We got back to Minneapolis Sunday afternoon. We had a wonderful trip. I will hopefully have time to organize the photographs next week. It was cold before we left, and the lawns were still brown! So in addition to going though all the accumulated mail, I have been busy turning the tractors around from winter to summer and getting the grounds shaped up.
We drove just over 4000 Kilometers. Arrived in Halifax May 13. Next day we made our way up to North Sydney NS to take the ferry next day. We made stops at Truro and Pictou on the way up. Weather was good and the scenery was stunning.
We took the next morning ferry for the seven hour crossing to Port Aux Basques NL. Cold drizzly weather awaited us. NL was occupied by largely French/Spanish Basque fishermen from the sixteenth century and three "First Nation" Tribes, who became extinct. The Island was under French control. Following Marlborough's (famous ancestor of Winston Churchill) wars Newfoundland was ceded to the British at the treaty of Utrecht in 1714. The British forced the French out and the island populated by immigrants from SE Ireland who were Catholic (about 30%) and immigrants from the SW counties of England, principally Dorset, Devon and Cornwall (protestant and 70%).
The accent on the island is not North American, but largely the South West of England dialect which is remarkably preserved and for that matter hard to understand for a lot of people. There is also a hint of Irish brogue. There has been remarkable little inward and outward migration since the eighteenth century. There has also been surprisingly little intermarrying between the catholic and protestants. I got this data from searching the medial literature, after the physician in me noted some traits of genetic disease I had not noted before. Indeed it turns out that NL has been a place geneticists have flocked to, to study diseases with recessive inheritance. The population of Newfoundland/Labrador of 530,000, with 500,000 living in NL and only 30,000 inhabiting the vast territory of Labrador.
The people were incredibly friendly and helpful. So we had a wonderful two day leisurely drive across the 560 miles of NL. We had glorious sunshine to view the snow capped hills and huge deep blue mountain lakes. We had to keep a good look out for Mouse though.
We stopped at Sandy Brook and spent the night at Grand Falls Windsor. We arrived at St Johns the capital early afternoon Thursday and met some old Friends from Grand Forks ND. It really is a lovely harbor and the staff at the old converted warehouse, Murray's Premises could not have been nicer. We did a boat trip out the Eastern most point of North America (Cape Spear). St. Johns is a really beautiful port city.
Sadly after a couple of days we made our way back across the island. We spent the night in Sandy Brook in a lovely old hotel Glynn Mill. This had been built years ago by the British engineering firm of Armstrong Whitworth. They were so big they had their own sizes and threads of nuts and bolts unique to them. So if you work on old cars in the UK you need four sets of wrenches! (BA, and Whitworth for the old stuff, and American and metric for the new).
Next morning there was torrential rain and a Beaufort 7 gale with lashing rain at the coast. It was a fight to keep the car on the road. The ferry handled the sea very well. The ferry was almost deserted and we made friends with the few fellow passengers. Things had quietened down by the time we made port at North Sydney.
Next day, Monday, we traveled down the West side of Bass D'or lake to Baddeck NS to join up with very close friends from Minneapolis who had just done the Cabot Trail. The scenery was spectacular. We traveled in convoy to Caribou to get the ferry over to Woods Island PEI. This trip was only 70 minutes.
Our friends then returned their car and we traveled together for the rest of the trip. We had a house rented from Monday to Thursday down near the harbor of the capital of PEI, Charlottetown. PEI has a totally different topology to the rest of the Maritimes. It is described as a big little island and that describes it perfectly. It is remarkably like the UK, but with a lot of regions all combined in one island. It is very agricultural with potatoes being the major crop. We explored the west and central parts of the island extensively but not the East.
Now I had been frustrated to not come by good lobster until this time. The lobster season had only been open two weeks and the Chinese had been scooping them up as soon as the lobsters arrived on shore. I had a lobster out of a tank at an Irish pub in St. Johns, but the lobster was geriatric. The smaller places were not yet open. I had been advised by locals to find a restaurant owned by the fishing family. Just about a hundred yards from out house, we found just the place, Water Prince Corner Shop and Lobster Pound. A wonderful little restaurant. I was assured my lobster came out of the sea that very morning. It was delicious. And Yes, Midwesthonky, we did dine at the Claddagh Oyster House and the food and service was excellent.
We returned over the bridge to New Brunswick, and had a leisurely trip to Dartmouth opposite Halifax. We had rented a 10th floor apartment right out at the end of North Wharf. We had a magnificent view of the harbor and right out to sea. We had a good view of the cargo going in and out of the busy port of Halifax. We spent the rest of our time in Halifax/Dartmouth and caught up on the dreadful explosion of December 6 1917 when a French munitions ship exploded in the narrows of the harbor after a collision with a Norwegian cargo ship. There was massive loss of life and horrific injuries, damage and a Tsunami. This ranks third only to the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. Next day there was a massive blizzard hampering the rescue.
Halifax is a wonderful city and we had a good visit there. To complete our tour we did visit the Bay of Fundy and saw a high tide. Not as spectacular as it can be as we were in the neap tides. The bay of Fundy lived up to its reputation of being a spectacularly beautiful place.
Photographs will be added when I have time to get them sorted. I will probably start another thread and extend the commentary.
