Nearly right away, we got lost in a town, Yarmouth. The signs were very confusing and we kept
taking strange turns. We finally spotted
a road out of town that was clearly not the main route, but in the right
direction so we took it. That ended up
being a great choice, taking us through small villages and lovely rolling hills
and countryside. We even saw a dragon or
a sea monster chasing a swimmer (we think it was a sculpture…but who
knows!) Fun to see such humor in the countryside. Anyway, it was a really fine
drive up the coast.
We finally got to the main road and, still following the
advice from our "Off the Beaten Path" guidebook, we saw in the distance, an enormous
church tower. We found out that it was
the tallest wooden church in North America.
We had to stop. The church was
modeled after a church in Germany made out of stone and they reproduced it in
wood, and painted it to resemble stone, especially inside. We had a great talk with the young man who
was on duty inside. It turns out that he
has some Acadian ancestry (although he was clear his last name was not pronounced
or spelled in the French manner). We
told us a lot of interesting tales about he church. A great stop.
As we driving along, Dick saw yet another sign for a
lighthouse. The amount of the
lighthouses in the Northeast is astounding.
We couldn’t begin to stop at them all, but we tried to hit as many as
possible. He said, “Let’s just take a
quick look.” As we turned into the
parking area, there were tons of people around, and a sign "Picnic today
1-4:00". We thought that we would see if
we could still take a quick picture, but were warmly welcomed and invited to
join them.
It turned out this was a local fundraiser for the
lighthouse, done by the largely Acadian local people. This included a flea market, and Acadian
food. We were asked if we had ever
tried, Rappie
pie? When we said no, they
told us we needed to try it. It was a
chicken stew held together with a potato paste. Both the woman selling the food
tickets, as well as those serving up the food were so welcoming and delighted
that we would have the change to eat some of this traditional food. We hung out at the food tent for quite some
time, chatting with them and hearing about their lives in the area. They invited us to stay around because the
band was just setting up, but we were headed to a special event at a historic
site and so needed to move on. This was
another example of the lovely hospitality that we experienced form the Acadian
people.
We were headed to another historic Acadian site, Grand Pré,
along the Western Coast of Nova Scotia. We were lucky to arrive on a day that they
were having all types of special events and celebrations. At this site, they had a statute of Evangeline,
the character in Longfellow’s poem by that name focusing on the plight of the
Acadian people and young woman separated from her husband on their wedding day
due to the deportations. This site did a
great job portraying life in that area before the deportations and what they
deportation was like for these hardworking, peace-loving people. We were pleased to see so many gathered for
this event.
And Patti even found the red
chairs again, as it was a historic site of the Park Canada National Parks.We enjoyed soaking in some of the festival, but then it was time to move on up the coast. There were more sites to be seen before night fell.
First, we stopped at a small lighthouse that was being cared
for by local community people. A very
friendly volunteer talked with us about the tides in this area, and especially
how the fishermen and women would sometimes go out as the tide was coming in
and had great luck in catching the fish by the dozens that came in by the
tide. We told us about how you could
walk a quarter of a mile out another the flats (which when the tide is up is
the bottom of the bay.) People would go
clamming and fishing and just walking around.
This sounded great, but it wasn’t the time to do that there. But, we had picked up a tidal chart as to when
low tide would be, and there was such a spot ahead of us.
We then needed to move on up the coast. The coast is on the Bay of Fundy, and we were
beginning to see signs of the tide going out. This whole area in both Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick has a bay and is one of a small number of areas in the
whole with super high tides. We stopped
at Burntcoat Bay where the highest tide ever was recorded at over 50 feet. The
tidal difference for this particular day was about 40 feet. We were hoping to get a taste of some of the drastic
changes in tides. We knew the best way
to this would be to stay in an area for a couple of days and see both high
and low tides, but we couldn’t do that.
We had too much ground we needed to cover. However, we were able to have some great
experiences.
We were able to time our arrival at low tide at the spot
which had the world record low tide.
There was also a lighthouse there, which was closed, but then we watched
as they people streamed by us walking down the stairs towards the cliffs and
over a the rocks to the exposed bottom of the bay. We realized we would be able to walk down
there. Some of the initial areas were
very muddy, then sand, and then out onto the rock which sloped down to the water. We were surrounded by rocky cliffs high above
our heads. Wow! There were islands that
at low tide were no longer islands.
There were little tidal pools which had sea creatures like hermit crabs,
and lots and lots of rocks and little shells and mollusks. We joined with other
families and couples who were having a great time scampering around exploring. The mud was really red and sticky. We had not realized this was what we were
getting ourselves into and so had to be a little careful trying to minimize the
amount of mud we got on us. You could easily slip and
fall which we didn’t do. It was great fun!!!!
We left there as the sun was beginning to go down and we had
still many miles to drive. Patti took a
long nap in the back of the van while
Dick drove, and woke up in New Brunswick.
We had some extra adventures trying to find out little Pinecone Motel in
the dark without good signs. But with
help from a phone call to the owner, we eventually arrived. This was a young couple who were still in
their first year of owning a motel and they were highly eager to help us. We
wish them well. And we were very pleased to stop for the night.
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