Cathy & Jan's Travels: August 2011

Landing gear down and wings deployed for a landing in the Northern Gannet colony on Bonaventure Island along the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, Canada

What a whirlwind of activity it has been during the last 6 weeks. We have traveled around the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, the northern coastline of New Brunswick and around the coastline of Prince Edward Island in search of and finding more than 110 lighthouses and enjoying many other activities. Here is a summary of our travels:

The Gaspe Peninsula (part of Quebec Province) follows the eastern shore of the St. Lawrence River and wraps around where the river expands and becomes the Gulf of St. Lawrence). The road around the peninsula follows the beautiful coastline and we saw some really great lighthouses. The road gets more hilly as you round the top of the peninsula and becomes pretty steep in places (many hills were 12 to 14 % grade and one long hill was 17% grade). The Appalachian Mountains continue into Canada and end at the northeastern corner of the Gaspe Peninsula at Cap Gaspe. The International Appalachian Trail starts/ends here (and there also just happens to be a lighthouse there). Cap Gaspe is also in Forillion (pronounced ‘for-ee-yaw’) National Park – one of the most beautiful Canadian parks.
After staying in a beautiful campground in Forillion, we traveled a short distance down the eastern part of the peninsula to Perce. Just offshore is a famous rock formation (Perce Rock) and Bonaventure Island. We took a boat ride out to the island and then hiked to the far side where we experienced the highlight of our last few weeks. It was here that we were able to watch Northern Gannets up close in the largest Gannet colony in the world (estimated to be 150,000 birds) – what a great ‘racket’ they made. When we visited New Zealand in 2008, we were enthralled watching the Australasian Gannets there and we had just as an enjoyable time watching the Northern Gannets take off, fly, land, and sleep. These very large birds (only the Albatross is larger) lay one egg and one parent always stays with the egg (or hatched chick), while the other one goes out fishing for food. It is quite some site to watch the mutual fencing ritual that the pair does when the parent that was out fishing returns.
After completing our loop around the peninsula, we followed the northern coastline of New Brunswick in search of lighthouses and we were well rewarded in finding all of them – some required going down some rough roads and some hikes to reach them. We also camped and hiked in Kouchibouguac National Park (pronounced ‘KOOSH-e-boo-gwack’). While traveling in this province we saw lobster boxes, mailboxes, telephone poles, and some houses painted in blue (with yellow stars), white, & red – the colors of the Acadian flag. It was here in New Brunswick in one dark period in history that the French Acadian people were forced from their lands and deported to France with some eventually ending up in Louisiana - The Cajuns.
We ended up our stay in New Brunswick camping at Cape Tormentine near the start of the Confederation Bridge. This 8 mile long bridge was completed in 1997 and replaced the ferry that docked in Cape Tormentine. Today, you can reach the west part of the PEI by the Confederation Bridge or the east part of the PEI by ferry out of Nova Scotia. You pay only when you leave the Island (either by ferry or by bridge).

Our most distant destination this year was PEI and it seems that we saved the best till last. This is truly a special island and we have thoroughly enjoyed our stay here. The Island is small enough that you can ‘get your hands around it’ and feel at home. Here are some highlights of our PEI visit.

With our reaching PEI we have now reached one of our long term goals of visiting all 10 provinces in Canada in an RV (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland/Labrador, and PEI. In addition we have visited 2 of the 3 northern territories (Yukon & Northwest Territories). The only remaining territory is the new one that was created in 1999 – Nunavut – which was split off from the Northwest Territories. Since this remote territory can only be reached by boat or by plane, we have absolutely no plans to take our RV there. Technically, we have been in Nunavut when we waded in Hudson Bay in Manitoba, since the Nunavut boundary runs right along the coastline there. Maybe in the far future we might fly to Iqaluit (the capital) just to see what it is like.
You really get that small community feeling wherever you go. Even the ‘big’ town of Charlottetown only has a population of 33,000 and the Charlottetown ‘metropolitan area’ population is only 60,000. You can drive the 163 miles from the farthest NW point (North Cape) to the farthest east point (East Point) in about 3 1/2 hours.
The Island has 61 remaining lighthouses and we managed to photograph 59 of them (of the two we missed - one is on an island and cannot be seen from shore & the other is on private property that you can’t get to).
The dirt on the island is red (caused by the high iron content) and the soft cliffs (which erode easily) along the coastline are red. Unpaved roads are red and we went down numerous ‘red dirt roads’ in search of lighthouses.
This is Celtic country and there are nightly ceilidhs (pronounced kay-lees) that you can attend (most for a nominal cost of $10) where you can enjoy fiddle, guitar, accordion, & piano playing, plus singing, step dancing, and storytelling. The tradition is to enjoy ice cream & strawberries at intermission time. We enjoyed these so much that we attended many of them.
One of the really big attractions here is Anne of Green Gables. L. M. Montgomery grew up in the Cavendish, PEI area and wrote a series of books – the first one being Anne of Green Gables published in 1908 (which is a story about a young orphan red-headed girl with a great imagination that grew up on a farm named Green Gables in PEI). Here on PEI you find historic sites, museums, restaurants, a musical with the Anne theme and of course countless souvenirs (especially Anne dolls that seem to be everywhere). Many Japanese tourists come here to visit PEI since Anne of Green Gables was included in their school curriculum after the 2nd WW.
Farming is the main business on the island. The big farm crop is potatoes and they even have a Potato Museum which shows all of the varieties grown here. It seems that some of the best French fries in the world come from PEI potatoes. Of course, they rotate their crops and can only grow potatoes once every 3 years on the same land.
Fishing is also big business and one of the ‘must do’ things here is to go to one of the Lobster Suppers where appetizers, mussels, and desserts are included. We went to 2 of these, but only Cathy had the lobster and mussels.
Another twist to the unusual weather this year. All the local people here complain about how wet and cold it has been here this summer. Usually, they have sunny and warm days with a day or 2 mixed in with showers. This year, it has been many days with showers with a nice day here or there. Fortunately, we arrived at the right time and have seen more nice days than wet ones and the temperatures have been great for us (with highs mostly in the 60’s and low 70’s).
One of the ‘must do’ things here is to take the Cows Creamery Factory tour and of course have some of their really super ice cream. In addition, their whimsical T-shirts (which are printed here in the Creamery) are a big hit. Some of the T-shirt slogans are/have been: ‘Dancing with the Steers’, ‘Cowy Potter’, ‘Dr. Moolittle’, ‘The Amoozing Race’, and ‘The Little Moomaid’. They bring out 12 new T-shirt designs each year.
PEI has 1 National Park along the north central coastline and with the very original name of PEI National Park. We camped here one night, walked along the beach, & took photos of some of the birds.
Charlottetown is known as the birthplace of Canada. It was here that the first gathering was held in 1864 which led to the Canadian Confederation in 1867 and which has evolved into Canada as we know it today. Charlottetown is also the capital of PEI. In our continuing quest to visit all of the provincial & territorial capitals in Canada, we visited Province House where the legislature meets.

Well, our time here on PEI is coming to a close. We had planned to leave today, but are waiting 2 extra days until the remnant of hurricane Irene passes by (it is forecast that we should only get about an inch of rain and winds about 40-50 MPH). Our plans have us crossing the Confederation Bridge and then finding lighthouses along the eastern and southern coastline of New Brunswick (including taking a ferry out to Grand Manan Island) before wandering inland down to Florida for a New Horizon RV rally at the end of October. Then we will head back to the Texas area for the winter months.

Hope this finds you all well.