Ontario
17 adventures documented
CanadaJanice's reason for the whole trip, the Canadian Women's Senior Amateur at The Club at North Halton, just outside Toronto. A practice round with old friends, a bagpiper opening ceremony and 90-year-old Hall of Famer Marlene Streit, two hard rounds with a pair of tens, and the long drive home.
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CanadaOn Jag's recommendation we drove forty-five minutes north into the Hockley Valley to the winery that made the Sauvignon Blanc we'd enjoyed the night before. Mario Adamo's boutique Adamo Estate Winery, the trick of wintering the vines, and a tasting with Norma, whom we took to calling Norma Jean.
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CanadaThe drive from Derry, New Hampshire to Georgetown, Ontario, the town just west of Toronto where Janice would play the Canadian Senior. A little of the town's history, and an evening at Uncorked on Main with its owners Jag and Sarina, a Canadian Sauvignon Blanc, and live jazz.
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CanadaCrossing into Canada gave us our one sour note of the trip, a border agent who'd plainly gotten up on the wrong side, and a thirty-minute search of the RV down to the dirty laundry. Then British Columbia and Alberta opened up beautiful all the way to Waterton Lakes, the Canadian half of Glacier, where cottonwood snow drifted through town, ground squirrels chirped from every hole, and a round of golf was cut short by a brown bear and her cub on the 16th fairway.
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CanadaOur last stop in Nova Scotia was the Alexander Graham Bell site at Baddeck, where the great inventor summered. We knew him for the telephone; we did not know he was Scottish-born and a longtime Canadian, nor that he chased the Wright Brothers into the air with the Silver Dart, built a record-setting hydrofoil, and gave his deepest passion to teaching the deaf, work for which Helen Keller said he carried her from darkness to light. In the morning, the six-hour ferry to Newfoundland and the heart of our trip.
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CanadaEveryone said not to miss Louisbourg, and they were right. The great French fortress, once guarding the third-busiest port in the New World, has been brought back to life a quarter at a time, its streets full of costumed soldiers and storytellers. We pulled on wool uniforms, stood up as new recruits before a crowd, heard how a recruit chose each month between shoes and wine, and fired the muskets ourselves. Down the road stood the first lighthouse site in Canada. A day we won't forget.
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CanadaNova Scotia gave us three rounds and a new friendship. At Amherst we drew Spud and Patty from Truro, Spud raised on PEI potatoes, thirty-one years a sailor, and we liked them enough to follow Spud to his home club. A roadside repair set us back eighty-five dollars and not much time, a lakeside campground tried to park us beside two Porta Potties and lost our business, and The Lakes at Ben Eoin turned out one of the prettiest, toughest courses we've played. On to Louisbourg.
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CanadaWe crossed into Canada and picked up the Fundy Coastal Drive, the road that hugs the Bay of Fundy and its tides, the highest on earth. We started at pretty Saint Andrews, bought sausage and sourdough at a Legion hall market in Saint George, and wound up the coast through Saint John and Fundy National Park to postcard-pretty Alma, with a waterfall and an old barn at St Martin along the way. Next, Nova Scotia and some golf.
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CanadaBack from Newfoundland and onto the north shore of the Bay of Fundy. The Truro tidal bore turned out to be a small wake of a wave that produced an entire crowd singing 'Is That All There Is?' Five Islands, Nova Scotia, was the most beautiful campground of the trip, with hummingbirds at the fish store next door. The Hopewell Rocks at low tide in New Brunswick. Kelly's Bakery cinnamon buns in Alma. And a meaningful detour: a Fairweather family ancestry mission in Sussex on behalf of John's brother Will, where we found four graves of our forebears, including Hanford Fairweather, who died at age ten and for whom John is named. Then to Saint John, the Reversing Falls, the ferry to Deer Island and on to Campobello, FDR's summer cottage, and the bridge across to Lubec, Maine. Back in the USA.
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CanadaOut of St. John's heading west on the Trans-Canada Highway. Brigus first, the birthplace of Captain Bob Bartlett, the great Newfoundland Arctic mariner shipwrecked at least twelve times, with the 1860 Tunnel that John Hoskins cut through solid rock by hand. Then Trinity, a working heritage community where the Rising Tide Theatre's New Founde Lande Pageant walks you through the village telling Newfoundland history in song and story. Atlantic salmon climbing the ladders at Grand Falls-Windsor. Then Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland's UNESCO geology, where 500-million-year-old ocean floor was thrust up into mountains, and a boat trip down Western Brook Pond, a freshwater fjord with pitcher plants in the bogs and Pissing Mare Falls plunging from the plateau above. Then the ferry back to Nova Scotia.
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CanadaStanding at Cape Spear, the easternmost point of mainland North America, with your back to the sea, the entire continent is behind you. Face the sea and the next stop is Ireland. The oldest surviving lighthouse in Newfoundland sits here, kept by the Cantwell family for over 150 years. Then up to Signal Hill and Cabot Tower, where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in 1901, the receiving end of the same circuit we had just seen the Cape Breton transmitting side of a few days before. The harbor below, the WWII gun batteries, the views of St. John's. Then George Street in the evening for a pub or two, and a partial entry into the Royal Order of Screechers, John kissing the cod, Janice and John both passing on the rum.
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CanadaThe overnight ferry from North Sydney to Argentia, Newfoundland. A huge ship, ten decks, cabin with two bunk beds and an easy crossing. From Argentia, a 90-minute drive south to Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve at the southwest tip of the Avalon Peninsula, one of the most accessible great seabird colonies in North America. We arrived in dense fog, almost gave up, and got pointed out the mile-long path to the colony by a ranger who promised the fog would lift at the end. He was right. 70,000 birds in the air and on the cliffs: Northern Gannets, Black-Legged Kittiwakes, and Common Murres. The lighthouse finally came into view on the way back.
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CanadaInto Halifax for the Maritime Museum, where the Titanic story still lives because Halifax was the port that received the bodies. A reunion with Roadtrek friends Ann and Ruth, who had just arrived in Nova Scotia. The Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo on Saturday afternoon, with the 1812 Overture and a surprise wedding inside the show. Then over to Cape Breton: the Ceilidh Trail, fish and chips at the Rankin family's Red Shoe Pub in Mabou, a shot at the Glenora single-malt distillery, the Cabot Trail, the Englishtown cable ferry, and a quiet round at Seaview Golf. And finally the Marconi National Historic Site at Glace Bay, where a retired ham operator named James Charlong gave us a tour that turned out to be one of the highlights of the whole trip, partly because John had reviewed Morse code messages for the Army Security Agency a long career ago, and standing at the foundations of Marconi's 1902 transatlantic station closed a quiet circle.
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CanadaOff the ferry at Pictou and across mainland Nova Scotia. Truro at the top of the Bay of Fundy, where we missed the tidal bore by a few hours. Grand Pré on the Annapolis Valley with the Bay's enormous tides going out at our campground. Two wineries in one afternoon, including a Scottish ex-pat ENT surgeon named Jon Muir Murray who had landed in Nova Scotia by way of South Africa and Bermuda. Parker's Cove, a working fishing village where the lobster boats stand on wooden braces at low tide and a fresh two-pound lobster cost $4.50 a pound. Our 13th anniversary, played at Annapolis Royal Golf Club, dinner of lobster and haddock from the village fish market with champagne from Domaine de Grand Pré. Then Shelburne, Lunenburg with the Bluenose II under restoration, and the lighthouse at Peggy's Cove.
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CanadaThree days on Prince Edward Island over the long Canada Day weekend. The Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick. The Bottle Houses of Édouard T. Arsenault, three buildings made from 25,000 reclaimed bottles. The Wind-Hydrogen Village at North Cape, where wind turbines split water into hydrogen for backup. A rainbow over the Roadtrek at Crystal Beach. Charlottetown and the actual room where Canadian Confederation began in 1864. Lobster sandwiches at St. Peters Bay and an elderly local named Chuck telling us what the place was like in the 1930s. The Prince Edward Distillery, run by a Florida B&B owner and a North Carolina granddaughter of pre-Prohibition distillers. A long evening of cross-border conversation with Chris and Mylissa Greening. Then the Canada Day ferry to Nova Scotia.
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CanadaOut of Quebec City on Route 132 along the south shore of the St. Lawrence, the long curving drive out to the Gaspé Peninsula. The Appalachian Mountains end here. Pouring rain through the small fishing villages, the side roads called navigateurs threading down to the shore and back, and then the sky clearing in time for Percé Rock, the great natural arch standing out of the water like a ship under sail. A fish market in Cap-d'Espoir, a campsite on the beach at Carleton-sur-Mer, cod for dinner. Across the bridge to New Brunswick at Campbellton for a thunder-shortened round at Restigouche Golf and Country Club. Sensational clam chowder in Moncton. A tree-house campsite in Miramichi. Janice picking a steamed lobster apart on the side of the road for sandwiches. Then the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island.
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CanadaFrom the wedding, north to Canada. A visit with Janice's cousin Bobbie Dawes in Clinton, New York, a free overnight at the Akwesasne Mohawk casino, and over the border to Camping Alouette outside Montreal. Lunch at Poutineville with David Williams (Parker's cousin, so a Wilson by way of Carol), and with Courtney and Amanda, who shared the news that grandchild number two was on the way. The afternoon at Saint Joseph's Oratory on Mount Royal. Then on to Quebec City for the only walled city in North America, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the Château Frontenac, the Citadel, and the story of how the British took Quebec in 1759. Plus a garage update from home.
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