Friday, September 2, 2011
Lac Megantic to Lac Memphremegog to Lac Brome - Chasing Some Family Roots
Simply a place keeper for later on.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
To Shediac And Back - What A Walk Down Memory Lane!!!
In the fall of 1952, my father got transferred from Montreal to Moncton, NB with Canadian National Telecommunications (a subsidiary of Canadian National Railways). We took the train from Montreal to Moncton, booked into the Beausejour Hotel. My parents then took taxis to find accommodations as they didn't have a car until two years later. Rents were very high in Moncton and someone suggested that they might want to try Shediac. A quick trip by taxi quickly found them rental accommodation on Pleasant St.
The Shediac Inn
I recall arriving in Shediac in front of the Shediac Inn on a wet-and-cold rainy day in November of 1952 when I was all of 6 years old. We took a quick trip past Shediac Central School, the school that I would be attending for the next 5 years. Our furniture didn't arrive from Montreal for about a week so we had to stay at the Shediac Inn during that time. The Inn was one of those old hotels where people used to spend their summers. It was built in two sections - one section for those guests who would arrive in the off-season (this part was heated) and one section only for summer guests (this part was very sparse and not heated). The Inn was demolished some time between 1993 and 2000 as today it's a vacant lot that was converted into a park.
Our furniture ultimately arrived and we moved into one of the apartments on Pleasant St. Shediac was the ideal place for my parents as we were without a car, the rents were reasonable, and the train station was only one block away from the house. There was a daily morning and evening passenger train that took the residents into Moncton. Since 99% of the passengers worked for Canadian National, the train didn't generate too much in the way of revenues as all of these passengers had railway passes. The train would drop my father off literally in front of his office.
Pleasant St was an ideal place for a 6-8 year old. It was here that I built my first "hot rod", got our first cat, got my first rabbits, learned how to swim, and a whole lot of other things. There's a photo that was taken of me and my father sitting on the front steps in 1953. And here's a photo of me taken in the same spot about 55 years later. Not the same steps but you get the idea.
The house on Pleasant St was a 4-plex with two apartments downstairs and two apartments upstairs. We had the downstairs apartment on the right.
Back in 1993 on a business trip to Fredericton, I returned to Shediac to take a trip down memory lane. The only other time I had visited Shediac was once in the mid-1980s in the middle of a thunder shower and then only for 20 minutes. This time, I was going to do it very thoroughly.
Throughout my life I had always recalled those boyhood memories of living in Shediac. It was here that I learned to swim, built a raft with my brother, Ed, learned to skate and play hockey, skated on Shediac Bay in the middle of winter, caught my first fish, and discovered trains - the real ones!.
I attended Shediac Central School from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Shediac Central consisted of 3 classrooms. Grades 1-to-4 was Mrs Sales classes, Grades 5-to-7 was Miss Coughlan's, and Grades 8-to-12 was a Mr Bowes. Shediac was 99% Acadian Francophone with names like LeBlanc, Cormier, Leger (pronounced "lejeer") and Catholic to boot. The other 1% was us - Anglophones who attended Shediac Central. The French attended one of two schools - the "Brothers' school" if you were male, or the "Sisters school" if you were female. And as usual, there were the "religious wars" - French against English. The photo below is the "Brothers' school. Our house on Gallagher St was behind me and one block to the right.
This required that us Anglos have our own club - the "Skull & Crossbones" - "haar, haar, me haarty!! Avast and lay the landlubbers down!!". The tales of "Long John Silver" were prominent on TV so it was only appropriate to name our club the "Skull & Crossbones". We made swords out of old hockey sticks, practiced our wrestling and sword-fighting, and even made flags. Talk about playing "Tom Sawyer"! There was John Hannah, Jimmy Morrisey, Boyd Laventure, Peter Smith, Freddy Hamilton, and a couple of others whose names I forget.
At first our clubhouse was the garden shed in the back of John Hannah's yard which was just across the street from the school. Later on, it was the water tower at the back of Peter Smith's house. Peter's dad owned the sandstone quarry where large chunks of sandstone were loaded onto gondola cars for transporting to other provinces. We tried our hand at snaring rabbits (didn't catch any) and gathering maple sap to boil down into maple syrup (it turned sour).
Around that time, Dad got involved in building a race track for us students in the old ballast pit alongside Shediac Central. In those days of steam locomotives it was easy to get a load of cinders for the track. I remember a day of track-and-field where several other schools were invited to compete on a Saturday. Dad also staged a play as a fund-raiser with several other parents. It was my first time on stage.
We had a music teacher (I forget his name) where I tried out for the school choir. I remember singing a song with the words "As I came down the cannon gate, the cannon gate, the cannon gate. As I came down the cannon gate, a lassie I espied. Oh merry may the keel roll, the keel row, the keel row. Oh merry may the keel row the ship my lassie's in....." "She wears a blue bonnet, blue bonnet, blue bonnet. She wears a blue bonnet......the ship my lassie's in."
It was also where I met my first love - Miss Coughlan, my grade 5-and-6 teacher. Rita Coughlan! She had just graduated from teacher's college and this was her first school. For the first term, Jimmy Morrisey and Peter Smith used to give her a hard time. So, being a bit bold, I thought that I would try my luck at the beginning of the second term after Christmas. I got told to stay after school. My punishment was to write something out 50 times on the black-board. I made some comment and out came the strap. "Whap!" Right in the palm of my hands! It was more the shock of getting the strap than the punishment itself!! I bawled like a baby! First and last time I ever got the strap.
Today, the Anglos (if there are any left in Shediac) are bussed to Moncton to go to school. Shediac Central is now "Le Club d'Age d'Or Acadien".
Just one block from the house at the end of Pleasant Street was Shediac Beach. This was where I learned to swim. The beach at Shediac (now it's all part of the Shediac Yacht Club
The House on Gallagher St (the train tracks ran right alongside the house on the left side)
The driveway where we made a rink in the winter (flooded with hot water, no less!)
The place where Ed and I kept our first raft (next stop is PEI!) only back then it was a sandy beach without the rip-rap (rocks).
Those buildings on the horizon from the middle of the photo above to the right is the wharf at Pointe-du-Chêne (we pronounced it "point duh sheen") where the pulp boats would periodically pull into the wharf and load up with pulp logs for the pulp-and-paper mills around Bathurst/ Newcastle way. The pulp logs used to be stored about a mile down the tracks between our house on Gallagher St and Point de Chine. One night around 1957-58 the logs caught on fire. It lit up the sky for miles around.
Mrs Sales' House (my grade 1-4 teacher. I was the only boy in the class with 4 (or was it 5 girls. Let me see. Dawn Lynn Gildart, Betty-Lou Crossman, a Poirier girl (Roger Gallant's cousin))
While the Town of Shediac was predominently French Acadian and Catholic, Shediac Cape was predominently English Canadian and Protestant. In Shediac, there were two churches - the large Catholic church (with the Sisters' school next door and the Brothers' school two blocks away) and the United Church. When we first arrived in Shediac, we attended the United Church which was at the eastern edge of the downtown one block from the train tracks. I remember that Allan Tait was my Sunday school teacher. Allan Tate owned Tate's General Store and lived in a large mansion on the western edge of the downtown as you entered Shediac (more on Allan Tait later).
There were two Protestant churches in Shediac Cape - the Anglican church and a small Baptist church. When we got our first car two years later (a 1950 Austin), we started to attend the Anglican church in Shediac Cape. It was here that Ed and I attended Cubs. The cubmaster was Mr Hannah (John Hannah's father) who lived across the street from Shediac Central School). He owned a Morris Minor (a very, very small car) and would drive about 4 of us over to Cubs every Friday night - John in the front, me and Ed and Jimmy Morrisey (I think) in the back. When we later got our first bike (Ed and I had to share it - we alternated days), we would drive over to Shediac Cape and back on our bike. Here's what the hall looks like today. While it is under major renovations (a $1.3 million project and all paid for!), the wood is still the same.
I clearly remember playing "British Bulldog" - sort of like "Red Rover, Red Rover, come on over!". It was in a field behind the church that I had my first camping experience - I lasted all of one day and got homesick - and first played softball.
Mom was brought up in the Anglican church - or rather the Church of England as she was born and raised in England. Being true to her roots, she attended the Anglican church. Shortly thereafter, Dad attended the Baptist church. On a Sunday, we would drive over to the Anglican church and let Mom and Jen off, then we would drive back a ways where Dad, Ed and I would attend the Baptist church.
Here's what the Anglican church looks like today - St Martin's-In-The-Woods. It was a very rich parish as it owned land along the beach in Point-du Chene. The land was divided up into tiny postage-size lots and rented out to people who built little cottages on the land. They would travel up from Moncton on the train on a Friday night in the Spring and Fall and then back to work on Monday morning. During the summer, they lived at their cottages all the time.
By comparison, the Baptist church were the poor cousins. All they had was a small building on about half an acre of land. I visited the church back in 1993 where I met Dick (I forget his last name but he delivered the Toronto Star Weekly when the Toronto Star Weekly was the Canadian equivalent of Life, Time, and Cosmopolitan magazines. The church was sold some time in the late 1990s as there were very few parishoners.
The church is now a private residence.
After touring all of the old places that my brother and I inhabited, we then drove down to Point-du-Chene and Parley Beach. Back in the 1950s, there were a number of dance halls along the beach. One of these was owned by the CNR War Vets - much like the Legion. Dad ended up being the Secretary of the club which required him keeping track of the money and what was going on at the dance hall. I clearly remember the juke box, the old 1950s songs, and the young teenagers jiving to the music. That music has stuck in my memory for a lifetime.
The Captain & Mrs Hubley's house where we got our first "kitten". Living in Shediac was a great place if you loved the movies. For 25 cents we got to see the Saturday matinee at the local movie theatre. It always started off with a cartoon or two - Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang. This would be followed by a "serialized" short movie - the Little Rascals, Lone Ranger, The Three Stooges. And then came the feature film - usually a western starring the likes of Audey Murphy, Randolph Scott, and other famous "oatburner" actors. It was here that I developed my love of the movies and of musicals - Rogers and Hammersteins "Oklahoma" with Joel McRae. The only time that we got to see a movie at the theatre in the evening was "Oklahoma" - right after we had seen it that afternoon at the matinee. Mom and Dad wanted to see it, we had no babysitter, and it was cheaper to bring us 3 kids to the evening movie than to pay a babysitter.
Anyhooo............ I digresss.......................
Yes, the photo below is where the Captain and Mrs Hubley lived. One Saturday afternoon as we were walking back from the matinee, Ed and I spied a cat on the porch of the house in the photo below. We stopped to pet and stroke the cat and as we did, Mrs Hubley came out to speak to us. She invited us inside to see the kittens that her cat had delivered. We wondered if we could get a kitten (I don't recall how that conversation came up) but we would have to ask Mom and Dad if we could have a kitten. We raced home where we got our parents approval, returned to Mrs Hubley's who then brought the kitten over to the house. Well, the kitten was more like a cat and we named it "Tommy". It was a tabby cat that was a real lap cat. At the same time, it was also a mouser who would go across the street to the open fields and come back with a mouse in its mouth.
A few months later, there was an orange-and-white cat at the door which was obviously pregnant (but we didn't know what that was at that time). We woke up one Christmas to find a whole bunch of kittens in a cardboard box next to the wood stove in the kitchen. Here was the orange-and-white female cat in the box with her kittens and Tommy was climbing into the box. Wow!! A real cat family with the mommy-cat, the daddy-cat and the baby-cats..................
It wasn't until about 10 years later that Mom told us the whole story. Seems as if Tommy was really a Tessie. She had had her litter but they were all still-born. Mom got rid of the dead kittens. At the same time, the orange-and-white cat had her kittens and so the job of feeding the kittens were shared by both cats.
The Crossman's house (where Betty Lou and Rodney Crossman lived)
abc
The Shediac Inn
I recall arriving in Shediac in front of the Shediac Inn on a wet-and-cold rainy day in November of 1952 when I was all of 6 years old. We took a quick trip past Shediac Central School, the school that I would be attending for the next 5 years. Our furniture didn't arrive from Montreal for about a week so we had to stay at the Shediac Inn during that time. The Inn was one of those old hotels where people used to spend their summers. It was built in two sections - one section for those guests who would arrive in the off-season (this part was heated) and one section only for summer guests (this part was very sparse and not heated). The Inn was demolished some time between 1993 and 2000 as today it's a vacant lot that was converted into a park.
Our furniture ultimately arrived and we moved into one of the apartments on Pleasant St. Shediac was the ideal place for my parents as we were without a car, the rents were reasonable, and the train station was only one block away from the house. There was a daily morning and evening passenger train that took the residents into Moncton. Since 99% of the passengers worked for Canadian National, the train didn't generate too much in the way of revenues as all of these passengers had railway passes. The train would drop my father off literally in front of his office.
Pleasant St was an ideal place for a 6-8 year old. It was here that I built my first "hot rod", got our first cat, got my first rabbits, learned how to swim, and a whole lot of other things. There's a photo that was taken of me and my father sitting on the front steps in 1953. And here's a photo of me taken in the same spot about 55 years later. Not the same steps but you get the idea.
The house on Pleasant St was a 4-plex with two apartments downstairs and two apartments upstairs. We had the downstairs apartment on the right.
Back in 1993 on a business trip to Fredericton, I returned to Shediac to take a trip down memory lane. The only other time I had visited Shediac was once in the mid-1980s in the middle of a thunder shower and then only for 20 minutes. This time, I was going to do it very thoroughly.
Throughout my life I had always recalled those boyhood memories of living in Shediac. It was here that I learned to swim, built a raft with my brother, Ed, learned to skate and play hockey, skated on Shediac Bay in the middle of winter, caught my first fish, and discovered trains - the real ones!.
I attended Shediac Central School from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Shediac Central consisted of 3 classrooms. Grades 1-to-4 was Mrs Sales classes, Grades 5-to-7 was Miss Coughlan's, and Grades 8-to-12 was a Mr Bowes. Shediac was 99% Acadian Francophone with names like LeBlanc, Cormier, Leger (pronounced "lejeer") and Catholic to boot. The other 1% was us - Anglophones who attended Shediac Central. The French attended one of two schools - the "Brothers' school" if you were male, or the "Sisters school" if you were female. And as usual, there were the "religious wars" - French against English. The photo below is the "Brothers' school. Our house on Gallagher St was behind me and one block to the right.
This required that us Anglos have our own club - the "Skull & Crossbones" - "haar, haar, me haarty!! Avast and lay the landlubbers down!!". The tales of "Long John Silver" were prominent on TV so it was only appropriate to name our club the "Skull & Crossbones". We made swords out of old hockey sticks, practiced our wrestling and sword-fighting, and even made flags. Talk about playing "Tom Sawyer"! There was John Hannah, Jimmy Morrisey, Boyd Laventure, Peter Smith, Freddy Hamilton, and a couple of others whose names I forget.
At first our clubhouse was the garden shed in the back of John Hannah's yard which was just across the street from the school. Later on, it was the water tower at the back of Peter Smith's house. Peter's dad owned the sandstone quarry where large chunks of sandstone were loaded onto gondola cars for transporting to other provinces. We tried our hand at snaring rabbits (didn't catch any) and gathering maple sap to boil down into maple syrup (it turned sour).
Around that time, Dad got involved in building a race track for us students in the old ballast pit alongside Shediac Central. In those days of steam locomotives it was easy to get a load of cinders for the track. I remember a day of track-and-field where several other schools were invited to compete on a Saturday. Dad also staged a play as a fund-raiser with several other parents. It was my first time on stage.
We had a music teacher (I forget his name) where I tried out for the school choir. I remember singing a song with the words "As I came down the cannon gate, the cannon gate, the cannon gate. As I came down the cannon gate, a lassie I espied. Oh merry may the keel roll, the keel row, the keel row. Oh merry may the keel row the ship my lassie's in....." "She wears a blue bonnet, blue bonnet, blue bonnet. She wears a blue bonnet......the ship my lassie's in."
It was also where I met my first love - Miss Coughlan, my grade 5-and-6 teacher. Rita Coughlan! She had just graduated from teacher's college and this was her first school. For the first term, Jimmy Morrisey and Peter Smith used to give her a hard time. So, being a bit bold, I thought that I would try my luck at the beginning of the second term after Christmas. I got told to stay after school. My punishment was to write something out 50 times on the black-board. I made some comment and out came the strap. "Whap!" Right in the palm of my hands! It was more the shock of getting the strap than the punishment itself!! I bawled like a baby! First and last time I ever got the strap.
Just one block from the house at the end of Pleasant Street was Shediac Beach. This was where I learned to swim. The beach at Shediac (now it's all part of the Shediac Yacht Club
The House on Gallagher St (the train tracks ran right alongside the house on the left side)
The driveway where we made a rink in the winter (flooded with hot water, no less!)
The place where Ed and I kept our first raft (next stop is PEI!) only back then it was a sandy beach without the rip-rap (rocks).
Mrs Sales' House (my grade 1-4 teacher. I was the only boy in the class with 4 (or was it 5 girls. Let me see. Dawn Lynn Gildart, Betty-Lou Crossman, a Poirier girl (Roger Gallant's cousin))
There were two Protestant churches in Shediac Cape - the Anglican church and a small Baptist church. When we got our first car two years later (a 1950 Austin), we started to attend the Anglican church in Shediac Cape. It was here that Ed and I attended Cubs. The cubmaster was Mr Hannah (John Hannah's father) who lived across the street from Shediac Central School). He owned a Morris Minor (a very, very small car) and would drive about 4 of us over to Cubs every Friday night - John in the front, me and Ed and Jimmy Morrisey (I think) in the back. When we later got our first bike (Ed and I had to share it - we alternated days), we would drive over to Shediac Cape and back on our bike. Here's what the hall looks like today. While it is under major renovations (a $1.3 million project and all paid for!), the wood is still the same.
Mom was brought up in the Anglican church - or rather the Church of England as she was born and raised in England. Being true to her roots, she attended the Anglican church. Shortly thereafter, Dad attended the Baptist church. On a Sunday, we would drive over to the Anglican church and let Mom and Jen off, then we would drive back a ways where Dad, Ed and I would attend the Baptist church.
Here's what the Anglican church looks like today - St Martin's-In-The-Woods. It was a very rich parish as it owned land along the beach in Point-du Chene. The land was divided up into tiny postage-size lots and rented out to people who built little cottages on the land. They would travel up from Moncton on the train on a Friday night in the Spring and Fall and then back to work on Monday morning. During the summer, they lived at their cottages all the time.
After touring all of the old places that my brother and I inhabited, we then drove down to Point-du-Chene and Parley Beach. Back in the 1950s, there were a number of dance halls along the beach. One of these was owned by the CNR War Vets - much like the Legion. Dad ended up being the Secretary of the club which required him keeping track of the money and what was going on at the dance hall. I clearly remember the juke box, the old 1950s songs, and the young teenagers jiving to the music. That music has stuck in my memory for a lifetime.
The Captain & Mrs Hubley's house where we got our first "kitten". Living in Shediac was a great place if you loved the movies. For 25 cents we got to see the Saturday matinee at the local movie theatre. It always started off with a cartoon or two - Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang. This would be followed by a "serialized" short movie - the Little Rascals, Lone Ranger, The Three Stooges. And then came the feature film - usually a western starring the likes of Audey Murphy, Randolph Scott, and other famous "oatburner" actors. It was here that I developed my love of the movies and of musicals - Rogers and Hammersteins "Oklahoma" with Joel McRae. The only time that we got to see a movie at the theatre in the evening was "Oklahoma" - right after we had seen it that afternoon at the matinee. Mom and Dad wanted to see it, we had no babysitter, and it was cheaper to bring us 3 kids to the evening movie than to pay a babysitter.
Anyhooo............ I digresss.......................
Yes, the photo below is where the Captain and Mrs Hubley lived. One Saturday afternoon as we were walking back from the matinee, Ed and I spied a cat on the porch of the house in the photo below. We stopped to pet and stroke the cat and as we did, Mrs Hubley came out to speak to us. She invited us inside to see the kittens that her cat had delivered. We wondered if we could get a kitten (I don't recall how that conversation came up) but we would have to ask Mom and Dad if we could have a kitten. We raced home where we got our parents approval, returned to Mrs Hubley's who then brought the kitten over to the house. Well, the kitten was more like a cat and we named it "Tommy". It was a tabby cat that was a real lap cat. At the same time, it was also a mouser who would go across the street to the open fields and come back with a mouse in its mouth.
A few months later, there was an orange-and-white cat at the door which was obviously pregnant (but we didn't know what that was at that time). We woke up one Christmas to find a whole bunch of kittens in a cardboard box next to the wood stove in the kitchen. Here was the orange-and-white female cat in the box with her kittens and Tommy was climbing into the box. Wow!! A real cat family with the mommy-cat, the daddy-cat and the baby-cats..................
It wasn't until about 10 years later that Mom told us the whole story. Seems as if Tommy was really a Tessie. She had had her litter but they were all still-born. Mom got rid of the dead kittens. At the same time, the orange-and-white cat had her kittens and so the job of feeding the kittens were shared by both cats.
abc
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 - McAdam & St Andrews - A Walk On The Spring Tide
We woke up without any electricity on Tuesday morning but it was a really gorgeous day. Sun shining brightly, just the right amount of wind. A good day for a trip down to the Bay of Fundy. The power came back on around 10:00 and we all piled into the car. Arriving about 11:30 at McAdam, we started our guided tour of the Canadian Pacific Railway station.
CP Rail's McAdam Train Station
The current station was built in 1900 when CP completed their "short route" from Montreal to St John, NB. Passing through Maine, this was CP Rail's only access into the Maritimes. Originally a component of the New Brunswick Railway, it became part of the CP Rail empire. In its heyday, McAdam saw 14 passenger trains and 36 freight trains every day. As it was a division point where crews changed, there was a slight delay. This allowed passengers to get a bite to eat in the station restaurant(s).
If you were staying overnight, or were waiting between trains (and you were important enough), you could eat in the private dining room.
And if you only had 30 minutes while your train was serviced, you could grab a soup and sandwich on the fly. With the changing times, the large dining room was converted to a 1950s "W-shaped" lunch counter which allowed the largest amount of seating with the easiest access to the customers by the waitresses. This dining room had been restored to its 1950s decor, complete with the old Wurlitzer juke box.
With the decline of passenger traffic in the 1950s, parts of the station were gradually closed and the space used as offices, bunkhouses, etc by CP Rail. With the cancellation of passenger service in December of 1994 and the announced abandonment of CP lines east of Montreal, the station became vacant. It had suffered from deferred maintenance throughout all this time with water infiltration and a bit of vandalism.
In 1996 the Town of McAdam took over the ownership of the station which was ultimately transferred to a non-profit corporation with charitable tax status. Room by room, the ground floor of the station has been restored to what you see in these photos.
(The above two photos are for Ross R.)
The community has raised over $350,000 with matching grants of $1.3 million! Their most recent grant was in 2010 when the McAdam Station Historical Commission obtained a grant of $760,000 under "Canada's Economic Action Plan" program.
During our visit, the various rooms were occupied by a meeting of teachers who were there for orientation and training sessions. The station is open from March to December with major events at least twice a month. These range from "Railway Pie" nights, roast beef dinners, bus tours, Christmas dinners, and other events. Up to that point, they had had about 10,000 visitors. At $5.00 admission, that's $50,000 in admission revenues alone! The person in the black shirt sitting in the midst of us is no less than the mayor of McAdam, Frank Carroll, who talked to us for at least 30 minutes about the history and stories of the station.
Trains still run on both sides of the station as parts of CP Rail's network and "short route" are owned by New Brunswick Southern Railway and other railway subsidiaries of the Irving group of companies.
On To St Andrew's And A Spring Tide Tour
We left McAdam after lunch and made our way towards St Andrew's and the St Croix River. It was here in 1604 on the Island of St Croix that Pierre Dugas Sieur Des Monts, along with Samuel De Champlain, established the first white settlement in Canada. Unfortunately it was a very bad experience as the island was too small, didn't have enough fire wood or game to eat, and there were large ice jams in the river which kept them trapped on the island. Of the 79 men who landed on the island, 35 died of scurvy before the winter was ended and a further 20 were near death. The following year, the settlement was moved to Port Royal in the Annapolis Basin of Nova Scotia.
We next toured St Andrew's going out onto the boat dock and then sitting down in a restaurant overlooking the water where I sucked back a couple of diet Coke's.
We then trekked our way down to the blockhouse to the picnic tables on the deck of the restaurant where Gordon and his friend, Melanie, joined us for nice leisurely dinner after a difficult afternoon of taking in the scenery on this hot (but breezy) sunshiny day. (Life is tuff, eh!)
We were in for a special treat this evening as it was the day of the monthly Spring tide - the lowest tide of the month in the Bay of Fundy. Tides in the Bay of Fundy are world-renowned for their dramatic heights and depths. This tide would uncover an addition 40'-50' of seabed - well below the rockweed which is where the tides usually stop for the other 30 days of the month.
Mel is a young marine biologist at Mount Allison University who was just finishing up her Masters of Science, having completed a most interesting thesis on shellfish predators right in St Andrews. Right after the tide hit its lowest point at 18:58, we were on the beach at 19:15 walking down to the water's edge.
As we walked towards the rockweed (large boulders covered in seaweed), Mel quickly raced ahead and rapidly lifted the strands of rockweed.
As she combed the rockweed, you could hear a whole bunch of clack-clack-clacking noises. Her hand darted in quickly and came up with a beautiful prize - a large green crab tenaciously holding on to a bit of seaweed. Ain't that a beautiful specimen! You can see its two eyes glaring at us in anger at being disturbed.
Soon we were lifting up the edges of the rock weed (..... well...... some of us were......) seeking out the green crabs.
It was then on to the next marine specimen - some mussels, all in a bed of sand - only you couldn't see the sand as the mussels were all over the place.
A large "tuyot de dechets" (sewer pipe) snaked down from the shoreline and out into the middle of the water like a super-sized garden hose. Underneath the pipe was a treasure trove a marine life.
I always remember the green sea urchins from our trips to Hants Harbour, Nfld, where the kids would pick up the sea urchins and the star fish from the sea bed at the end of their grandfather's "boat dock". They'd climb down the rickety "ladder" that reinforced the boat dock made out of slab-wood picked up from Len's sawmill. Reaching down into the water at low tide, they'd come up with a few sea urchins, starfish, and possibly a rock crab.
Here's a couple of nice-sized sea urchins. They move their spines to keep their predators at bay while they climb over the detruitous of the sea bed and keep it clean.
Right underneath the pipe were a whole bunch of starfish of different stripes and colours - blue, pink, green, red.
We soon noticed round circles all around us in the sand. I quickly recognized these as sand dollars. We had been stepping on them as we made our way towards the pipe. The last time I had seen sand dollars was in Florida around Tampa Bay.
A bunch of periwinkles and a sea snail were hitching a ride on a mussel. Actually, they were eating it for dinner as the sea snail is one of the predators of the mussel and the periwinkles were there to make sure the plate.....er...... clam shell was licked clean.
Mel's astute eyes and her knowledge of the sea bed soon noticed an empty shell that was different than all the rest - the home of hermit crabs. Picking up several smaller examples, she soon spied a larger one in the shallows of the returning tide waters. This hermit crab had outgrown its home and needed to look for a large one.
It was starting to get dark as the sun settled on the Maine horizon, so we made our way off the beach, threading our footsteps through the maze of rocks and rockweed and back to the cars. Soon we were on the road again and back home to Fredericton.
A most enjoyable outing, fer shur!! This has all been very difficult to take!!
CP Rail's McAdam Train Station
The current station was built in 1900 when CP completed their "short route" from Montreal to St John, NB. Passing through Maine, this was CP Rail's only access into the Maritimes. Originally a component of the New Brunswick Railway, it became part of the CP Rail empire. In its heyday, McAdam saw 14 passenger trains and 36 freight trains every day. As it was a division point where crews changed, there was a slight delay. This allowed passengers to get a bite to eat in the station restaurant(s).
If you were staying overnight, or were waiting between trains (and you were important enough), you could eat in the private dining room.
And if you only had 30 minutes while your train was serviced, you could grab a soup and sandwich on the fly. With the changing times, the large dining room was converted to a 1950s "W-shaped" lunch counter which allowed the largest amount of seating with the easiest access to the customers by the waitresses. This dining room had been restored to its 1950s decor, complete with the old Wurlitzer juke box.
In 1996 the Town of McAdam took over the ownership of the station which was ultimately transferred to a non-profit corporation with charitable tax status. Room by room, the ground floor of the station has been restored to what you see in these photos.
The community has raised over $350,000 with matching grants of $1.3 million! Their most recent grant was in 2010 when the McAdam Station Historical Commission obtained a grant of $760,000 under "Canada's Economic Action Plan" program.
During our visit, the various rooms were occupied by a meeting of teachers who were there for orientation and training sessions. The station is open from March to December with major events at least twice a month. These range from "Railway Pie" nights, roast beef dinners, bus tours, Christmas dinners, and other events. Up to that point, they had had about 10,000 visitors. At $5.00 admission, that's $50,000 in admission revenues alone! The person in the black shirt sitting in the midst of us is no less than the mayor of McAdam, Frank Carroll, who talked to us for at least 30 minutes about the history and stories of the station.
Trains still run on both sides of the station as parts of CP Rail's network and "short route" are owned by New Brunswick Southern Railway and other railway subsidiaries of the Irving group of companies.
On To St Andrew's And A Spring Tide Tour
We left McAdam after lunch and made our way towards St Andrew's and the St Croix River. It was here in 1604 on the Island of St Croix that Pierre Dugas Sieur Des Monts, along with Samuel De Champlain, established the first white settlement in Canada. Unfortunately it was a very bad experience as the island was too small, didn't have enough fire wood or game to eat, and there were large ice jams in the river which kept them trapped on the island. Of the 79 men who landed on the island, 35 died of scurvy before the winter was ended and a further 20 were near death. The following year, the settlement was moved to Port Royal in the Annapolis Basin of Nova Scotia.
We next toured St Andrew's going out onto the boat dock and then sitting down in a restaurant overlooking the water where I sucked back a couple of diet Coke's.
We then trekked our way down to the blockhouse to the picnic tables on the deck of the restaurant where Gordon and his friend, Melanie, joined us for nice leisurely dinner after a difficult afternoon of taking in the scenery on this hot (but breezy) sunshiny day. (Life is tuff, eh!)
We were in for a special treat this evening as it was the day of the monthly Spring tide - the lowest tide of the month in the Bay of Fundy. Tides in the Bay of Fundy are world-renowned for their dramatic heights and depths. This tide would uncover an addition 40'-50' of seabed - well below the rockweed which is where the tides usually stop for the other 30 days of the month.
Mel is a young marine biologist at Mount Allison University who was just finishing up her Masters of Science, having completed a most interesting thesis on shellfish predators right in St Andrews. Right after the tide hit its lowest point at 18:58, we were on the beach at 19:15 walking down to the water's edge.
As we walked towards the rockweed (large boulders covered in seaweed), Mel quickly raced ahead and rapidly lifted the strands of rockweed.
As she combed the rockweed, you could hear a whole bunch of clack-clack-clacking noises. Her hand darted in quickly and came up with a beautiful prize - a large green crab tenaciously holding on to a bit of seaweed. Ain't that a beautiful specimen! You can see its two eyes glaring at us in anger at being disturbed.
Soon we were lifting up the edges of the rock weed (..... well...... some of us were......) seeking out the green crabs.
It was then on to the next marine specimen - some mussels, all in a bed of sand - only you couldn't see the sand as the mussels were all over the place.
A large "tuyot de dechets" (sewer pipe) snaked down from the shoreline and out into the middle of the water like a super-sized garden hose. Underneath the pipe was a treasure trove a marine life.
I always remember the green sea urchins from our trips to Hants Harbour, Nfld, where the kids would pick up the sea urchins and the star fish from the sea bed at the end of their grandfather's "boat dock". They'd climb down the rickety "ladder" that reinforced the boat dock made out of slab-wood picked up from Len's sawmill. Reaching down into the water at low tide, they'd come up with a few sea urchins, starfish, and possibly a rock crab.
Here's a couple of nice-sized sea urchins. They move their spines to keep their predators at bay while they climb over the detruitous of the sea bed and keep it clean.
We soon noticed round circles all around us in the sand. I quickly recognized these as sand dollars. We had been stepping on them as we made our way towards the pipe. The last time I had seen sand dollars was in Florida around Tampa Bay.
A most enjoyable outing, fer shur!! This has all been very difficult to take!!
Turners, Gainsboroughs, Constables & Train Bridges - A Gorgeous Day In Fredericton
Monday, 29 August 2011
I'm way behind in my blog but we'll do this one after we've done McAdam
In spite of Hurricane Irene, high winds and the power out for not quite 48 hours on Sunday evening and all the next day, Monday was a really gorgeous day. Cloudy with lots of wind in the morning but starting to clear up by late afternoon.
I'm way behind in my blog but we'll do this one after we've done McAdam
In spite of Hurricane Irene, high winds and the power out for not quite 48 hours on Sunday evening and all the next day, Monday was a really gorgeous day. Cloudy with lots of wind in the morning but starting to clear up by late afternoon.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Overland By Wagon Train From Carleton Sur Mer To Fredericton (Okay, how about by minivan?)
Right now this is a place-keeper.
Friday, August 26, 2011
On The Water - Rocher-Percé Up Close!
We were up at 6:45 this morning to take a look at the weather outside. All night we could hear the breakers crashing on the sea wall and the wind howling through the eaves. A peek outside the patio door of our hotel revealed the sun shining brightly with a few wisps of clouds. I stepped outside to get our kayak gear from the car. I could hardly believe it! Warm weather with a nice cool breeze! A perfect day to kayak out to and around Rocher-Percé. Something I always wanted to do since I was a little kid in Grade 4 at Shediac Central School.
We were down to the kayak shop for 8:15 where three other couples joined us and our guide. We donned our splash skirts, life jackets and surf boots, picked up our paddles and walked a short distance along the boardwalk to the north side of the quai where the tandem kayaks were stored - two people to a boat.
Climbing into the cockpits with the bow pointing directly into the water, our guide launched each kayak directly into the surf. A wave broke over the bow and the front person (Sharon) got a spray of salt water in the face. Welcome to kayaking at Rocher-Percé, fer shur, fer shur!!
It was only then that I realized we were at a 45 degree angle to the swells that were 3'-4' high. This was not a gentle rocking of the boat by any means! We paddled and straightened out the kayak so that we were on a gentle roll - if there is such a thing in the middle of 3'-4' swells.
We headed directly for the hole in Rocher-Percé, about 15 minutes by kayak from our launch point. As we approached the southern edge, we could see the breakers crashing on the rocks sending up a large splash of spray - something you didn't want to get caught up in.
While it might have been tempting to "go through the eye of the needle", that would have been very dangerous as the surf was very rough as it crashed against the rocks and there was always the possibility of rocks from above crashing down on our heads. So we paddled out to the tip of the "nose" - way beyond the tip of the "nose" as the breakers were even larger and moving faster. Only now the swells were 5'-6' high and we had to paddle parallel with them to get around the tip of the "nose".
About 500' to our right five grey seals , their heads bobbing up and down in the water, periodically disappeared beneath the water to see what was below. As we continued to paddle the swells subsided and soon all we could hear were the faint crashing of the waves on the other side of Rocher-Percé and the water lapping against the rocks on our side. We had arrived!
This had to be worth a photo or two. I handed my camera to another couple in a nearby kayak. We positioned our kayak with the hole in the rock in the view-finder and - click, click - two photos to record the event!
After returning the favour, we slowly paddled along the edge of the rocky shoreline, examining the structure, the cracks, and the striations. As we did so, two dozen cormorants and a handful of seagulls stared back at these intruders, flying off and moving down the rocky shoreline as we intruders kayaked along their territory.
Our next stop, after examining Rocher-Percé, was to cross about 15 minutes of open water to get to the mainland part of Rocher-Percé. Over the millenia the rock between the mainland and Rocher-Percé has eroded to the extent that the water is only about 10' deep at this point on this small stretch of rock rubble. It provided sufficient protection for us to paddle to the mainland part of the rock structure to see the same sheer cliffs plunging down into the sea.
We had no sooner arrived, cruising about 300' from shore when two grey heads bobbed up on the water. These two grey seals tried to push their heads out of the water to get a better look and cautiously approached to within about 100'. They no sooner came closer when another approaching kayak scared them off.
It was soon time to turn around and head back to the wharf for what seemed to be a very, very long paddle back along the route that we had just travelled. As we travelled leisurely along the shoreline, there was a loud splash off to our left. It was a grey seal who, swimming under water, suddenly came across our paddles and kayaks in the water, did a quick 90 degree turn and leaped out of the water. He quickly dove below the surface of the water again but we could see the turmoil on the water as he was quickly swimming away.
Our guide decided that we would take the "short cut" between Rocher-Percé and the mainland!. Now it's one thing to paddle a kayak in 3'-4' swells or even 5'-6' swells. However, it's another thing to paddle through 3'-4' swells with 2'-3' breakers crashing over your bow. You line up the kayak so that your 90 degrees to the swells and breakers that are coming right at you. You make sure both feet are well placed on the rudder pedals and that you know which push will steer you to the right and which push will steer you to the left. And then you paddle like hell, keeping the kayak always at 90 degrees to the oncoming breakers! (Here's a photo of the short cut only I took it at 6:30 pm in later in the day. To be uploaded tomorrow.)
It's that first crash of the waves over the bow that's exhilirating. You keep on paddling, steering, and holding on! One couple didn't keep their kayak at 90 degrees and soon they were trapped parallel to the oncoming waves with their kayak rolling too-and-fro like a log. The guide raced to help them through the waves.
In five minutes we were through the breakers and running parallel to some 3'-4' swells. We kept on paddling towards the beach racing to beach the kayak high up onto the beach. Only problem was that me, being the person in the rear cockpit, had some waves breaking over my backside while our kayak was hauled up onto the beach.
The kayaks were hauled up far onto the beach, our paddles gathered, and we walked back to the kayak place like drunken sailors trying to find our land legs. All in all, a truly great experience! We're gonn have to do it again, fer shur, fer shur!!
We were down to the kayak shop for 8:15 where three other couples joined us and our guide. We donned our splash skirts, life jackets and surf boots, picked up our paddles and walked a short distance along the boardwalk to the north side of the quai where the tandem kayaks were stored - two people to a boat.
Climbing into the cockpits with the bow pointing directly into the water, our guide launched each kayak directly into the surf. A wave broke over the bow and the front person (Sharon) got a spray of salt water in the face. Welcome to kayaking at Rocher-Percé, fer shur, fer shur!!
It was only then that I realized we were at a 45 degree angle to the swells that were 3'-4' high. This was not a gentle rocking of the boat by any means! We paddled and straightened out the kayak so that we were on a gentle roll - if there is such a thing in the middle of 3'-4' swells.
We headed directly for the hole in Rocher-Percé, about 15 minutes by kayak from our launch point. As we approached the southern edge, we could see the breakers crashing on the rocks sending up a large splash of spray - something you didn't want to get caught up in.
While it might have been tempting to "go through the eye of the needle", that would have been very dangerous as the surf was very rough as it crashed against the rocks and there was always the possibility of rocks from above crashing down on our heads. So we paddled out to the tip of the "nose" - way beyond the tip of the "nose" as the breakers were even larger and moving faster. Only now the swells were 5'-6' high and we had to paddle parallel with them to get around the tip of the "nose".
About 500' to our right five grey seals , their heads bobbing up and down in the water, periodically disappeared beneath the water to see what was below. As we continued to paddle the swells subsided and soon all we could hear were the faint crashing of the waves on the other side of Rocher-Percé and the water lapping against the rocks on our side. We had arrived!
This had to be worth a photo or two. I handed my camera to another couple in a nearby kayak. We positioned our kayak with the hole in the rock in the view-finder and - click, click - two photos to record the event!
After returning the favour, we slowly paddled along the edge of the rocky shoreline, examining the structure, the cracks, and the striations. As we did so, two dozen cormorants and a handful of seagulls stared back at these intruders, flying off and moving down the rocky shoreline as we intruders kayaked along their territory.
Our next stop, after examining Rocher-Percé, was to cross about 15 minutes of open water to get to the mainland part of Rocher-Percé. Over the millenia the rock between the mainland and Rocher-Percé has eroded to the extent that the water is only about 10' deep at this point on this small stretch of rock rubble. It provided sufficient protection for us to paddle to the mainland part of the rock structure to see the same sheer cliffs plunging down into the sea.
We had no sooner arrived, cruising about 300' from shore when two grey heads bobbed up on the water. These two grey seals tried to push their heads out of the water to get a better look and cautiously approached to within about 100'. They no sooner came closer when another approaching kayak scared them off.
It was soon time to turn around and head back to the wharf for what seemed to be a very, very long paddle back along the route that we had just travelled. As we travelled leisurely along the shoreline, there was a loud splash off to our left. It was a grey seal who, swimming under water, suddenly came across our paddles and kayaks in the water, did a quick 90 degree turn and leaped out of the water. He quickly dove below the surface of the water again but we could see the turmoil on the water as he was quickly swimming away.
Our guide decided that we would take the "short cut" between Rocher-Percé and the mainland!. Now it's one thing to paddle a kayak in 3'-4' swells or even 5'-6' swells. However, it's another thing to paddle through 3'-4' swells with 2'-3' breakers crashing over your bow. You line up the kayak so that your 90 degrees to the swells and breakers that are coming right at you. You make sure both feet are well placed on the rudder pedals and that you know which push will steer you to the right and which push will steer you to the left. And then you paddle like hell, keeping the kayak always at 90 degrees to the oncoming breakers! (Here's a photo of the short cut only I took it at 6:30 pm in later in the day. To be uploaded tomorrow.)
In five minutes we were through the breakers and running parallel to some 3'-4' swells. We kept on paddling towards the beach racing to beach the kayak high up onto the beach. Only problem was that me, being the person in the rear cockpit, had some waves breaking over my backside while our kayak was hauled up onto the beach.
The kayaks were hauled up far onto the beach, our paddles gathered, and we walked back to the kayak place like drunken sailors trying to find our land legs. All in all, a truly great experience! We're gonn have to do it again, fer shur, fer shur!!
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