#6 Canada, Eh?

“Oh Canada,” as the song goes, is heavenly. The Maritime Provinces are more environmentally diverse than I had imagined. I had envisioned land surrounded by water, a bit like Florida. You understand, more like beach areas along the eastern seaboard of the US from Florida to New Jersey. Those are beautiful too but I didn’t anticipate the abundance of trees, flowers, lush green grasses, forests, parks and mountains in the Maritimes.

Along the coast of New Brunswick, the water is deep blue and the sea life is plentiful. The Maritimes are a playground for all types of watersports as you would expect. However, the surrounding mountains (not like the rockies) remind me of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. If you squish North Carolina together so the Blue Ridge bumps up to the Outer Banks, that’s the Maritimes, sort of.

Let me start at the beginning and introduce you to our trip. We met our Fantasy Caravan Group in Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s a large group of 25 RV’s and 50 caravanners. We have 2 Wagon Masters, Bill and Estermay, who lead us and 2 Tail Gunners, Anne and John, who try to keep us from getting lost along the way. Since we have double the people this year, learning everyones’ names is a challenge.

Our first stop in New Brunswick was St. Andrews, a quaint, adorable town on the coast. Every town is on the coast so I will stop saying that. In our travels Pam and I are typically hunting for places where we would enjoy spending more time. St. Andrews has been added to the small list of “Gotta return here.”

Our group had reservations at Kiwanis Campground, Oceanside.  We were incredibly lucky to be given a beautiful water view site. When on the caravan, the reservations are made by the company. Therefore, it is 27 days where I don’t have to worry about booking campgrounds 6 months to a year in advance. The Kiwanis Campground was a no frills place which we love. It was packed in with campers which we don’t love but on the up side, it was centrally located to things we wanted to do.

St. Andrews is a walkable town and a short stroll from the campground. Since we had our E-Bikes, we easily explored all the pretty places and unique spots.

While in town and having a beer at one of the many local pubs, we booked a whale watching trip on a Zodiac boat for the next day. Pam was happy that she purchased her Dramamine in Bar Harbor. If you are not familiar, a Zodiac is an inflatable boat with a motor. This one seats about 12 people. You’ll see a picture in a moment.

The next day we rode our bikes to town with our caravan friends, Michelle and Judy. We met them last year on the Rockies Caravan Trip. How do you like our orange outfits, half prisoner, half Eskimo? The suits are buoyant so when I go overboard, I’ll float and bob like a space capsule.

We were not expecting to see much because St. Andrews has been socked in with daily fog this year. But we were happily surprised with blue and sunshiny sky as we tooled away from the dock. However, as we swiftly headed further out to sea, the fog settled comfortably over us and I snuggled deeply into my orange jumpsuit.

It was cold and damp. When we reached the whale watching spot I caught a glimpse of the sun trying to break through the thick blanket of fog. I wished really hard for the sun to win the contest.

After a patient wait, the seas didn’t part but the sky sure did. The sun burned off the pea soup and the sky turned a beautiful shade of clear blue. We could see for miles and suddenly our zodiac became a boat of excitement.

“Look, there’s one over there.” There’s another one.” Everyone was pointing and shouting. We saw Minke whales, the smallest of the whale family, and Fin Back Whales, a larger breed. It was a great adventure.

Don’t know if you’ll be able to see the video below. Best video of our whale adventure.

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When the whales decided to plunge below the surface and stopped performing for us, the fog returned. And just like that, we were headed back to the dock with whale stories.

The news started to report on the massive whale sightings in the Bay of Fundy. Once it was a haven for all types of whale watching escapades but in recent years the whales had gone elsewhere. With the temperature changes in the ocean, the whales are putting on a show this year in all parts of the Bay of Fundy. This is the year to come along on a whale watching adventure.

We went on a tour with the caravan group. This is the middle school and that deer you see in the photo is not a mascot, it’s real. The deer are everywhere in Saint Andrews.

We visited Kingsbrae Gardens and met with the Queen

The goats and alpacas

And the Gardens. There were 47000 species of plants to see. Everything was blooming.

Next stop was the Charlotte County Jail, no longer in use. Back in the day, if a prisoner escaped, the warden had to pay a fine. The warden got tired of prisoners digging out from under the wooden jail and he built this one with 2 foot granite walls, floors and ceiling. After that, the only time a prisoner escaped occurred when the warden fell asleep and left the doors wide open. Look out warden you’re about to have another escapee.

Throughout the Canadian Maritimes, you will see cannons poised for defense against invasion. Who was their biggest threat? Americans. The British, French or Acadians, whoever was in possession of the province at the time, were ever ready. but we never attacked. On a positive note, the cannons make a nice photo op and the forts are fun to visit.

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. The difference between high and low tide can be as much as 53 feet. The bay has 2 high tides and 2 low tides each day so boating can be really tricky. Depending on the tide, you can go island hopping by boat, on foot or by car. Yup, you don’t need a boat to island hop around here. Wait for the tide to go out and walk along the ocean floor.

Let’s give it a try. We rode our bikes along a beautiful shady trail to the launch area for Ministers Island. We arrived at the “Road” to Ministers Island just prior to low tide. The crossing was still partially under water. Just an hour or so earlier, we would have needed scuba gear for our underwater passage but here we were safely taking a trans Fundy Bay bike ride.

For the first 1000 years or so, the island was inhabited by the Passamaquoddy people. Around 1790 an Anglican Minister built a home on the island, hence the name Ministers Island. About a 100 years later William Van Horne, the builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, built his summer home on the island.

The mansion has 50 rooms. Van Horne enjoyed having space to invite a few family friends. He picked them up at low tide by carriage, crossed the bay and traveled the carriage trails to the mansion.

Van Horne served his guests sumptuous, exotic meals on fine bone china. He built a swimming pool on the rocks. When the tide came in, the pool got filled with fresh sea water. When the tide went out guests swam in the salt water pool.

Under his round art studio with 360 degree view, Van Horne built a bath house for changing into swimsuits and a sauna.

Van Horne was a visionary; a person would need to be visionary to believe he could lay 2400 miles of rail across Canada’s terrain. With that same inventiveness, he built his summer estate with all the accommodations of city life. He dug a well with piping to the house. A windmill generated the power to supply fresh water to the house. There was no electricity so he made carbide gas in a gas house and pumped it to the main house.

He built a barn. It was almost as large as the mansion. Not sure how he got the milk cows, pigs, chickens and horses to the island (probably 2 by 2) but I’m guessing it was easier than transporting the materials, supplies and furnishings for the house and barn.

I’ll only say a few more things about Van Horne. He rode his horse to the barn one day and saw the workers taking a break. He made them wear white lab coats while working in the barn. Anyhow, the workers were looking out the windows. After that, he raised all the windows in the barn to a height where they could no longer enjoy the view.

He did not believe in idle time. He only slept 4 hours each night. His bedroom was next to the front entrance so he could wake up at any time and check the grounds, paint in the artist room or discover new species of plants on the island. I’ll leave you with a word or two from Van Horne, “Nothing is too small to know and nothing too big to attempt.”

Again, sorry for the long lapses between blogs but internet is a challenge. Hope you’ll continue to come along.