New Brunswick

I can’t think of a sweeter way to start a journey than with chocolates, high tea and lovely gardens. That is how our trip through the Canadian Maritimes began. Our reward for crossing into New Brunswick from Maine was stopping in the chocolate town of St. Stephen. The Chocolate Museum is around the corner from the customs office and parking for RVs is nearby. A tour through this aromatic museum whets the appetite for samples in the shop. To assuage guilt, the museum offers a walking tour of the town, with additional treats.

A short drive up the road, in St. Andrews, is another wonderful walk through the 27 acres of Kingsbrae Gardens with its pleasing blend of formality and whimsy. We enjoyed a tasty lunch at the garden restaurant. Close by, the Algonquin Hotel serves English High Tea including a three-tiered tray of finger sandwiches and pastries. Upon request, the concierge arranged a tour of this charming 19th century resort for us.

Beyond eating, we came for New Brunswick’s most famous attraction, the Bay of Fundy. It has the greatest range of tides in the world with a range of 40 feet being normal. The St. John River, originating in Maine, empties into the Bay in New Brunswick’s capital city, St. John. There, a phenomenon known as Reversing Falls Rapids switches the direction of its water flow twice a day. Two good places to view this phenomenon are from above at the visitors center at 200 Bridge Street and closer to water level at Fallview Park. For the adventurous, a jet boat offers a damp but close-up view through the rapids.

St. John has more to offer than water. At the town center is the Old City Market, crammed with produce, crafts, and souvenir stands. The “upside down boat” ceiling was built by ship crafters in the 1870s. Choosing from many stalls of ethnic food, we sampled many new and tasty treats for lunch.

The town is great for exploring. Nearby Trinity Church contains the Royal Coat of Arms of the House of Hanover, rescued or stolen, depending upon your point of view, from Boston by Loyalists during the American Revolution. There are over a dozen historic cemeteries, including one with interred Loyalists. These sites feature among the many sites listed on three of the town’s self-guided walking tours.

Museum lovers have a range of choices. The Carleton Martello Tower was built in 1812 in fear of invasion from the United States. The regiments’ gear is laid out as if waiting for their return. The New Brunswick Museum houses 15 excellent galleries, including shipbuilding, marine mammals, birds and artworks galleries. Barbour’s General Store has over 2000 items from the 19th century. There are also small museums dedicated to such diverse interests as china dinnerware, firefighting, and shipbuilding.

Further along the bay, at Hopewell Rocks, we got a close-up view of the extreme tides. At low tide, we strolled on the ocean floor at the base of 50-foot-high Flower Pot Rocks. These stark red rock formations, topped with trees and shrubs, towered overhead. We returned six hours later, at high tide, to stand above the beach and watch those very formations we’d walked beneath just a few hours earlier seem to float on water.

Beyond the city and the water, the province has many excellent golf courses. Provincial artists welcome collectors to their galleries and studios. Moose graze along the roadside at dusk and dawn. There are 64 covered bridges, including the world’s longest covered bridge located in Hartland. The streets of the village of Amherst are lined with lovely Victorian homes and stores. Lighthouse fanciers will find over 100 in New Brunswick, 50 of which are still in working order. Wildflower fans will be sated by acres and acres of many-hued lupines standing two feet tall.

Nova Scotia

It was the tattoo that brought us to Nova Scotia, but the beauty and attractions kept us. By tattoo, I don’t mean body decoration. I mean a grand, rousing extravaganza of military marches, chorals, solo artists, clowns, acrobats, dancers, pipers and drummers from Canada, Great Britain, and Europe. These soul-stirring bands and entertainers gather at the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo in Halifax every summer thrilling audiences night after night. This event alone is worth the trip, but there is much more to see and do along the way to the province’s capital.

Nova Scotia has two wonderful personalities, Scottish and Acadian. Together these two cultures are a formidable blend in a bilingual province that wears five centuries of modern history proudly while not forgetting the violence perpetrated historically against the area’s native peoples and each other. The Fortress of Louisbourg keeps colonial French history alive. It was established in the early 17th century as a trade center for shipping cod back to France. Today docents in costumes recreate fortress life in the original buildings. Outside soldiers march, fire their muskets and cannons and try criminals. In the inn, foods traditionally served during the 17th century are eaten using the appropriate utensil, a spoon.

Life in a 19th century English colony is presented at Sherbrooke Village. Craftsmen ply their trades, storekeepers display their wares and townswomen welcome visitors to their homes. Greenwood Cottage shows the lifestyle of the wealthy of the day, while the older Cumminger House, shows a more humble existence.

In Glace Bay, the history of “black gold,” or coal, is told at the Miner’s Museum, built atop a real mine. The history of the 250-year-old industry is recounted by miners who worked within that very industry in recent times. Visitors, clad like miners, go underground following coal tunnels that once led under the Atlantic Ocean. In the adjacent Miner’s Village, town life is depicted in a company store and in a home that show area living conditions both in the mid-1800s and the early 1900s. The Miner’s Village Restaurant serves a delicious lunch in a charming setting.

The Men of the Deep, a choir made up of former miners, is one of several groups that perform at Louisbourg Playhouse. The intimate setting of the theater is an excellent venue for the varied musical and comedy groups who entertain there.

In Halifax, military history stands tall above the capital city. The Citadel was built and rebuilt by the British, most recently in the 1850s in order to defend against a perceived threat from the United States. In the 20th century, British and Canadian troops were garrisoned there. Today it is a living history of military life.

The Citadel looks down upon the harbor, a harbor filled with the industries of fishing, transportation and recreation. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic shows the historical importance of water to the area. Pier 21 National Historic Site of Canada exhibits Halifax’s role as port of entry for immigrants crossing the Atlantic from Europe. Near the piers another liquid is featured — two breweries are open for tasting the national drink of Canada.

There are many ways to enjoy the water. Tall sailing ships, tugboats, and whale watching tours are among the choices. The waterfront itself offers beautiful vistas for strolling past souvenir shops, food stalls and benches. There are also the lighthouses of the province, 160 of them, with Peggy’s Cove, the most photographed, a short drive away.

Up from the harbor, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia has a room dedicated to one treasured artist, Maud Lewis, whose delightful folk art depicts life in rural Nova Scotia. Undaunted by her own disabilities and the harshness of her life, she painted a world of color and laughter on the walls, windows, and furniture of her cabin and on the cards her husband sold to provide their meager income. Her cabin is a central exhibit in the museum. There are also contemporary, and sometimes controversial, traveling exhibits by Canadian and international artists.

I don’t know if it’s the long winters, the inspiring scenery or simply genetics, but Nova Scotia has a disproportionate amount of artistic talent. So many artists and artisans are listed in area guidebooks it would take months to see them all and moving vans to collect samples of each individual’s work.

We took an art tour starting in St. Ann’s at the Gaelic College of Celtic Folk Art in scenic Cape Breton. Bagpipes played as we admired many of the 200 tartans on display. Further along the Cape, galleries and studios showcase the talents of painters, jewelers, leather crafters, potters, woodworkers, metalworkers and more.

Nature also shows its artistic touch. We drove past the turquoise sea through lush green hills and forests along the Cabot Trail of Cape Breton. At Pleasant Bay we left the road to board a whale watching boat. Minke, humpback, fin and pilot whales spend the summer in the area feeding and raising their young. In addition to the whale watching boats, there are zodiac rides to get even closer to these formidable creatures. Back on land, there are abundant trails for hiking and biking as well as numerous golf courses and tennis courts.

We found more art in the village of Cheticamp where a unique form of hooked rug making was developed. The workshop and museum is in the Artisans Co-op and the tolerance of the rugmakers teaching novices is admirable.

At the end of the Trail in Baddeck is the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. The beauty of the area led Bell and his wife to choose to build their home, “Beinn Bhreagh” here. Nearby an extensive museum is devoted to Bell’s accomplishments as a teacher of the deaf and an inventor of aeronautics, marine engineering, and electrical science, as well as of his best known invention, the telephone.

Prince Edward Island

Is it the beauty, the calmness, or the people that make Prince Edward Island the province tourists intend to revisit? For me it’s the colors, predominately, the deep green of plants and the rust red of the soil. These natural colors are enhanced by homes and boats painted in an amazing array, mixed and contrasted at whim. As Anne, PEI’s famous literary character, observed, “It [the island] was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed.”

First you have to get to the island. In 1997 the Confederation Bridge established a permanent link with mainland Canada. The bridge is named for the “birth” of the Canadian Confederation. PEI’s capital of Charlottetown was the site of the heated debate that led to eventual confederation in 1867. Ironically, it wasn’t until 1873 that PEI itself joined the Confederation.

Near the waterfront are several entertaining ways to learn Canadian history. In Founders’ Hall, a television reporter interviews prominent leaders of the past as she takes visitors on a simulated journey through the Time Travel Tunnel. The Confederation Players Walking Tour is led by young docents dressed in period costumes. As they point out historic and modern places of interest, they reenact chance encounters with dignitaries attending the 1864 Confederation Conference. The tour ends at Province House, site of the signing of the Acts of Confederation and current legislative house for the province. A self-guided tour of the building leads to such oddities as mousetraps and a chair rumored to have been stood upon by Queen Elizabeth.

Outside on Victoria Row are art galleries and outdoor cafes. Nearby, the Confederation Centre of the Arts offers concerts and plays. The featured summer play is Anne of Green Gables, based on the dozens of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery, PEI’s most famous literary resident.

Anne’s creator, Montgomery, was born in New London, PEI. Her personal possessions, as described in her stories, are on display in her childhood home. The village of Cavendish is also Montgomery land. Green Gables House is the setting for many of her novels. Avonlea Village of Anne of Green Gables contains the schoolhouse where Montgomery taught and the church she attended. The village is an amusement park of Anne activities.

PEI has other claims to fame. In Lunenburg, there’s a bit of “Bluenose” snobbery at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. Amidst its extensive maritime exhibits is memorabilia from Bluenose I, a fishing trawler and five-time winner of the North Atlantic Fisherman’s International Trophy. The Bluenose II, an exact replica, offers cruises.

To protect sailors, the island has over 50 lighthouses. Visitors who tour from East Point Lighthouse to the North Cape receive a “Tip-to-Tip” ribbon and certificate.

Those are a few of my tales. But wait, I forgot the incredible ice cream. Before you leave PEI, stop at COWS for the richest, creamiest, tastiest ice cream. Buy a liter or two and take it with you to remember your sweet journey to the Atlantic Maritimes.

With thanks to Bill and JeanAnn Miller and Russ and Janet Payne