Category: Realta Road

August 26, 2022 / Grand Manan, NB

A fog horn, sounding from the north, warned that we would be socked in today, and when we awoke it was so thick we couldn’t see the houses across from Tim and Nadine’s cottage on Red Rock Road, where the Realta is parked. Grand Manan is a place I would love to live. About  30 km from tip to tip, the Island is a world unto itself and our hosts introduced us to some of its landmarks and attributes during our two day visit.

The first characteristic we noticed, Grand Manan shares with Mainland New Brunswick: friendliness. For example, when we were disembarking from the ferry one of the crew members tapped on the Realta’s window and returned my camera lens, which had popped off on the vehicle deck and got lost after we’d boarded. She’d gone up the line showing it to disembarking passengers until she found us.

We’ve encountered that kind of friendliness at just about every turn since entering New Brunswick. It’s a truly Maritime spirit.

But Tm and Nadine caution about another side to relations between born and bred Grand Mananers and those who come ‘from away’. They are slow to accept newcomers as true islanders, so their kindness is tempered somewhat. I can’t help believing though, that anyone who loves the place and gets involved in community activities, would be welcomed, even if as a foreigner.

Yesterday we hiked to Ashburton Head at the north end of the Island, a place named after one of the many shipwrecks that have occurred along Grand Manan’s coast. From there we marvelled at the prospect of the Bay of Fundy, looking down, way down on curious seals and gliding gulls.

Then we hiked a segment of Grand Manan’s west coast, which skirts the towering escarpments overlooking Grand Manan Channel and Dark Harbour, which we drove down to afterward. An isolated fishing enclave, its residents make do without power or running water, their cottages built on stilts, dories pulled up on the shore.

We ended up lounging on the beach at Long Pond Cove, absorbing the afternoon sunshine and the slow creep of a fog bank up the beach.

This morning we took a run down to Southwest Head, where once again we peered down at ocean, this time from towering basalt cliffs.

Now we’re aboard the Grand Manan Five, making for Blacks Harbour and St. John. Waiting for the boat, and embarking, we talked about the pros and cons of moving to Grand Manan Island. I’m tempted, inspired by the diversity and wonder so clearly defined by an island 30 x 7 kilometres in extent. Oddly, it exerts a sort of homing instinct on me, even though I’d never seen the Grand Manan before this visit!

August 20, 2022
Knowlton, QC

Way back in June we had decided to postpone our Realta Road trip, feeling the COVID era was not quite over, and that we wanted to focus on a book we are publishing, Flibber T. Gibbet, A Chemainus Adventure on the Hermit’s Trail.

Then we got an email inviting us to the wedding of my brother Stewart and (now) sister-in-law Miao. The scale tipped, the wire was tripped, we loaded up and pointed the Realta east.

You have to know Stewart and Miao to know what greeted us in Knowlton QC August 19, the day before the BIG day. Chaos, improv, laughter, good food, great companionship, and a whole lot of wonderful experiences that proved our decision to have been of sound mind, even if it didn’t make sense.

Then came the wedding. It was a great day that blended humour with ceremony and too many memorable moments to describe here. Believe me, the video only tells a minuscule part of the story!

August 13 & 14, 2022

We’re trying to catch up to ourselves with posts from many of the places we have visited over the last couple of weeks, but with limited access to the internet, we’re falling behind. Right now we’re in Bangor Maine, cutting through the States to get to Grande Manan Island in New Brunswick, where we are looking forward to a visit with our friends – Islanders on two of Canada’s three coasts – Nadine and Tim.

It seem a long time ago we were paddling on Eagle Lake in Ontario with our niece Sarah and nephew Rowan. The memory is still with us, though. We had a wonderful time at their cottage and out on the water.

We’re parked in Jessie and Eric’s drive on L’ile Parrot near Montreal. We arrived here yesterday, and plan to leave this afternoon, heading for Knowlton and the wedding celebration of Stewart and Miao. Part of our trip will take us through the State of Maine in the US. We hadn’t planned on crossing the boarder, but would have to take a northward detour adding hundreds of kilometres to our trip otherwise.

Snow Road, Ontario – August 17, 2021

We will be heading out from Snow Road this morning, saying goodbye to Jo and Peter and setting off for Montreal, where we will spend a day with Jessie and Eric. It’s been a pleasant couple of days. Jo has spoiled us with her fine cooking, we’ve spent a lot of time lounging on their deck or sitting down on Pete’s Beach by the river, or hiking.

Yesterday we walked the Palmerston Canonto Conservation Area Recreational Hiking Trail. Evidence of last May’s Derecho was everywhere to be seen, trees uprooted and blown over at every turn. The cataclysmic weather event is described in Wikipedia as:

…a high-impact derecho[5] event that affected the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, Canada’s most densely populated region, on May 21, 2022. Described by meteorologists as an historic derecho and one of the most impactful thunderstorms in Canadian history,[6][7] winds up to 190 km/h (120 mph) as well as several tornadoes caused widespread and extensive damage along a path that extended for 1,000 kilometres (620 mi).

Eleven people were killed and an estimated $875 million was caused by the storm, rated as the sixth costliest disaster in Canadian history in terms of insurance claims. These kinds of events are becoming more and more frequent. The prairie provinces are bracing for a heat wave; BC is still coping with extremely hight temperatures; a forest fire is raging in Newfoundland.

Viewing Canonto and Palmerston lakes and the surrounding forest from the rocky, humped lookouts along the trails we were reminded yet again of the beauty of Ontario’s wilderness and rural areas. The landscape here is rolling and softened by its canopy deciduous trees, compared to the steep, spiny and somewhat darker profiles of our West Coast. I can see why people are attached to this region. But coastal Vancouver Island is my homeland and I don’t see myself living anywhere else.

What a beautiful city! That was the reaction of both Diana and I to Thunder Bay, almost from the moment we rolled into town.

We came in via route 102, passing by a cluster of heritage buildings and churches, which give the place an immediate sense of history and solidity. Then we rolled into the ‘Kingsway zone’ as we call it, that long nondescript stretch of car dealerships, gas stations, motels that you’ll find in almost every town. But even that zone was tidy and – in sharp contrast to our experience in other places – had people on its sidewalks.

We headed back along the waterfront, past gigantic grain terminals, and ended up in a park that took up much of the city’s foreshore. The park is filled with activities, sculptures, and viewpoints – an inspiring stroll that demonstrates what planning can do to draw citizens to a place for recreation and leisure. Skateboarding, exercising, dog walking, splashing around in a water fountain, the park bustled happily

It’s almost like being on the ocean, Lake Superior is so big. And everywhere you go there’s the sounds of gulls squabbling and crying. One feature that amazed us was the huge breakwater that encloses the Thunder Bay waterfront. Can’t imagine the amount of work it took to build it!

After a boondock farther down the rail line but still on the foreshore, we went for a walkabout in the town, breakfasting at a place called Roosters. Great food, friendly service and relaxing ambiance.

Thunder Bay is a definite stop if you’re heading west to Lake of the Woods, or east into Great Lakes territory.

From Realta Road / Craig & Diana