We awoke from another warm night in Nova Scotia and got our things packed to leave The Cliffside B&B. The views were amazing but the warmth and the lack of screens to allow the doors and windows to be open were less than ideal. After struggling through the bizarre bread pudding-like breakfast, it had fruit in it...shudder. We were ready to settle up and be on our way. Now, I get that some B&Bs are going to be more expensive than others and I also get that people are trying to make a living by running these B&Bs but what I can't stand is when they are not up front with the costs. The website described our room a certain way and silly me, I expected to be charged for that. But no, for one night it was pushing $200. Call me cheap but I ain't spending that much for a bloody sunset! Needless to say, we were not thrilled with this. Of course when I brought up the vagueries they just shrugged it off. So let me just say, DO NOT stay at The Cliffside B&B, there are plenty of other B&Bs available that will actually coherently tell you how much a room is before and are actually hospitable.
But enough of that...back to vacation. Nicole had booked herself on a whale watch so we drove down the long peninsula that jutted out into the Bay of Fundy. I dropped her off at the ferry dock and I was on my way to explore the history of the Acadians.
Acadia, or l'Acadie in French, was the name that the French colonists gave to Nova Scotia. From their first arrival on the peninsula in 1604, the people who lived and settled under the French flag were called Acadians. As we have learned, over and over again, possession of the region flip flopped between the French and English over the generations but the Acadians continued to work and live on the land. By 1730, most of the Acadians had signed an oath of allegiance to the British Crown though they were up front in saying they even though they signed the oath, they didn't want to have to fight against the French or the local tribes. In 1754, The French and Indian War began and the Acadians aversion to fighting the French and local tribes really didn't matter to the powers that be. The next year, the British government decided to expel the Acadians and thousands moved south to the original thirteen colonies or were sent to Europe. Ten year later, the British government allowed Acadians to resettle in certain areas of Nova Scotia. In 1765, groups of Acadians that had settled in France decided to make the long journey back across the ocean but instead of returning to Nova Scotia, they pretty much picked the total opposite of what Nova Scotia was like...Louisiana. And BAM, Acadians go spicy living in the bayous and the Cajuns are born.
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| Gilbert's Cove Lighthouse |
I made a quick stop at a small little lighthouse at Gilbert's Cove. The quaint little red and white lighthouse looked out onto St. Mary's Bay and along the horizon you could see Digby Neck, the long peninsula that juts out into the Bay of Fundy and runs parallel to the main land. Though there was a light fog that had yet to burn off, you could still make out the wind turbines that were spinning over on the Neck. The lighthouse was built in 1904 and interestingly, it had a total of two lighthouse keepers during it's active service. Now that's dedication!
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| Église Sainte-Marie |
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| Interior of the church |
The Evangeline Trail, named after a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book, takes you along the southwestern coast of Nova Scotia. This is Acadia land and you will begin to notice a stronger presence of French place names as well as the Acadian flag flying. The Acadian flag looks just like the French flag except for the addition of a single yellow star in the upper left corner of the blue. If you stop off at a local shop or gas station, you'll feel like you've stepped across the ocean to the Gallic homeland. In the small village of Church Point sits a jewel of design and architecture. Église Sainte-Marie is the largest wooden church in North America. Built over two years, beginning in 1903, the church and steeple reaches the height of 185 feet. The Statue of Liberty, not standing on her pedestal, would be a good 30 feet shorter than the steeple...just for a little perspective. The outside of the church is beautiful with the gray weathered wood that speaks of the decades it has seen. And the beauty continues when you go inside. When they say that it's built of wood, they aren't joking; it's not just like they slapped wooden planks on the outside of a normal building and called it a day. We had a wonderful guide give us a quick tour of the church. It would have been a great stop even if I had just wandered around on my own but our guide was full of great little stories about the design and construction. The
interior aisle is lined with massive columns which are whole trees that were debarked, smoothed and covered in plaster. The stain glass windows and chandeliers were all imported from France and to insure that the windows made the journey in one piece, they were shipped in vats of molasses. As our guide said, I wonder if someone had to lick them clean when they arrived.
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| Reuben Trefry Blacksmith Shop |
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| Lobster gear |
Near the southern tip of Nova Scotia is the tiny fishing village of Lower West Pubnico. It's one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it places but there is one thing worth stopping for; Le Village historique acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse (The Historic Acadian Village of Nova Scotia). Le village is a step back in time. It's a fairly new attraction, construction and reconstruction began in
1998. Acadian houses from the 19th century were transported to Lower West Pubnico and were set up as a 'working' Acadian village. As you walk along the gravel paths, you can pop in to the various buildings. Most of the buildings have a guide inside to explain the history of each building and if you're with a mixed group you'll be treated to an explanation in English and French. From the path, you get a wonderful view of the harbour and salt marshes below. At the Charles Duon house, built in 1832, you're greeted with homemade molasses cookies as you walk from room to room. It's always amazing to see how many people shared such a small house. By today's standards, it would have been a starter home for an individual or new couple but in the 1830s there were two large families sharing this house. In the blacksmith shop, the guide explained the daily life of a blacksmith while he hammered out the nails typically used by 19th century Acadians. Further down the path, the boat shop displayed a boat that was in the process of being built. The path leads to the dock where fishermen would go out onto Pubnico harbour. A small building next to the dock had a guide fixing the fishing nets and talked about the main catch of the area, lobster. I'm not exactly a fishing/lobstering expert but it was actually quite interesting. There was the local lighthouse to walk over and explore, another house which was built in 1856, an ampitheatre, fish stores where they salted the daily catch and a cemetery. The village comes complete with chickens, cows and pigs. The cows were friendly lil guys but watch out for the pigs...as the sign says "Les cochons mordent!"
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| Charles Duon House |
After getting in touch with the Acadian world, I headed back across the coast and picked Nicole up. Before we headed back to Digby, we decided to check out Brier Island, which sits at the end of Digby Neck. Two car ferries later, we were taking a quick tour of Brier Island.
Brier Island is only four miles long by one and
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| Northern Lighthouse |
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| Western Lighthouse |
a half miles. Seems that the street paving equipment wasn't able to make the second ferry cause it was a bit of a bumpy ride. But that wouldn't stop us! We headed to the northern point of the island, Seal Cove. As you can probably guess from the name, seals like to hang out in the cove and sun themselves on the rocks. You can also probably guess that given our track record with animal sightings on this trip, we didn't see any seals. But we did see the Northern lighthouse...at least the lighthouses never let us down! After walking along the coast to make sure we didn't miss any seals that might have been hiding, we hopped back in the car and drove pretty much the length of the island to the Western lighthouse. The views out into the bay were beautiful as you would expect. The Western lighthouse was one of the few lighthouses on this trip that looked like what you imagine lighthouses to look like; tall and striped with color. It didn't take too long to explore the small island and soon we were jumping back on the ferries. Long Island sits between Brier Island and the mainland peninsula that leads back to Digby. There isn't much to the island expect for a rock formation called Balancing Rock. Evening was setting in so we knew that we were burning daylight. We parked and started off on the 'easy' walk to the rock. We weren't on the trail too long with we passed a larger lady who was walking the trail in a pair of wedges. I thought to myself, 'sweet if she can make it in those shoes, it won't be a problem.' Turns out that it wasn't that easy. I'm not exactly the hiking type but I don't mind a walk to see something worth while...hell, I climbed hundreds of feet up a hill to see a castle. But it turned out the trail was most likely configured by an insane person; it was ridiculous. Call me crazy if I don't enjoy slip sliding through mud, balancing on 2x4s to avoid said mud, trying not to twist my ankle on the massive tree roots and trying not to contract malaria. And be doing this while trying to back it to the rock and back to the car before darkness falls. Yup, I will admit it...I gave up. I mean, it's not like it was a castle or something!
We were spending the night in Digby, right on the main street. We had an early ferry ride the next morning so we wanted to be close by.
Digby was settled by Loyalists from the American colonies in 1783. They were led by Rear Admiral, Sir Robert Digby, hence the name. The town became an important shipping port and obviously was big into the seafood industry. It's also the Scallop Capital of the World. Obviously that meant we just had to try scallops. I'll just say, normally I'm not a big fan of scallops and the ones I had there were pretty darn yummy. After checking into our B&B, we went off in search of something to eat. It was the last night of the Lobster Festival and it turned out there was a bit of a parade...on the water. Boats were decked out with Christmas lights and rode around the harbour tooting their horns. We were able to get a table on the back deck of one of the nearby restaurants, The Fundy Restaurant, so we were able to enjoy the closing ceremonies. Fireworks closed out the celebrations and all in all it was a perfect way to spend our last night in Canada. We had had a wonderful trip, though we were kind of looking forward to heading south and hopefully cooler temperatures.
