the 1970s. The ski area of Sugarloaf USA now has a championship golf course, the most expensive in the state, as well as biking and trekking trails for ‘off season’ activities. Its main attraction, however, is as a ski resort. It is the largest ski mountain on the east coast that is a ski area and attracts thousands of skiers from the east coast during the fierce, snow-filled Maine winters (I don’t miss them at all!).

One Stanley Avenue, the B&B where we are spending the night, is a marvellous old house that 40 years ago was converted by Dan Davis into a top-quality restaurant. My mom and her skiing friends would sometimes go there for dinner on a Saturday night and leave my brother and I at the camp to squabble and annoy each other. I used to hate being left behind and have always wanted to return. The restaurant, unfortunately, is closed in the off season, but the B&B is open and we spent a very restful night there. We went to a nearby restaurant called Longfellows and had some excellent spicy chicken wings and scallops in a three cheese sauce and a few beers on an outside terrace overlooking the Carabassett River and watching the sun go down.



Kingfield to Quebec: The road north of Kingfield to the Canadian border is part of an area known as the Northern Maine Woods. It is nearly 3.5 million acres of forestland, thinly populated, utilized to harvest timber, pulp and other wood products (the production of all types of paper used to be the major industry in much of Maine before it was killed off by imports) and tourism, primarily hunting and fishing and hiking and other outdoor recreations including boating and white water rafting in the Spring. Much of the Woods is owned by timber processing companies. Americans for a Maine Woods National Park, an interest group that includes scientists, educators, environmentalists and celebrities, is pushing to turn as much as 3.2 million acres (13,000 km²), an area larger than the world famous National Parks of Yellowstone and Yosemite combined, into a national park. The Appalachian Trail starts on Katahdin Mountain in Maine and goes south through 14 states to its conclusion in Georgia, some 2200 miles (or 3500 km) away. Its 281 Maine miles are considered its most difficult and challenging.

The road north to the Canadian border features a couple of small towns and miles and miles of trees and lakes, rivers and streams. There are also ‘Moose Crossing’ and ‘Deer Crossing’ signs but we saw neither on our journey. We crossed the border into Canada at Coburn Gore and then continued a short distance to Lac Megantic.

Lac Megantic is the small Canadian border town in which an oil-transport train exploded in its town centre, killing 47 towns-people and devastating the town centre. It was still closed off when we were there and we have learned that it will be closed until at least June 2014. Over 80 businesses have been affected by the explosion and the town is still in shock. The train commenced its ill-fated journey in Maine and there are numerous articles in the Maine newspapers about the disaster requesting tourists to continue visiting the area, its sparkling lake and fine golf course, to support its recovery.

We departed Lac Megantic and drove further north toward Quebec city. While there are still forests, this area is a vast agricultural plain of mostly small dairy farms. There are clusters of silos to store feed for the cows over the winter months that remind me of my own childhood and the dairy farm next door to my grandmother’s horse farm. The large old farm houses have vast, sweeping lawns that look manicured. There are fields of silage corn and hay bordering the road for endless miles. The landscape is mostly flat but when there is a slight rise the view past the farmyards is of more forests as far as you can see.

Our Impressions of Quebec City: Quebec city has a population of just over half-a-million people and is situated on a 200 foot high cliff-top overlooking the St. Lawrence Seaway and with views of the nearby mountain Laurentian mountain range. It is the only city in North America north of Mexico to retain its original city walls. Its Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Quebec was first settled by Europeans in 1608 and founded by the French to stake their claim to the New World. The French lost the city and its colony of New France to the British in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. During the American Revolution, troops from the colonies attacked the British garrison in Quebec in an attempt to ‘liberate’ the city. Their defeat ended the hope that the people of Quebec would join the fight against the British and become part of the original United States of America. The defeat, known as the Battle of Quebec, effectively split North America into two distinct political entities and the city remained under British rule until 1867 and the formation of the Dominion of Canada.

That’s the history lesson for Quebec – we stayed in a large, basement apartment about twenty minutes’ walk from the Old Town. The apartment was owned by a chef and very well-equipped. Joan knew it was a chef’s kitchen immediately upon entering the space and before we learned that Nadine the owner operated a private, vegetarian catering service. We spent two full days walking around the city and thoroughly enjoyed our time there. Near the apartment on a street called Rue Cartier we found an excellent, independent cd store called Sillans that stocked a wide range of Canadian jazz recordings. We only spent a short time there on our initial visit and when I returned the next day the proprietor had prepared a list of all the contemporary Canadian jazz artists and their recordings. He even unearthed a couple of out-of-print recordings of a group of Canadian musicians covering Thelonious Monk songs from his listening room in the basement that he sold to me.

We spent the next two days walking around the city. The main street leading down to the Old City, Boulevard Charest Est, was originally wide boulevard with large and wonderful residential houses flanking both sides similar to those you find in most towns and cities in France. Now, however, most if not all of these houses have been converted into offices, restaurants and other commercial outlets. These restaurants are mostly-themed restaurants that seem to become nightclubs after sunset (like Americans, the Canadians eat dinner very early, usually between 5 and 6 pm) – it seemed a bit ‘Temple Bar’ to us.

If restaurant row was ‘Temple Bar’ then the famous Old City is a bit of ‘Disney World France’. There are quaint cobblestone streets that are filled with more restaurants and loads of gift shops and thronged with tourists. Nadine, the chef-owner of the apartment we stayed in, says she never goes down to the Old City, that it is for the tourists. There is a lovely boardwalk along the cliff top near the ‘most-photographed’ hotel in the world, the Fontenac, that is impressive and stunning in a French chateau way. And there were a couple of Cirque du Soleil wannabes - the world famous acrobatic troupe that was founded here in Quebec – performing stunts on the boardwalk encircled by a large crowd. We wandered around the Old City and Joan stopped to read all their menus and she struggled to find a restaurant that appealed to her until we came to the Auberge St Antoine. We had gone there initially because Dennis at Sillons the cd shop had said they had jazz so we wanted to see who was playing and what time and while there Joan ‘got the feeling’ , even though we rarely eat at ‘hotel restaurants’ and we had a wonderful lunch there (the jazz was cocktail and later in the day but we gave it a miss).

We walked back toward our apartment along Rue St Jean and it was on this street where our interest in and enthusiasm for Quebec was renewed. There were many boutique shops, wonderful food emporiums, second hand book and record shops, a wide range of ethnic restaurants. We had an excellent lunch the next day in a Vietnamese restaurant there. Joan spent a couple hours shopping while I made my Canadian jazz decisions at Sillans. (I must be more discerning in my jazz cd purchases now as Joan has me on a strict budget and anything I buy I will have to carry around North and South America over the next year!) Then we walked to the Citadel, the fort from which the French defeated the American Revolutionaries in the 1770s. There is a huge amount of parks and green spaces throughout the city, including a vast park next to the Citidel called the Plains of Abraham where the fateful battles took place.

Further walking brought us fortuitously to an area where a beer festival was occurring and we wandered inside to have a look-and-see. While there the heavens opened up and the rain poured down and we were trapped – not a bad place to be trapped in! The rain continued unabated for a couple hours so we had to get a taxi home (people who know us know how much we hate using taxis) and prepared for our trip the next day driving along the St Lawrence River to Montreal.

Our overall impression of Quebec is that it is a city that would prefer to be located in northern France as opposed to Canada. They are trying desperately hard to retain their ‘French-ness’ , so much so that there appears to be very little ‘Canadian-ness’ or ‘Quebecois’ on view, at least to us.

The St Lawrence River and Montreal: We drove along the north shore of the St Lawrence River from Quebec to Montreal. This route goes through many small, cute one-street towns. They are not as quaint or unique as small Maine towns (no prejudice displayed here!). They tend to be a little bit tacky with plastic flowers in hanging baskets, etc . In between the small towns we followed the river to our left, the good road unfolding easily before us, small farms on the right stretching for a few hundred meters back away from the road to more thick forests beyond. It is a very relaxed and picaresque drive. We stopped in Trois Rivieres for lunch. It is about halfway between Quebec and Montreal. This town has re-invented its town centre as a destination by becoming a kind-of open air food court. The short main street features at least twenty if not more various restaurants and pubs, fast food places and ice cream parlours, with only a few traditional retail outlets mixed in (most of the retail outlets, like most North American towns and cities, have moved to the suburban malls and left the town centres deserted). We walked the length of the town and inspected each menu and chose the Vietnamese where we had a very enjoyable meal sitting outside on the sidewalk watching the locals go about their lives.

Our arrival in Montreal was equally easy and the northern road we had been driving enters the city in the East and goes directly through it and continues westward. Our rental apartment was on Rue Messier in the neighbourhood called ‘the Mile End’. The street was a thickly-leaved avenue of traditional three story dwellings with outdoor winding staircases leading to the upper level apartments. We fell in love with this area immediately. We quickly dumped our suitcases in the apartment and went out to explore the neighbourhood. Usually after a long days’ driving we rest and recuperate when we reach our destination but here we couldn’t wait to begin out walkabout!

Around the corner we found our local supermarket and a few funky coffee shops and other boutique outlets such as a bicycle shop, skateboard shop, and used book and cd shops. This is a young city: there are young people everywhere: new families with strollers and people walking dogs and riding bicycles. It is very flat so cycling is very popular and many of the roads have designated bike lanes. There were also a few food emporiums that , like those in Quebec, sold many items imported from Europe but also some fresh and beautiful looking local produce: vegetables, meats and cheeses as well as home-made meals. Montreal is famous for its meat pies, among other things, and the one we purchased was very tasty indeed.

Montreal is a city full of public sculpture: 1% of the budget for all public construction projects in mandated for public art. Everywhere you walk there are unique and interesting and unusual bits of sculpture. One recent summer initiative placed a number of refurbished upright pianos in parks and people passing sat down and just played. We were sitting in one such park when a couple families of Japanese gathered around the piano while their very talented children gave a short recital.

With a population of over 1.5 million people, Montreal is a city comfortable in its own identity and not trying to be something it is not (unlike Quebec). Our visited coincided with the Gay Pride Festival which brought with it the colourful enthusiasm the gay community brings to the living of life well-lived!

We spent the first full day walking the city. Our apartment was about a thirty minute walk to the downtown city centre. We walked slowly through more leafy residential avenues marvelling at the apartment houses. They are uniform and unique at the same time. Some are recently renovated and some a little shabby chic. There are bicycles chained to the wrought iron staircases and cats watching from balconies. And more prams, dogs walking, cyclists.

Downtown is a long and wide and very busy boulevard, mostly closed to traffic. This entire area and the main Montreal department stores seem to be thriving, although Joan defines the clothing as ‘a bit hickey’. There are 3 or 4 of them, large stores that encompass an entire city block (similar to Clerys or Arnotts or Brown Thomas in Dublin). The Montreal Jazz Festival, which is one of the largest and most prestigious jazz festivals in the world, has a permanent full-time office on this busy main street. And there are two music clubs that feature jazz exclusively: the Upstairs Club and the House of Jazz. I had done a little research prior to arriving and noted that a Canadian jazz pianist named Josh Rager was playing an early 6:30 set at the Upstairs Club so we searched for it and found it about 5 pm only to discover it dark with a sign outside stating that a band from Argentina was playing that night with their sets starting at 9. I admit to forgetting (temporarily) about the second jazz club and while we were walking around (disappointed) and reading menus of restaurants looking for a place to eat, we happened upon the House of Jazz where Mr. Rager was playing at 6:30. A quick visit to an ATM to restock our Canadian dollars and in we went. This is a very very funky dinner jazz venue with mirrored walls and instruments and photographs filling every available wall and ceiling space. There was even a tilted mirror above and behind the stage that allowed a backward and upside down viewing from awkward vantage locations. The food was good and the jazz was good as well. The band played mostly standards, three 45-minute sets from 6:30 to 9, a few Monk songs, and we were generally happy with our evening (with the exception of the two students next to us who didn’t stop talking loudly for the entire time).

The next day we headed down toward the Old City. We estimated it would take us about half an hour to get there and we mapped a course through the residential area and Latin Quarter of Montreal. About ten minutes into our walk we happened upon a diner called Dame Tartine serving breakfast that was buzzing with atmosphere and enthusiasm; Joan ‘got the feeling’ and in we went! And what a wonderful breakfast we had – all the stuff that makes American breakfasts great: pancakes, muffins, eggs and bacon and sausages. There were a wide variety of other breakfasters: separated/divorced fathers with their estranged kids; awkward thank-you morning-after meals; a gaggle of young women in short skirts and stilettos; a large group of very jovial young people; and us! The service was slow but the breakfast theatre kept us entertained for the hour-plus that we spent there.

We finally made it to the Old City where we wandered around amongst the throngs of tourists on the cobble stone streets. There is a mini-Notre Dame Cathedral at the entrance to the Old City and a nice square there to sit and relax and listen to a few buskers; there was a guitarist playing Spanish Flamenco guitar that we listened to for a few minutes before wandering further into the area. There is a small, slightly-descending square with a Nelson’s-pillar around which most of the activity and shops and restaurants are located. Like the Old City of Quebec, this part of Montreal is flooded with tourists and most of the shops and restaurants are geared toward this continuing passing trade. We walked around the waterfront and marina area where families were lounging on the grass and some were paddling around in paddle-boats One of the docks was set up for a Reggae Festival. Our big breakfast lasted us for hours and although Joan studied all the restaurant menus in the Old City we decided we weren’t really hungry so we just had an ice cream instead of lunch.

And then we headed back toward our apartment via another route, north on Boulevard St Laurent and then east on Boulevard St Joseph. These two streets are endlessly interesting. There are murals painted on available end of building space as part of the 1% public art initiative and some of them are very striking. There are many small shops all along the way, from boutique clothes and shoe shops, to second hand cd and book shops, and many ethnic restaurants. In the area just south of the intersection of these two streets is an area known as Little Lisbon where we found ourselves transported back to Porto and Lisbon Portugal.

We stopped in Schwartz’s Spiced Meat and stood in the line for about 15 minutes – the two guys hand-carving the meat and making the sandwiches were so fast that the cashier couldn’t keep up with them. While in line we were talking to a guy who was buying 2.5 pounds of the meat and a couple loaves of bread to bring back to his apartment and feed his family. We told him it was our first time here and he assured us that we were in for a real treat. We continued on our walk toward home and stopped at a couple of the food emporiums and bought a few things to accompany the sandwiches and about 90 minutes later we sat down and devoured the sandwiches. They simply melted in your mouth; absolutely delicious – if we lived here we’d be going back regularly! We were, however, heading south the next morning, back to the USA. On the way out of town we visited the last place on our list of things to do and places to go: the Jewish Bagel shop, which is really just a cash desk in front of the big ovens where the bagels are being baked (much like the bread baking shops we frequented in Essaouira, Morocco). The bagels were warm and delicious and set us up nicely for our drive south, back to the USA!

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