Atlantic Provinces Adventures

Prince Edward Island, Canada

      My husband, Todd and I just returned home to Minnesota from traveling 6,400 miles with our pickup and camper to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Canada.  We were gone for 26 days.  In May we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, so one could say this was our anniversary trip.  I had been to Prince Edward Island ten years prior with my good friends Amy and Jessica, but had been wanting to go back with my best friend, Todd.  We had a fabulous time.  Each day was wonderful!  I am going to attempt to share with you some of what our adventure was like.

Our pickup and camper

One of our amazing campsites

 

     Camping in our camper was a big part of our trip.  I appreciate having my temporary home with me wherever I go.  We slept for free in busy Wal-Mart Parking lots and at noisy truck stops (they have super clean showers!).  We stayed at woodsy, mosquito-infested campgrounds and at campgrounds with amazing waterfront views.  I got used to having ear plugs in my ears and a mask over my eyes.  Surprisingly, I slept quite well.  One of the best parts about having our camper along was that we could make our own meals.  Todd was the sea food chef!  He made scallops, oysters, salmon, tilapia, sole, and lobster!  He was also the master of blueberry pancakes!

     Music was a big part of our trip too.  As we drove, we listened to CDs of Kendra MacGillivray fiddling, The Rankin Family chanting out lilting Gaelic melodies,  The Ennis Sisters singing sweet Celtic harmonies, and Natalie MacMaster fiddling out her Cape Breton roots.  We stopped at the Celtic Music Interpretive Center where both Todd and I got to try out the fiddles.  We attended a magnificent Troy MacGillivray fiddling concert with the audience stomping their feet and shouting out "Yips" and "Whoops."  We stopped to see the impressive giant violin in Sydney on Cape Breton Island.  We saw step dancing and heard bagpipes practicing together for an upcoming performance at the College of Piping in Summerside.  Everywhere we went people talked about the "Ceilidhs" that would be starting up in July.  Ceilidhs are kitchen parties that always involve music, storytelling, and highland dancing.  They are usually in a concert setting for the public.  Although we missed the Ceilidh season, we did get to hear some musicians performing traditional seafaring songs at a restaurant where we stopped.  While in Charlottetown, we attended a musical that told the love story of Anne and Gilbert.  It was excellent.

Troy MacGillivray!

The giant violin in Sydney

        

Todd trying his hand at fiddling!

Anne and Gilbert, the Musical

     If one is intrigued by historic villages, then Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are the place to go!  Todd and I stopped at about five of them on our trip.  We saw two farming villages still being run as if it was the 1800s.  We visited a Scottish Gaelic Village that told of the struggle to create new lives in Nova Scotia after the hardships of Scotland.  A French Acadian Village inhabited by people re-enacting their own ancestors' way of life of boat-building, lobster fishing, and wool making was one of our favorites.  And, a village that the producer of "Road to Avonlea" based much of his Avonlea village on was exciting to see.  We met blacksmiths and dory-boat makers and spinning-wheel operators and women baking cookies over an old-fashioned hot stove.  I got to pretend to be the teacher of many one-room school houses and Todd and I sang "Amazing Grace" in harmony at more than one old time church!  

I'm sitting on the cupboard bed in a Scottish hut!

Cracking the whip in a one-room school house!

Farm Machinery from days gone by!

We had a great conversation with this blacksmith before he made us a nail!

     Biking and hiking was a fun part of our trip.  We kept our bikes in the back of our camper, so every time we had to get in and out, we either had to crawl around them or take them out!  We biked the infamous Confederation Trail on Prince Edward Island (an old railroad bed).  We biked through Charlottetown and Victoria and Summerside.  We hiked the Skyline Trail on Cape Breton Island and hiked to waterfalls and hiked almost everywhere we went!

     Water was an important part of our trip!  We had to get around the Great Lakes to get from Minnesota to the Atlantic Provinces and home again.  We drove along the Atlantic Ocean, the Bay of Fundy, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  We watched tides go in and out.  We walked along beaches.  We hiked for hours to get to a waterfall!  We visited too many ship harbors to count!  We saw whales, seals, jellyfish, starfish, trout, mussels, and even the shell of a razor fish!   

   

And, who could forget the farm fields of red dirt, the red sand along the beach, and the red roads everywhere you turn?  A photograph just doesn't do it justice!

My favorite kind of building on the Atlantic Provinces (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Labrador) is cedar shingled grey with red trim.  And, there were a lot of them!  We noticed that very few people had garages and that many people liked to put a star on the front of their house for decoration.  Most everyone had a wooden barrel at the end of his/her driveway for trash pickup.  And, there were many beautiful gardens!  We saw some other intriguing architecture along the way too.  Here are a few examples:

When people asked if we had been to the Atlantic Provinces before, I liked to tell them that when I was here with my friends we did "Everything Anne that was possible."  Then I'd tell them that Todd and I were focusing more on the culture, the scenery, and the seafood.  Despite that, Todd and I did indulge in a few Anne of Green Gables sites, including viewing "The White Sands Hotel" and "Green Gables."  We tried Raspberry Cordial and visited the make-believe village of Avonlea.  We saw where L.M. Montgomery was born and gazed at "The Lake of Shining Waters."  We hiked "The Haunted Wood" and "Lover's Lane."  And, I often thought of Anne and Diana while enjoying the red cliffs and sand dunes along the beach.  

And, who could visit Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island without appreciating the occasional lighthouse?  We went inside one, but most had an admission fee.  We saw the oldest lighthouse on the island and the only round lighthouse (Point Prim).  We saw the most photographed lighthouse in the world (Peggy's Cove).  We saw lighthouses that were falling apart and some that had been turned into resorts.  Some of the lighthouses were still being used as lighthouses.  We encountered a lot of fog, but never did hear a foghorn, despite how much Todd yearned to hear one!

When it was time to leave Prince Edward Island, we took the nine mile Confederation Bridge.  

Just as every sunset each night was bitter-sweet, so was the end of our time on vacation.  We had such a wonderful time, it was like a dream.  And, yet, home is good too.  Home to Minnesota to our family and friends and the life we have carved out there.