Whirlwind Trip to Prince Edward Island

After breakfast with Kevin and Medana we headed off to the Confederation Bridge which links Prince Edward Island to the mainland.  

Confederation bridge

It's the longest bridge in Canada and the longest bridge in the world that crosses ice-covered water.  It takes about 12 minutes to cross.

We stopped at the PEI end of the bridge for lunch and some photo-ops.  There's a small interpretive centre where I learned a little history.  Despite being the cradle of Confederation, PEI did not join Canada until 1873.  One of the conditions was that access to the Island would be guaranteed in the wintertime.  Prior to the establishment of an icebreaker ferry service, Islanders used iceboats, fishing dories that would be hauled over the ice to reach open water.

Trinity United Church

Our next stop was Charlottetown where we parked near the cruise ship terminal and checked out the downtown.  We popped into Trinity United with its giant organ and its varnished wood ceiling.  When I was in Charlottetown last year our shuttle driver recommended we visit the church with a ceiling built to look like a boat.  Patti and I wandered around the church district but never found it.  Here it was, just a block away from the other churches.

We overnighted at the Confederation Trailside RV Park near Mt. Stewart.  Leo and I went for a short walk on the trail.

The next morning we stopped at Orwell Corner Historic Village.  It was semi shut down for the season, the blacksmith shop and the tea room were not open and the only interpretive townspeople on site was the general store owner.  

It was still fun though.  The buildings are all original to the site.  They have horses, goats, cattle, sheep, chickens and a turkey on site.

We visited the church and it turned out to have a varnished wood ceiling like the the church in Charlottetown.

Then it was time to head for the ferry at Wood Islands.  Wood Islands has a very attractive lighthouse.  We were to  cheap to go inside but 

 not too mature to pretend we were a lobster fisherman.

It's a 75-minute ferry ride back to Nova Scotia and a few more hours back to Chester Basin.

Fredericton

Leo peers through cool sculpture.

After we left St. John we followed the St. John River Valley towards Fredericton. We stopped for a break at a Brundage Point River Centre.  This sculpture,  Rivergate, was sculpted by Radislav Sultov of Bulgaria  as part of the St. John International Sculpture Symposium.  

Fun for all ages

We camped at the Hartt Island RV Park right on the St. John River with the Trans Canada Trail passing right by.

The next morning we drove into Fredericton and parked at the Superstore. Leo, Rick and I walked a half hour to the historic centre. Unfortunately the whole area was cordoned off for a music festival.  Instead we walked along the beautiful riverfront trail.

The lighthouse has been turned into a restaurant.

As an art project the benches along the river walk have been decorated:

Closeup:

We visited the New Brunswick Legislature.  We had to go through airport level security.  We were the only tourists there.  The legislature was not sitting.  It's very small compared to the BC Legislature.  There are only 45 members versus 93 in BC.

View from the visitors' gallery

We were interested to see that the Legislature has a copy of the original Audubon's Birds of America.  It's huge!  Bigger than the Book of Kell's, which I visited many years ago at Trinity College Library, Dublin.  We also toured the Legislature's cosy library which has an interesting collection of all things New Brunswick, books on the Audubon theme and even contemporary novels.

It was a super fun experience and now I'm keen to visit provincial legislatures across the country.

Once Rick sorted out some mechanical issues with the bus, we headed off to overnight in Monckton, parked in front of our friend's Kevin and Medana's house.  They were great hosts!

Saint John, New Brunswick

Our next stop was St. John, home of the famous reversing falls.  We waited for a couple of hours for high tide when the river reverses and flows upstream.    

Still flowing downstream

After a while we crossed the bridge and waited on the other side.

On this side there was a large sculpture called the Memory Vessel in the shape of a canoe and commemorating five people who died on the St. John River.

Eventually we got tired of waiting and it started raining so we drove over to the Carleton Martello Tower National Historic Site.  Where we took no pictures. The tower was closed for repairs but it had a nice little museum.  It was built during the War of 1812 and was occupied in both the first and second world wars.  I learned about the Fenians who plotted to invade Canada as part of the Irish uprising against Britain.  

We returned to the falls but the water was still running in the same direction.  Next we went downtown to Market Square.

It was pretty quiet on a Sunday afternoon.  It looks to be set up for cruise ship traffic and there were no cruise ships docked today.

Fun instagrammable art

We camped at the municipal campground in Rockwood Park, mostly permanent residents from the looks of it.  (Also no photos.)

Monday morning we drove back downtown and checked out the City Market, the oldest continuously operated market in Canada (since 1785 though not at this location, built in 1876). Again no photos!  It's a cool old building and has a great bakery/cafe and a good butchers.

A block away was the Loyalist House, built in 1812 by the Merrit family, who continued to live there until 1958.  Like the City Market it's one of the few buildings that survived the Great Fire of 1877.

Dining Room

Kitchen

Cool Tools

Original Wallpaper

Bedroom

Nova Scotia in September

We flew out to Nova Scotia on September 9 to attend our niece Heather's wedding.  We spent 2 days at Leo's sister Ann's house and then stayed one night in Chester Basin with sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rick.  The next morning we headed out for a short trip around the Maritimes.

Our first destination was the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick.  We visited Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, named for the sea stacks created by tidal erosion.

There's an impressive stairwell to get down to the beach.  The stairs can be raised in the wintertime.

The seaweed covering the rocks is different than on the west coast, very fine.

We meant to come back to witness the high tide but that was either 2 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon when we would already be further down the road.

We camped that night at Fundy National Park.  Leo's childhood friend Kevin and his wife Medana drove down from Moncton and joined us for a barbecue.  It was great to see them again.

Summer in the Cariboo

We swam in Chimney Lake (above) a couple of times during the hot spell.  One afternoon we spotted a new fire and soon after the bird dogs and tanker planes and helicopters arrived to put it out.  It looked like it was just on the other side of the lake but later, looking it up on the wildfire website, it was really quite a ways away.

Bumper crop of choke cherries this summer.

There were about 10 pelicans loafing on a raft floating in the Scout Islan marsh.

Coming back from a medical appointment in Kelowna we took a side trip to the Merritt to Spences Bridge highway.  Checked out a new cafe in Merritt, then had lunch at our old haunts the N'kwala Rec Site, which has been closed since the 2021 flood wiped out the highway.  It's now open again though not as nice as it once was.  The river has moved way over to the other bank from the campsite.

Also spotted a herd of Bighorn sheep, nicely camouflaged against the dry slope.

All females and lambs, the males hang out separately except during mating season.

Somebody set several fires to the dry hillside above the Stampede Grounds. The fire came right up to our friends' property before the firemen put it out.  

The smoky air is not from any local air but from the Clinton fire to the south

When we checked out the damage I was amazed at all the prickly pear cactus that was hidden in the grass and now exposed after the fire.  Interesting how it's adapted to survive fire.  That's our friends' house in the background.

We went for a hike at the Farwell Canyon dunes.  As you can see the sky was pretty tempestuous. 

We got caught in one short but heavy shower.  Then as we were leaving the dunes the wind picked up and we were in the midst of a sandstorm. We managed to get back to the truck just as another thunderstorm broke out.

To Meziadin, Smithers and Home

 

Meziadin Lake

We packed up in the rain and headed out. It cleared up in the afternoon but the mountains remained socked in.

Saw a little fox just north of Dease Lake and soon after a beaver in the middle of the highway.

Then we saw a moose on the road just south of Tatogga Lake.  We were complaining that we hadn't seen any bears yet but then after Bell II we saw a female with 3 cubs, 

followed soon after by two small bears crossing the road in front of us.

Leo sw one more black bear before we arrived at our campground at Meziadin Lake.  

We snagged a nice waterfront site.  And the sun was shining!

The big spruce tree in our campsite was full of young golden-crowned kinglets.

Birds of the Day!

New this year tent campers have to camp behind an electric fence.

Meziadin is notorious for its black bears.  I haven't heard of any bad incidents so they must just be tired of shooting problem bears.

We woke up to sunshine at Meziadin Lake

Morning view from our campsite

But it soon turned cloudy and then to rain.

We saw two more bears on the Stewart Cassier Highway.

We reached Smithers by noon and parked up at the municipal campground.

And spent some quality time with Sybille and Dave.  In between rainshowers we went for some short walks.  

Down by Seymour Lake Leo photographed this cedar waxwing

And this red-necked grebe with her grebelet.

The next day we drove home.  To complete the wildlife tally we saw one more black bear.