On Sherbrooke Village

Today was a full rest day, the first since Placentia. At breakfast at the Beanie Bistro, I talked with a man who was thinking about buying a Devinci Tosca for touring. He had noticed Leonardo's brand and wanted know an owner's perspective. I gave him my personal opinion that Devinci is a good brand, reinforced by the fact I own two of them. This led to a discussion of bike touring.

After doing my laundry in a machine for the first time in weeks, I had intermittent contact with Philip. This led me to book him a room in the only motel in town.

Afterwards, I went down to Sherbrooke Village. This is a museum village consisting of thirty or so historic buildings, most of which were built on site. Through talking with the interpreters, I formed a picture of the history of Sherbrooke. It had been fairly wealthy town based on lumber, gold mining, farming, ship building and trading. I was surprised to learn that up until about 1940, ships of up to 600 tons called there. After that, they stopping dredging the river. Since then, the town declined to the point that a hefty fraction of it could be used as a heritage village. Many of the buildings showed the wealth of the town.

It is possible to visit the town in late 19th dress. If it hadn't been a wet day, I would have done so. In fact, I regret not doing so.

I think I found the print shop the most fascinating of the buildings as seeing the tiny fonts used made me wonder at the skill of typesetters. They had several presses, most of them still in use.

I bumped into the man from breakfast. He gave me too much credit for spending my rest day walking around. He would have in bed watching TV.

I felt I could practically taste, touch and smell the past. I ended up spending about four hours at the village.

Plus another hour getting my picture taken by ambrotype in period dress. Ambrotype is a form of photography developed about 1850. It requires an exposure time of 40 seconds or more, depending on the lighting. It is a delicate process requiring skill at manipulating wet glass plates. The lady was something of a perfectionist as she rejected her first two efforts.

I returned to the motel where Philip and company had checked in. They were happy to have finally left Halifax. We had unknowingly chosen a long weekend for them to arrive in Halifax and they hadn't been able to rent a car until today. Given that they aren'r used to cities, especially as tourists, I got the impression they had some culture shock. However, they did get to see Sidney Crosby and the Stanley Cup go by.

We had supper together, then went for a walk to Sherbrooke Village. This was partly my plan to entice Désirée and Dominique to come back tomorrow when it was open.

It is supposed to be nice tomorrow.