Bonavista Peninsula ~ Newfoundland Part Five

22 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

Tags

Bonavista Peninsula, Elliston Newfoundland, Humpback Whales, Lighthouses, Puffins, Root Cellars, Smallpox Vaccine, Trinity Newfoundland

When one leaves an island to go back to an island I guess “returning to the mainland” isn’t exactly accurate. In any case, we off loaded from our Fogo ferry ride and headed off for 330 East and the village of Newtown where the Barbour Living Heritage Village is located. We did the tour but in all honesty having been in Newfoundland some time now, we didn’t really learn anything new. There is however a lovely church here. Ed went to take a photo of it but the shot he wanted required walking into someone’s yard. They happened to be outdoors and so he asked permission. The delightful, elderly lady not only said of course, she then walked him back up the street to show him the house where she was born and raised. Turns out it’s the oldest house in Newtown.

St. Luke’s Anglican Church, 1895, Newtown.

Not only the oldest, but maybe the cutest.

Next morning continuing south on 320 we took a side trip out to Greenspond, a small village settled in 1690. We stopped to walk around and got to chatting with 3 men building an outhouse (although they said it would have a flush toilet) next to a walking trail, because “when you have to go it would be good to have a spot to do it in” 🙂 One of the men told us that many of the houses in town are now summer homes, including his, and because they are on a steep hill, on the wrong side of the prevailing winds, winter can be especially hard. In fact he said the mayor last year had to phone for help because his home was finally covered half way up the second story. He said a “crowd of men” had to come dig him out!

Greenspond is an island community made up of several other islands. The part of town where we chatted with the men is off to the left out of the picture.

We camped the next two nights at Newman Sound in Terra Nova National Park where I made great use of the laundry. Fellow RV’ers this is a big campground and the sites have pretty good vegetation screening, but it is very busy and there are lots of small children on bikes so watch out!

The Bonavista Peninsula is one of Newfoundland’s most visited locales and we were especially looking forward to our visit here. While our weather was not the best we did take the side road 235-20 out to Keels on our way to Paradise Farm RV Park near the town of Bonavista. We based out of there for a couple of days and recommend their boondocking sites particularly.

Lobster pots and a squall headed our way in Keels.

The lighthouse on Cape Bonavista is the 4^th oldest in Newfoundland and houses a rare catoptric light.

The light is on a stone column around which was built the keeper’s house so each room has as one of its interior walls the round stone tower.

An array of six parabolic (bowl shape) reflectors, in this case highly polished silver, reflected the light from lamp wicks burning seal oil. This whole apparatus was turned by a weight driven mechanism similar to the weights of a pendulum clock, only this one required the light keeper to rewind the weights EVERY TWO HOURS!! If you are a lighthouse lover you must put this one on your MVL (Must Visit List).

This is the catoptric array. Not only did the windows have to be washed constantly, but the polished silver bowl had to be constantly cleaned. You can see the modern light through the window.

This is the winding mechanism which turns as the weights pull down thus turning the gears and spinning the light, just like a clock.

There are paths around the light where we found many, many bird wings that were the remains of meals a Silver Fox and her kits enjoy when not getting hand-outs from tourists.

A very relaxed and unconcerned Silver Fox soaks up the sun as people walk by just below the lighthouse.

Near Bonavista we also drove in to Dungeon Provincial Park where there was actually a sign labeling the area as pasture and there were horses and cows!

The dungeon is a collapsed sea cave with twin entrances. Pretty cool.

As I said in our first Newfoundland blog post, icebergs were at the top of our list of things to see, second was PUFFINS 🙂 Elliston is famous for their root cellars (which are actually all over Newfoundland but there is a high concentration of them here), and, the Atlantic Puffin which come to nest each summer.

Very cute but I think it’s a sad face…

The males generally dig the burrows where one egg is laid. They share in tending the nest.

Also on the Bonavista Peninsula is the village of Trinity where fisherman set up summer stations as early as the mid 1500’s. This charming village is situated on the hills above a protected harbour. A delightfully walkable town we spent several hours poking about before a nice lunch at Dock Marina Gift Store & Art Gallery. Trinity was also the shooting location for the 2002 TV mini-series, “Random Passage”.

The Trinity Museum is chockablock full of interesting stuff about fishing, sealing, life over the last 200 years and the first experimental use of the smallpox vaccine in North America. Rev. Dr. John Clinch gave the first vaccines here in Trinity to his nephew and children in 1798 to prove their efficacy.

A vigorous Rosa Rugosa bush. They were in bloom everywhere on Newfoundland and the magnificent fragrance just filled the air.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church (#3) built in 1892. The first two burned down.

Across the bay from Trinity is Fort Point which entails a drive out a rather horrible narrow dirt road, but oh what a trip worth taking!

The lighthouse at Fort Point is not open for tours but you can walk around the grounds and learn all about the fortifications built by the French and British to defend the harbour.

After walking around the grounds of the light we parked here for the night and watched whales all afternoon and evening until dark.

We never tire of watching the humpbacks.

We cannot believe how very much we are seeing and how beautiful it all is. This is now post five and we expect to probably have two more about “The Rock”. Ed & I thank you for being armchair travelers on our Newfoundland adventure and hope you will keep “riding along” with us.

Bonavista Lighthouse.

The kitchen in the Bonavista Lighthouse. Notice the weight in a cubby next to the small table behind the stove. This opening runs up in the stone column to the winding mechanism that turns the light. Every two hours it needs winding. Nobody got much sleep.

A rare sight on Newfoundland, pasture and a horse.

Our last iceberg on this trip in Port Rexton. Ed managed to grab some more iceberg bits for his cocktail glass.

Also in Elliston is a nesting colony of Black Headed Terns. Constant non-stop activity as the mates brought little fish to the nest to feed the family.

Puffins are seabirds and spend most of their time on the water except when they come to land to build nests and raise their young. This site near Elliston is considered the very best and almost only place one can see puffins this close up.

Marti is about to bust with excitement but you would never know it…

Beautiful, comical and sad, they fly astonishingly fast.

One of hundreds of root cellars where root veggies and cabbages are stored over the winter months.

The sanctuary of St. Paul’s Trinity.

We love the wide range of the painted colors of the houses of Newfoundland. When’s the last time you saw a pink, yellow and green house? Note the root cellar behind the garden.

Can you imagine the response of an American homeowners association to the delightful palette of these houses?

Inside the Trinity Museum… Most items have a tag explaining what it is and who donated it.

English Harbour on Bonavista Peninsula.

The sea stack is known as Naked Man. This scene is just to the right of where we overnighted on Fort Point.

Night falls on Fort Point and the light shines.

Newfoundland ~ Part Deux, Gros Morne

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

BonTours, Gros Morne National Park, Lighthouses, Lobster Head Cove, Newfoundland, Rocky Harbour, Tablelands, Western Brook Pond

Saying goodbye to the tippy-top of the Northern Peninsula we headed out in light fog for the 432 inland loop back towards 430 South on our way down to Gros Morne National Park. Having just driven on past Gros Morne on the way up to L’Anse aux Meadows because the weather was so bad, we hoped things would be better now. Inland the sky was beautiful and sunny. Of course when we got back to the coast the fog was well on its way to being pea soup thick.

Headed into pea soup fog… oh well, it’s Newfoundland!

We settled into Gros Morne RV Campground in Rocky Harbour which while not a tourist town by US standards, it is more touristy then anyplace we’d been. The advantage with that is a wider selection of restaurants. We did Earl’s which was fine although they know fish better than fried chicken. The second night we went to Ocean View. I admit it, we can be a little snobby sometimes, but with real table linens, nothing served in plastic, complimentary dinner rolls, SEVERAL kinds of vegetables and good food….well it was a very nice 🙂

Note to RV’ers: we had low voltage issues at the campground. We like to be tucked away if possible and so were at the end of the line which the owner acknowledged as the problem. We just didn’t brew coffee AND run the electric water heater at the same time and it worked ok.

The next day we had a reservation for the 11 o’clock boat tour on Western Brook Pond. It is a lovely 3 kilometer walk from the parking lot to the boat launch & café at the mouth of this fjord. Naturally it was a foggy day as we headed out early with all fingers and toes crossed that the sun would do its thing and burn off at least most of it before our boat ride. We got in line, headed up to the open top deck when boarding and they set out.

Lovely weather for a boat ride.

About 10 minutes into the 2 hour tour, the boat slowed almost to a standstill and they announced that the earlier tour boat ahead of us had just radioed back to say the ceiling had dropped completely to water level so we would be turning around and given a refund. Back on shore I checked the weather forecast, whispered to the weather gods and booked the following day’s 12:30 trip. Not ready to call it a day, we decided to walk at least part of the Snug Harbour Trail that’s just up from the boat launch.

Foggy days may suck for boat rides, but they are great for the colors of these woods.

The nice soft light of cloudy days really favors Ed’s new favorite flower, Bunchberry which is in the dogwood family and explains why when we first saw it we said to each other, “Baby Dogwoods???”

Heading back to Rocky Harbour and with the fog finally lifting we decided to drive out to the Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse. The good citizens had long worried about the dangers their husbands, sons and neighbors had endured with only an oil lamp in a fellow fisherman’s home window offering guidance to those at sea. Finally this lighthouse opened in 1898 with a kerosene vapor lamp and a fifth-order dioptric lens maintained by keeper Robert Lewis, was sending out its life-saving flash ever 2 ½ seconds.

Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse only had three lightkeepers: Robert Lewis was the first keeper at an annual salary of $504 until 1902 when William Young succeeded him until 1941 when William’s son, George, became the third and final keeper of the light until 1969 when it was automated.

We awoke to a beautiful sunny day and were so thankful our tour had been cancelled the day before!

Walking towards Western Brook Pond, it’s a better day for a boat ride. You can see the fjord’s opening.

Entering the Western Brook Pond fjord. Technically it’s not a fjord because it has been cut off from the sea by rising land and is now all fresh water.

Fjords are cut by glaciers which in this case pushed down the land and as the glacier retreated its weight was gone and the land rose to cut if off from the sea. Over time the salt water has been flushed out and replaced with fresh therefore it is no longer a technical fjord.

Wanting to sort of put a finish on the entire Western Brook experience we did the short walk out to where it flows into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Western Brook flows a short distance across the bog and down into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

With another sunny day (yippee) we headed for the most southwestern section of Gros Morne to walk on the Earth’s mantle. This part of the park known as the Tablelands reminded Ed of our desert southwest with its barren red rock.

A short walk out along the edge of the Tablelands is rock that is of the Earth’s mantle.

Pushed up from deep inside the earth by tectonic plate collision several hundred million years ago these mountains are peridotite, and very low in nutrients and calcium while high in heavy metals, magnesium and iron, hence unable to support plant life.

Pockets of green can be attributed to water and a lack of the heavy metals etc.

Before signing off I need to make a correction to our last posting and then a confession 🙂

I’m happy to say thank you to reader Deborah Gordon (via FaceBook) who not only corrected my location of the mini village in the Newfoundland ~ Part One post but also identified the artist, ~ “That little mini village you photographed is directly across from my house and is actually in Ship Cove ( Cape Onion is on side of the point that runs parallel ). Built by Brian Decker as a community sponsored project, it’s meant to portray the old town, which still has some of those same buildings in it. Too bad you didn’t stop in for a cup of tea!”

Confession ~ I have taken things a bit out of order as far as our travels go. In between these two blog postings Ed & I took the ferry over to Labrador for a very short visit. We will share that adventure in our next installment, as well as lots more icebergs, beautiful hikes and wonderfully friendly folks. We sure hope you continue to ride along!!

On our first walk out to the boat dock we encountered this yearling calf who was soon disinterested in all the gawkers so he just walked off. There are over 120,000 moose on Newfoundland and all of them originate from four animals imported in 1904.

Foggy day walk to the boat…

Non foggy day walk to the boat. What a difference a day makes.

but what a beautiful walk we had in the misty, drizzly fog.

This is Cow Parsnip. It’s all over Newfoundland and it’s pretty. However, it is poisonous and will give you a nasty rash of blisters. Don’t touch it.

Marti just loves the mosses and lichens and ferns and flowers etc, etc, etc…

On the sunny day’s walk in the bog Dragon’s Mouth.

In our family this is a big bugger but to geologists this is known as an erratic. A large stone dropped or deposited by retreating glaciers.

Pissing Mare Falls on Western Brook Pond. Don’t blame us for the name…

The head of Western Brook Pond which by the way is neither a fjord or a pond. It’s a big effing lake. The Brits called everything a pond back when they were naming places so it stuck.

The larger tour boat is in this photo. Can you see it? These cliffs are 2000 ft. tall.

We finished up our day on Green Point near Rocky Harbour. Love the stratified rocks.

Gros Morne on our way to the Tablelands. Notice the snow on the distant mountains.

Tablelands, Marti may or may not have collected a rock, a particularly nice piece of Olivine/peridotite.

Trout River Pond in Gros Morne.

The village of Trout River at the end of the road in southwest Gros Morne.

Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse.

Ed peeks around the corner to say goodbye from our home, Whack-A-Mole Wheels.

Newfoundland ~ Part One

16 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

Dr. Grenfel, Dr. Grenfell, Fog, Fossils, Gros Morne National Park, Icebergs, L'Anse aux Meadows, Lighthouses, Lightkeepers Seafood Restaurant, Newfoundland, Port au Choix, SS Ethie, St. Anthony, Vikings, Whales

Newfoundland (newfun LAND) is an island and when driving an RV to an island the only way to get to it is via ferry, so we reserved a spot online. Following the instructions to be there an hour before boarding, actually we made a point of being early, we arrived at the dock in North Sydney, Nova Scotia and were sent to lane 11 to queue up and wait our turn to drive onto the MV Blue Puttees bound for Channel-Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

Waiting in queue as the 18 wheelers are loaded on to the MV Blue Puttees. The vessel is named in honor of the Newfoundland Armed Forces in WWI who were nicknamed the Blue Puttees for the blue leggings (puttees) they wore over their boots.

After the 6 ½ hour crossing we off-loaded and headed straight for the nearest campground JT Cheeseman Provincial Park where the sites are huge, private, with electric only but on both sides of the space and at least when we were there pretty much empty! For you fellow RVers, the drinking water spigots all said boil before using, so we just didn’t use it.

The Long Range Mountains run up the entire Northern Peninsula and are an extension of the Appalachians.

We had decided to head for the Northern Peninsula and L’Anse aux Meadows first, so taking the TCH (Trans Canada Highway) to Corner Brook we picked up 450 driving out almost to the end of the road and Blow Me Down Provincial Park. The water here also required boiling. Before getting there however we stopped at the Blow Me Down Nature Trail between Frenchman’s Cove and York Harbour. A good distance from the parking lot is a lovely tall waterfall which doesn’t seem accessible but there is a trail that wonders off through the bog ending at what we’d call a river but the local kids we chatted with call a brook! We stayed there only long enough to get a photo as the blackflies were swarming near the water.

This is a very popular local swimming hole and we passed lots of young people coming back, some wet, some not. The water is cold snow melt. You can’t see the blackflies, but trust us, they are there.

The next morning the weather was not in our favor, but very typical for Newfoundland, VERY low clouds/fog and misty.

Just a little fog…

The route up the Northern Peninsula is 430 running right along the coast. There’s a lot of construction on the first bit but one has to remember that with the winters here there’s a very small window to do any type of construction/repair work. It was to our advantage actually because there wasn’t a lot of traffic and our short waits gave us a chance to look around before moving on up the road.

We could see the beautiful landscape even with the coming and going of the fog.

We stopped at the site of the 1919 wreck of the SS Ethie. All crewmen and passengers were saved, including a baby that was transferred safely in a mailbag to waiting hands on shore but the ship lost.

Rusting bits are all that’s left of the SS Ethie.

We arrived at Port au Choix (Port ah Shuwwaaa) as the sky was clearing and checked into the Oceanside RV Park run by the United Towns Lions Club. Situated right on the shore and with electric, water and wifi this is a no frills but wonderful location! After picking our spot and marking it we headed into town. Basque whalers in the 16th^th century fished here and gave it the name Portuchoa meaning “little port”.

The Chaloupe, a vessel of Basque origins was used for hunting whales and fishing cod in the 16th century. In Newfoundland, they have long disappeared. The knowledge to construct them is still in use in Basque country in Spain, so in 2004 an association of Basque Maritime Heritage came over and three boats were built. This is one of them.

Later this area was part of the “French Shore” given to France as exclusive fishing rights, but not as land for settlement, in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, and hence the French version of the name which translates to Port of Choice. We stopped for dinner at Anchor Café where we not only had excellent fish chowder and really good pan fried cod, our friendly and fun waitress Norvalee told us about Pointe Riche Lighthouse.

The wooden “pepperpot” style Pointe Riche Lighthouse in Port au Choix built in 1892 to replace an earlier light.

Back at the campsite we walked around the huge, flat rocks that are the shore and discovered they are covered with fossils! All in all, put Port au Choix on your MVL (Must Visit List).

One of hundreds of fossils we saw in the rocks of Port au Choix. Ed thinks it is a bill of a swordfish-like billfish. Marti is waiting for an expert’s opinion.

The next day was just plain ugly weather wise, and not much better the following day, but we headed on north anyway towards Eddie’s Cove where we saw our first iceberg!

It’s easy to get excited when it’s your very first iceberg. Marti was very thrilled. Little did we know what was coming up North. This size is called a Growler.

At this point the road turns east inland where the fog and rain slowly faded away, then up to the northern tip of Newfoundland, splitting into four fingers of road. We drove up 437 to Cape Onion where we saw more and bigger icebergs.

She’s a Happy Camper at Cape Onion the northernmost point in Newfoundland.

Then back down and out 436 to Quirpon and Viking RV Park where we settled in for the night.

To our great relief we woke to find the beautiful sunshine had remained and we quickly headed on up 436 to L’Anse aux Meadows a place that I was very excited to see. Discovered in 1960 when Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine came to this area following their study of the Norse Sagas. They asked the village residents if they knew of any mounds or unusual shapes in the surrounding landscape. Local George Decker took them to an area they all called the “old Indian camp”. Excavations began and with the discovery of an unquestionably Norse made cloak pin the first European settlement in North America was confirmed, dating from 1,000 years ago!

L’Anse aux Meadows National Park. The boardwalk leads you through the settlement excavation site over to the recreated village. Once excavated and documented the sites were covered back up with dirt to preserve their integrity for future study but the outlines of the building foundations are quite clear.

…as you can see. Yes, that is snow on the hillside.

Walls constructed of peat are based on the foundation excavations, the roof design is taken from known styles recorded in Iceland. They are very substantial and on this nice day pretty cozy feeling.

Back down the south arm of 430 we went to St. Anthony where we discovered Lightkeepers Seafood Restaurant. Put this on your MVL! We had lunch here twice and even stayed an extra day to try their dinner menu!

Located on Fishing Point, the Fox Point lightkeeper’s home is now a restaurant.

Amazing Seafood Chowder, the best yet for lunch one day and Cod Tongues for dinner appetizers the next. The Cod Tongues tasted OK but had a chewy texture. BTW, they’re not really tongues but a muscle from the cheek. Did we mention the Iceberg Beer… oh, oh, oh and Moose Sliders. Yum!

There is a gift shop and museum across the way as well and we had a wonderful time chatting with the owner as well as purchasing some of his mother’s homemade jams. On one of our visits I also walked the short trail behind the restaurant where a large white X was painted on a rock.

Do you see it?

Turns out the “X Marks the Spot” where on August 10, 2009 Francis Patey threw his 2 page message about his hometown, inserted into a plastic soda bottle, into the ocean. For 544 days it traveled along an unknown journey until being spotted and picked up on a Brittany, France beach by Joy Nash! Francis had included his contact information and Joy did just that! FUN!!

We visited the Grenfell Center where we learned about the amazing Dr. Wilfred Thomason Grenfell who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries fell in love with Newfoundland and Labrador and spent the rest of his life, along with his wife, doctoring, educating and supporting the peoples in these two incredibly remote and difficult environments by building hospitals and schools.

We sat and watched on a foggy wet Sunday as men worked at the end of a newly constructed rock pier doing something in the waters of St. Anthony harbour. Watching through binoculars, I asked Ed “What do you think that yellow broken tube thing is?” one of the guys had taken out of a box, my clever husband says “Dynamite, that’s what they were doing, they’re going to blast under the water!”

Boooooom! Only when under the water it wasn’t much of a shock but lots and lots of bubbles. The drilling rig is shown on the right side of the photo. A platform on the end of a long arm attached to a tracked vehicle. They are blasting away a huge rock shoal to make the harbor deeper for container and cruise ships. Good for the local economy but we are afraid it might destroy the charm of this small town.

Newfoundlanders call their island “The Rock” and true there is precious little soil on it, but we are having a wonderful time and hope you are enjoying our window into this beautiful place. There’s a lot more to come and we can’t wait!

Bottle Cove at the end of 450 near our campground at Blow Me Down Provincial Park.

Pointe Riche Lighthouse.

Pointe Riche Lighthouse, again…

June 25th, and almost 11PM this far north and it’s still very light in the western sky. This is from our campground in Port au Choix.

There are small cemeteries all over Newfoundland. We think it’s because they are by denomination and most villages have at least two churches each with its own burial ground rather than community cemetery like at home.

A small tableau on a hummock in Cape Onion. We have no idea who built it but it sure is cute and real looking.

The interior of the big house at L’Anse aux Meadows is fully outfitted with reenactors who answer your questions and perform the daily duties of life in the year 1000AD.

Some of the accoutrements of daily Norse life. We are told they are only Viking if they are off killing and pillaging. 🙂

Detail of an entrance and the sod construction. They cut the peat four miles away so as not to disturb the integrity of the site. The walls are three feet thick.

We saw what we think are Minke (minky) whales feeding in the bay of St. Anthony Bight. These are the only whales we have seen because as we have been told, the capelin are still out at sea and the whales are there feeding on them. There is no cod inshore yet either for the same reason. The local fishermen are getting very restless.

Evening at the harbor of St. Carols, near St. Anthony.

Marti went for a walk after dinner at the Lightkeepers. Fog, as usual is coming and going which makes for beautiful light, sometimes.

Ed looking very Viking-like. Kevin says, “Keep your shield up or I’ll ring your bell Dad!” For those who don’t know, our son Kevin was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and participated in the Pennsic Wars as a teenager.

Prince Edward Island ~ Red, Green & Blue

24 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Acadia, Anne of Green Gables, Canada, Confederation Bridge, Fishing Harbors, Lighthouses, Lobster, Lucy Maude Montgomery, PEI, Prince Edward Island, Wind Energy, Wind Energy Institute of Canada, Wind Turbines

From New Brunswick we headed across the 8 mile long Confederation Bridge which since it’s opening in 1997 has opened Prince Edward Island (PEI) to easy accessibility, something that was actually put to a vote by the citizens before construction could begin! At the visitor center we discovered that at least for tourists, the island is “divided” into touring sections, Points East Coastal Drive, Central Coastal Drive and the North Cape Coastal Drive. Having now done a lot of it, they do indeed each have a different feel to them. The one thing that is very consistent however, are the colors of PEI: RED ~ GREEN ~ BLUE.

Look how crystal clear the water is.

Crossing over the bridge deposits one on the southern Red Sands Shore of the central section where we headed east following the mapped coastal road (it varies from 10 to Trans Canada Highway to 19) arriving at the cute town of Victoria just about lunch time. The Lobster Barn Pub & Eatery had those magic words lobster and pub so of course in we went 🙂 Put it on your list if you get this way…YUM!

Continuing on along the coast to just outside of the capital city of Charlottetown we headed northwest towards New Glasgow Highlands Campground where we had reservations for the next couple of nights. Fellow RVer’s put this place on your list, not only is it private, pretty, and have all the amenities, we can’t say enough about how wonderful the owners Marlene and Les are.

It’s never a good thing to hear a loud “BANG!!” come from the rear end, but we knew right away what it was and actually had the spare part. The wonderful campground owner, Les Andrews let us park in front of his garage, loaned us his pump jack, some extra tools and a roller cart so Ed could replace the sway bar bracket that broke in two places. Welcome to the people of PEI!

The red (due to iron-oxide i.e.rust) sandy soil of PEI, the warm summers, cold winters and moisture retaining ability of the dirt is perfect for growing potatoes. In fact it is so perfect that they are the top producer of excellent spuds in all of Canada. With our visit coinciding with spring, the turned, hilled red earth of the potato fields in the surrounding, incredibly green rolling countryside was quite unlike any other landscape we’ve seen.

This is as close as we got to capturing the ethereal green, rich red and deep blue of the sky. It doesn’t come close.

Almost every time we told anyone that we were coming to PEI the response from females was, “Oh that was/is my favorite book!” or “Oh I have always wanted to see PEI and Anne’s home!” or “You are going to Green Gables aren’t you?” As a child I too, of course, read Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and clearly having so many of our dear readers in love with Anne’s story we thought that we’d better go, and we did 🙂

Green Gables

Anne’s bedroom

Blue is also the color of Prince Edward Island, water and sky. To the north is the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the southern shore the Northumberland Strait. Scattered all about are streams and rivers flowing out the many fingers into the coves and bays which form the picturesque harbors for the many fishing vessels that produce PEI’s other main crop, shellfish. While lobster is the main crop they also farm oysters and their famously delicious mussels.

Unloaded and headed for his slip.

Oysters and mussels are extensively farmed in the cold, clean and quiet waters of PEI’s coves and rivers.

…and we did our best to help the local fisherman. This was at The Blue Mussel Cafe in North Rustico where we sat on the rooftop deck. Put it on your MVL.

We drove up the North Cape which is heavily Acadian. Acadia, (New France) was the colony settled by the French in Northeastern America as early as the mid 1500’s. By the mid 1700’s and years of fighting with the English the Acadians were forcibly removed or fled to among other places Louisiana and New Orleans, hence the strong Acadian (Cajun) influence in that area. The history of the Acadian people in this whole region is rich with strife, suffering, conflict and compromise which was just finally completely settled in 2003. We leave it to you to do some very interesting reading.

The North end of the island has very few towns or people. It is considerably more flat and we did not find it nearly as pretty, but our visit to The Wind Energy Institute of Canada was interesting.

When you see those big windmills with that little thing on top? This is that thing and it’s called a nacelle. It is where the spinning motion of the blades is converted to electrical energy and sent to the main power grid. Each of the three blades attaches to the hole behind Ed.

This is a single blade. It is 90 ft. long.

We stopped at Cedar Dunes Provincial Park to see the West Point Lighthouse where we enjoyed seeing the small museum as we climbed to the top.

On the backside of the West Point Light is a two storey arm of hotel rooms. You can also stay in one room in the lighthouse, but we saw the room and it ain’t worth the money and doesn’t feel like a lighthouse.

Nobody bigger than Ed is getting through this hatch into the lightroom at the top.

We had thought to spend the night at Linkletter Provincial Park but with the recent rains it was a bit of a swamp so we chose not to and headed back to New Glasgow Highlands.

Next morning we headed east on the coastal road crossing into the Points East section of the island. We took the short side trip to Red Head Harbor on St. Peters Bay and the prettiest harbor yet.

Classic, quiet and beautiful.

Directly across the bay is Greenwich, PEI National Park where we did the fabulous boardwalk trip out to the shore. Put this in on your MVL (Must Visit List).

One of our prettiest walks ever. The boardwalk floats across the large shallow pond behind the dunes.

We stopped at the East Point Lighthouse and later stopped at Basin Head and paid to see the Fisheries Museum…really sad ( they did try though), unfortunately, don’t waste your money. At Red Point Provincial Park we stopped for the night. It presented some serious leveling issues but the view was pretty and I literally ran about a quarter of a mile to see Northern Gannets diving for their dinner…..really fun 🙂

The squawking and carrying on as they dive bombed for dinner was one of the coolest things Marti ever saw.

Our last morning we ate at the Blue Fin in Souris where Ed ordered the Hungry Man Breakfast and it was more than he could finish. Continuing down the coastal road to Charlottetown we walked around the old section and stopped for a drink and shared a good lobster dip at the John Brown Richmond Street Grill. We like this town and it would have been fun to spend more time poking around.

This street is closed to traffic during the season and we were there just in time for the beginning of the season. Down here is John Brown Richmond Street Grill.

Ed and I have heard nothing but rave reviews about Prince Edward Island for years and we are very happy to have spent a week seeing the sights. We met many friendly people, saw gorgeous farm country, quaint harbors, lots of lighthouses and had some very good seafood. No trip to the Canadian Maritimes would be complete without a tour of PEI, and yet we don’t feel the desire to explore it further. Can’t say why, just the way we feel. That being said we’re sure most folks will love it, especially the Central Coast so do put it on your MVL!

Victoria, a small and very quaint fishing village in the Central Coast region.

and a similar scene in Red Head Harbor.

Red sandstone cliffs eroding creates the red beaches and muddy waters.

This buggy parked outside of Green Gables has a straw hat with red braids attached for tourist to put on and pretend they are Anne. No.

In Green Gable’s kitchen is this wood stove which is pretty rare and very low to the floor for heating.

Walking off that chowder and mussels lunch in North Rustico.

There are churches everywhere on PEI. Almost all of them are classically, exquisitely beautiful, all with tall steeples.

St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church.

The coming and going of the workboats and the expert skippering of them is a real ballet on the water as they come in to unload their lobster catch.

Yummmm

… and then there’s kids being kids at Northport pier. That water was really cold, they practically bounced off it screaming, “Cold, cold, cold!!!”. But five minutes later they did it again.

Lobster boats coming in is just a classic PEI scene on the water. We were told that a commercial lobstering license trades for approximately $1,000,000. The government only issued so many and they only become available as a waterman retires and has not passed it on to his heirs. Unlike, the USA, there is a season for fishing lobsters, cod and snow crabs. With lobster at $7 a pound at the dock the men are currently doing pretty well.

Green, red and blue. Oh, and dandelions are EVERYWHERE!

This is designated a Heritage Farm and we think it’s because they grow the best dandelions. No kidding, this scene repeats itself everywhere on PEI. We have never seen so many dandelions.

Along the floating Greenwich Boardwalk.

Looking over the dunes down to the beach, where…

Marti found some broken lobster trap bits. The rectangular openings are intended as escape portals for little lobsters who used to get attacked and killed by the bigger lobsters who were also caught in the trap. Really. BTW, Marti wants you to know those bumps in her pockets are water bottles and not rocks, which she is reputed to pick up.

East Point Lighthouse.

The day is done at Northport Harbor. The watermen make an extremely hard and dangerous job look so easy and fun when the weather is pretty. Most of us wouldn’t last a half a day.

The view from atop the West Point Lighthouse.

Ed, your bus driver doing half his job. His other job is bartending and Marti says he’s very good at it. We will catch you on the next province, Nova Scotia.