Frommer’s on Canso and The Flat Earth Society

I like to check travel books and websites to see what they say about the Canso area. I was somewhat taken aback when I found this on Frommer’s website:

“Way out on the eastern tip of Nova Scotia’s mainland is the end-of-the-world town of Canso (pop. 1,200). It’s a rough-edged fishing and oil-shipping town, often windswept and foggy.”

There are a couple of inaccuracies. Canso fortunately does not list oil-shipping as one of its claim to fame. The population is now 900-ish & falling (but that’s a story for a different day). However it was the reference to the “end-of-the-world,” that offended me the most.

It wasn’t until I had a chance to think it over that I realized that the description is entirely accurate. This is the furthest point east on mainland North America and thus the first point struck by the rising sun on the mainland. Whether for that reason or not, we are blessed with stunning sunrises. This time of day is is also enhanced during fishing season by the movements of the lobster boats through the harbour. It is a fact that has not escaped the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (of Beatles fame for those of you of an age to remember!), who has bought one of the Canso Islands from where he intends to broadcast messages of peace!

Much of the coastline is very reminiscent of the coast of North Yorkshire, near where I grew up, and has much of the same feel. The frequent light fog and drizzle, sea-frets my Mother would call them, are also almost comforting in their familiarity.

The coast is certainly rugged and sometimes harsh, as the Atlantic Ocean often is in comparison to her Pacific sister. There is nothing standing in the way of the wind from the ocean until you reach Europe. Indeed if you look directly east the next piece of land you would see, if you could see that far, is the west coast of France somewhere around Bordeaux. Looking out across the water though, it sometimes does feel as though there is no more land out there. According to Maritime mythology the Flat Earth Society believes that one of the corners of the Earth is in Newfoundland. Certainly here in Canso you can believe you are standing on a boundary running south from that corner – on the edge of the world!

J.Measures

 

Talk to the Birds

One of the things that I love about living here in Canso, Nova Scotia is waking up to the sounds of the gulls crying overhead. The early morning hours are also sometimes marked by the rhythm of the foghorn and the horn of the lobster boats reversing out from their moorings at dawn.

The breaking of dawn along the waterfront is often quite magical as the softest pinkish tones mark the first rays of sunlight to hit the North American continent on this easterly peninsula.

Last summer my son Josh came down for a visit. Over a period of several week, he fed the gulls from our Bed & Breakfast leftovers, toast and bread. The gulls were a rather hungry mob once the lobster season finished and there were few other fishing boats coming into the harbour. They were suprisingly adept at learning how to jump for food; at least that is how it looked from where I was standing. As Josh threw the bread into the air, the gulls caught it on the wing a few feet off the ground. Those that “jumped” had the advantage over those that couldn’t as they caught the food mid-air before it hit the ground when a melee erupted.

The antics of the gulls and their various characters gradually emerged over the weeks that Josh talked to them as he fed them. So this is the story of Josh.  

 

 

Stan Rogers Folk Festival- a pilgrimage of sorts.

This year the Stan Rogers Folk Festival is being held on July 4th, 5th and 6th July 2008. 

This is a week-end to really experience the Atlantic music culture as well as to discover some surprising new music from various parts of the world. It is a smorgasborg of music from folk to jazz and everything in between. This year is the eleventh year the festival has been running.

 The Stan Rogers Folk Festival is now for many people a well established pilgrimage that transforms Canso from a small town to one which hosts thousands of visitors. Rain or shine, snow or hail the music plays on.

Road trip from Toronto to Canso, Nova Scotia

We followed the Downeast signs on route #1 hoping for ocean views!

View of ocean at Trenton Maine

Trenton, Maine

Bar Harbour Waterfront

The Cat High Speed Car Ferry to Nova Scotia Sign

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So finally I am back in Nova Scotia after the long drive from Toronto, Ontario through Quebec and this time a detour through Maine with a quick visit to Bar Harbour! The weather was amazing the entire trip and the long winter seemed sudddenly to give way to babbling brooks and rivers and almost green fields.

In southern Quebec maple syrup collection was ongoing in the numerous sugar bush that we passed.

Now one of the amusing things that happened along the trip which we planned using Google trip planner was at Sherbrooke, where the Google directions sent us down  unpaved roads to bypass the town of Sherbrooke. So we are travelling a total of two thousand kilometers across four provinces. You can imagine our surprise then when the Google directions take us on a detour of the Sherbrook area sugar bush. Fortunately for us the snow was all but melted, except occasionally in the deep shade of trees. Clearly though, that list of Google directions that you print out and nurse along the route needs to be carefully vetted before you start your journey.

Our Google directions list from Holland Landing, about 45 kms north of Toronto, to Canso, Nova Scotia, had fifty individual steps and of these three consecutive short steps, covering about eight kilometers, were on unpaved roads. Now we have since done what we should have done in the first place, we have actually looked at the map very closely to see where those directions were directing us. This has failed to provide a reason though for the quirky turns through farm fields that Google routed us. In fact when you look at the map you are left wondering if Google wasn’t having a bit of fun at our expense. And yes, I even checked to make sure that we didn’t download those directions on April 1st!

Our reason for this route, (through the Sherbrooke area sugarbush), on this particular road trip from Toronto to Nova Scotia, was to travel through Maine. It seemed like an interesting alternative to going through northern New Brunswick where the weather can still be a little bleak and unpredictable at this time of year. We were not disappointed; the towering white pines were no-longer clad in white but stood in sunshine.

We spent the night in Bangor, Maine, and to our complete amazement arrived to find that every hotel/motel was fully booked for a Spring event! The following morning, we elected to travel the coastal route, Route #1, otherwise known as “Down East and Acadian Route.” Though the mildness of the weather continued to charm us we were disapponted that there were in fact very few coastal views, with the exception of at Trenton and the Bar Harbour Island.

 

Bar Harbour Island was nothing short of breathtaking. Fringed by the Acadia National Park, the area is uncommonly beautiful and the climate temperate, protected as it is from the coastal winds by the gently undulating hills on the surrounding islands. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, reminiscent instead of the West coast in fact. Bar Harbour itself was a well-heeled resort community with trendy boutiques and lots of waterfront dining. Despite our early arrival there was already a sense that the tourism season was about to open.

From the waterfront The Cat, the high speed ferry from Bar Harbour to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia was visible across the water and cars were already lined up for the next sailing to Nova Scotia when we passed by the entrance to the ferry terminal. With hindsight, I rather wished that we had taken the ferry but still hopeful of those ocean views from route #1 we continued by car through to New Brunswick and then to Nova Scotia.

Our advice for anyone thinking about doing this roadtrip is to take the ferry, in spite of the relatively high ferry cost.

The ferry terminal in Bar Harbour is only one hour from Bangor and the high speed ferry crossing to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia is three hours.

 

Alternatively, take the detour from Bangor down to Bar Harbour, then retrace your route to Bangor. From Bangor take Hwy #9 to Calais and then Hwy #1 to St. John, New Brunswick, which is about a two and a half hour drive.

We found little to recommend along Route #1, the “Down East and Acadian Route,” between Bar Harbour and Calais. An occasional glimpse of the water, one particular scenic picnic area and the rather reddish coloured blueberry fields heralding Cherryfield, the blueberry capital of the world. The big payoff though was to come after crossing at Calais into New Brunswick: Once we were in New Brunswick we detoured to St. Andrews. Now this is the quaintest seaside town! I loved it. None of the photographs I took do it justice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Explore Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore

One of the best ways to Explore the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia is to meander along the coastal road without worrying too much about getting to your destination. It is after all, all about the journey! So pack a few things and take a thermos of freshly ground organic coffee and some freshly baked muffins and head down Hwy 7 to the Eastern Shore for a road trip.

One of the remarkable things about this coastal road is just how much of it runs along the shoreline giving you expansive ocean views. It is a meandering road that twists and turns around the inlets, bays and coves of the rocky shoreline. Sparsely populated along the route, it is a road less travelled for the most part but one that remains hauntingly beautiful. With a little sign posting it would be easier to navigate but alas that is not the case and we are inclined to use technology to its best advantage to help navigate the shoreline. So we are going to give you ten good reasons why you should take a trip down the Eastern Shore road to Canso, with our blog.

 

1. The drive affords fabulous ocean views.
2. There are some of Nova scotia’s best places to stay and eat along the Eastern Shore, from casual to fine dining, as well as numerous places where you can stop and buy fresh clams and mussels and the occasional lobster pound as well. The shore also has two excellent smokehouses, one in Tangier, (Willy Krauch’s) and one in Sherbrooke, (St. Mary’s River Smokehouse) where you can purchase the gourmet items for your picnic or if you have a portable refridgerator you can fill it up with delectable items.
3. For kayakers there are numerous protected inlets and bays along the Eastern Shore. Coastal adventures at Tangier is one of the Nova Scotia’s leading kayak outfitters and provides training, paddling excursions, and kayak rentals. There are several other fabulour kayaking spots from Liscombe, Whitehead, Little Dover, Canso, Fox Island Main, to Guysborough. In fact the shoreline is something of a best kept secret for kayakers.