On a decent day

The hotel in Miramichi had signs relating to its enforce of its quiet time policy. I wonder if it was employed with the owner of a car whose alarm went off at 5 in the morning and kept on going for quite some time.

After climbing out of the Miramichi River valley, the road went past the town’s airport as announced by a cheerful sign. I don’t know how much and what sort of traffic the airport gets but the aircraft on the sign is a three engined Dassault business jet! Maybe this was a sign that the Irvings or the McCains regularly do business in Miramichi.

The road was fairly straight with rises and falls that kept it interesting, particularly with a convenient tail wind that had me worried about getting to my planned lunch place too early. I zoomed along. Around 11:30, I entered a construction zone which had escorted convoys of vehicles through the zone. I was allowed to go along a hard packed shoulder free of a convoy. When I came to the place I had thought of lunching, it proved closed either because of the construction, it was too early or because of the end of summer. Lunch had to wait for St-Louis-de-Kent. It took the form of fried clams and chips.

The 134 took me to Rexton, formerly Kingston. It’s main claim to fame is that it is birthplace of Bonar Law, the only British prime minister to be born in Canada and until recently, the only British prime minister to be born outside of the U.K.. Boris Johnson had to go spoil Bonar Law’s exclusivity. There is a small museum which has a few artefacts relating to him as well as the usual collection of local knickknacks. I was given a tour of the house he was born in. Having visited the Village Historique Acadien, I could see that his parents obviously had quite a bit of money for the time (circa 1860 or so). I was also struck by the fact that it was only half the size of Robin Hill! Jack Meagher, KC, was evidently pretty well off, even adjusting for the improvement of living standards in the intervening years. The guide challenged me to guess the contents of the locking piece of furniture in the living room which she said no one had guessed all summer. I got it in one. “Tea.” She was impressed. Admittedly, I had an unfair advantage with two degrees in history, mostly British. Also, locking tea caddies are mentioned in Dewey Lambdin’s Alan Lewrie novels which I read too frequently.

I got to Bouctouche in good time. I used some of it to give Leonardo some minor TLC. Some oil for the chain and adjust the brake\

The B&B in Bouctouche has a washer and dryer at the disposal of the guests with the proviso that out respect for other guests, please use them only between 3 and 9. Therefore, it was fair game to do some extra washing in the tub and heave the lot into the dryer.

On a very wet day

Note for future reference: Decide where you are going to have supper before having a preprandial doze. It clarifies things later.

Yesterday evening, I had a struggle to decide where I wanted to eat which was related to what I wanted to eat, Shippagan having limited options, alas. This took time and I ended up coming home in the dark.

This evening, because of the rain, I was debating whether to eat in the hotel or look further afield. I hadn’t done much research about Miramichi partly because it is fairly large, but mostly as my guide books didn’t have much to say about it. In using Google maps, I had noticed a place or two nearby before hand, but it was only this evening that I made a serious check. I hit pay dirt. There was an Indian restaurant so close that Google said it would take longer by car than by foot. I was soon ordering veggie pakora and tandoori salmon.

There was a rain warning this morning in the Environment Canada forecast. I packed my “needed today” bag accordingly. It was cloudy when I looked out of my motel window, so I changed my cycling glasses lenses to yellow. I followed the rail bed bike path towards Tracadie. It began to rain in a form the late Sir Terry Pratchett might describe as “fog with a weight problem”. I dug out my rain jacket and continued on until an increase in intensity led to put on shoe covers and my rain hat. I stopped for elevenses in Tracadie in the form of a sour cream doughnut and a small cup of coffee from Timmy’s. The rain was intensifying, so I donned rain pants. In the perverse manner of rain, it backed off for a while. I decided to be wary and didn’t change.

While having lunch in Neguac (Oyster hub of the Maritimes and holder of the Provincial giant pumpkin festival), it began to pour in earnest. Time for rain gloves. Time for a long slog in the rain.

Miramichi is an amalgamation of a number of smaller towns stretching along both sides of the Miramichi River. This may explain why it has an annoying bridge situation. Or possibly so complex that Google maps can’t handle it. According to Google, the bridge (dated 1967) between the former towns of Newcastle and Chatham isn’t passable by bikes. One is supposed to go about 10 kilometres upriver and back. Indeed, that is what we did in 2009. However, it wasn’t pissing down that day. Consequently, Google having been proved wrong about biking on NB Highway 11 all day, I decided to try the bridge. There were no signs prohibiting bikes on the long, two-lane bridge. So I got on the narrow sidewalk and rode, then walked to the other side. I was rehearsing a number of lines to use in the event I was stopped by the RCMP, they included: “You may either fine me or let me off with warning. Either way, I get drier sooner.”

I checked into the hotel in drowned rat mode. My room was on the second floor. I made it in two trips (Leonardo stayed downstairs). I had to put my bags down to open the door to my room and took the time to spread out a garbage bag on the floor to protect the carpet from the water and sand on my bags. As I did so, a member of the housecleaning staff walked by and asked how I was? 

“Wet!” was my answer. She began to be concerned and offered extra towels. I dismissed her offers saying it was all part of biking, “Mad dogs and Englishmen, and all that. Besides, in a few minutes, I’ll be getting wetter in the tub.”

The last statement wasn’t strictly true as it turned out my room only had a shower. After supper, I had a soak in the hot tub by the pool.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. So 114 km done mostly in the rain.

On the luck of the Rabbit part two

Ste-Cecile

“I knew I should have made that right turn in Albuquerque!” to quote the immortal Rabbit, or in this case Lamecque. Actually, where I went mildly wrong was following the bike path through Lamecque without realizing that it bypassed the junction with Route 113 and instead took me out on Route 313. That road followed at a distance the Western side of Lamecque Island. I had planned on taking it on the way back to Shippagan, but by the time I realized my error, the best option was to keep on going. 

The main reason for doing so was to see the church of Ste-Cecile  in the hamlet of the same name. In 1968, the parish priest got permission to redo the wooden interior of the church which had become very dark brown owning the repeated applications of linseed oil. I wonder to what degree he had informed his superiors and the parish as to his plans. It was painted mostly in pale pastels in rows of alternating irregular ovals of colour. Irregular, as it looks to me the work of an amateur painter, as in one who doesn’t really know how to paint. There is a logic and an aesthetic to the whole, but the individual elements struck me as second rate. It is now described as a notable naïve psychedelic artistic achievement but it struck me as ho-hum.

It is hard to miss the fact that Acadians live on the islands of Lamecque and Miscou. There are plenty of Acadian flags and folk art in the Acadian colours. What is less obvious is how shallow the Acadian roots are. There are a lot of British place names hither and yon. One information plaque said that the Acadian only moved into the area in significant numbers in the early 20th century! In Shippagan, there isn’t a single restaurant that could be called Acadian. 

For that matter, there is a shortage of decent restaurants. I had supper last night in the best place in town, an upscale pizza place. There was seafood on the menu, but I got the sense that the locals didn’t know what to do with seafood. Generally the seafood dishes went along the lines of take a common Italian dish (pizza or pasta) and plunk crab, lobster and shrimp on it. Then charge an arm and a leg.

Lamecque and Miscou are also a bit depressing in what they say about how the mostly Acadians live. It was mile after mile of rural suburban housing. New-built suburban style homes on lots long rural roads with the occasional, unoccupied old house falling into decay. Paved driveways typically held pickups, smaller SUVs or small cars such as Honda Civics. I interpreted this as “the work pickup” and the practical car for errands. Sometimes, there would be a vehicle for recreation such as a muscle car, a camping trailer, a motor home or even a sailboat. There were also the odd forty plus foot fishing boat in storage. (I saw one about to be loaded onto a flatbed trailer.)  Stores were virtually absent outside of the town of Lamecque.

I got the feeling that the locals generally worked in well paying blue-collar jobs in the fisheries, peat extraction or road construction or the in supporting businesses. The “cleverness” of some of them was illustrated to me by a pickup that pulled out a small port evidently supporting the fisheries. At the back of the pickup was a single row of firewood stacked above the top of the bed with the back gate open. One bump and best case scenario there is firewood on the road. Worst case scenario, there is firewood in someone’s windshield.

Yeah, I’m probably showing my upper middle class prejudice here.

The Miscou Lighthouse dates from a little before Confederation. Typically, pre-Confederation, there was bickering between New Brunswick and the Province of Canada over who should pay for it. The lighthouse itself was very nice and there was a lovely café in a reproduction of the lighthouse keeper’s house or store. I forgot which it was. The mosquitos were driving me nuts despite a layer of bug dope. So after a hasty picture taken with a timer, I went into the café for lunch. It is possible to visit the lighthouse, however, it was lunchtime and I didn’t want to wait 45 minutes with the mozzies.

Coming back, the wind was largely in my face. It also began to cloud over to the point I felt a bit cold. I might have put on a long sleeve jersey had I thought about it. However, the mozzies had driven me a bit buggy. They were sometimes biting me through my bike shorts!

I got back to Shippagan where I washed myself and my clothes. After a doze, I found some supper and wrote up this blog entry.

On sleeper trains

 This mini-documentary features the Ocean, but doesn’t mention how easy it is to take a bike on it.

On the nature of the New Brunswick Aquarium

There is something both refreshingly and depressingly unpolitically correct about the New Brunswick Aquarium (NBA for future reference) in Shippagan. Maybe it is that I am too used the Vancouver Public Aquarium (VPA for same), but then maybe the NBA is presenting a different perspective on sea life. Either that or it is too closely associated with the University of Moncton, Shippagan campus. The NBA focuses on the aquatic life around New Brunswick, mostly salt water but it had a few fresh water tanks. Fair enough, small aquarium and all that, so someone familiar with the VPA might allow. However, I really can’t see the VPA having a section in the information boards saying whether a given species was tasty or not and whether any one fished them! It reminded me of a line in “Comment Obélix est tombé dans la marmite quand il était petit”. Astérix talks about their natural history lesson in school: “Nous apprenions tout sur le sanglier, ses mœurs, sa cuisson.”

The NBA is an aquarium about commercial fishing and what an important part of the economy it is. There was a short film about fishermen and how their lot had improved in the 1950s, before they diversified their catch in around 1970s to include crustaceans such as lobster, snow crab and shrimp. It leaves out bits such as they had to diversify as the big factory trawlers were vacuuming up the cod, putting the small boats out of business. It showed how the new fishing schools were teaching safety, electronic navigation and best fishing practices including quality control. It didn’t comment on but showed an example of the macho attitudes I have noticed among fisherman. Strangely enough, I had seen it last year in Alma in the names of some of the fishing boats. The “Fundy Fury” was one of the boats in the film. I just checked my blog entry for Alma and there it was. End of rant about the NBA.

I had left Caraquet relatively late on the grounds it was always going to be a short day. I rolled along the well paved former rail bed through what were mostly forests, but also fields. It was nice and sunny and the mozzies were sleeping. It was therefore somewhat depressing that all but one of the other users were riding electric assisted bikes! At a guess, most of them seemed older than I, but it galled me to see them “waste” the opportunity the flat bike path offered them. I was vaguely tempted to tell them about Pappy having ridden the path in 2009, less than a year his hip replacement. ;-)

After making the turn towards Shippagan, I noticed an oncoming cyclist weaving a shade erratically, before stopping looking into the nearby field, then turning to me with his hands in the air with his thumbs near his head. I stopped. It turned out he had just seen a bull moose in the field which had really impressed him. Unfortunately, it had just gone into the underbrush. I commented that if moose doesn’t want to be seen, then it is gone. We chatted a bit and I tried to say that I considered the moose my totem animal and pointed out the moose silhouette on Leonardo, but I don’t think he really understood what I was saying.

The plan for tomorrow is to leave most of my baggage at my motel in Shippagan and ride out to end of Miscou Island and back. With sightseeing detours and the like, it should be about 90 kilometres or so. The weather, well, the forecast calls for mostly sunny weather, which is good, and a southerly wind, which isn’t as it means I will be going against the wind on the way home.

There was also a weather advisory from Environment Canada saying that tropical storm Franklin may cause rain in the Atlantic Provinces. It will not be anything like Fiona, thank God!

On old buildings in Acadia

If you ever wanted a quiet hotel to catch up on sleep, Château Albert is it. Removed as it is from the road and airports, the only source of noise is other guests and there aren’t that many of them. I slept nearly around the clock, though my sleep was interrupted by a series of complex, related and recurring nightmares that I will not go into.

After a disappointing “continental breakfast” buffet, I stashed my bags and bike at the hotel and walked to the start of the Village historique acadien visit. 

It began with a small one room house from the late 18th century with a floor of beaten earth. The interpreter, after having given most of the details of the owner’s life, warned us against thinking the man was poor. He wasn’t by the standards of the time and place. He had a lot of livestock which he sold to the English (i.e. British) soldiers of the area and made a pretty profit doing so.

The later buildings were from 19th and then 20th centuries. There was representational bias in portraying the Acadians as quite poor, possibly because of the buildings they could lay their hands on and possibly because they were poor. At one point I walked into a former general store from 1889 which consisted of small wooden building with two rooms. I found it hard to reconcile it with LeBaron’s, founded in 1888! I don’t when the main brick core of LeBaron’s was erected but I doubt it was ever that small.

There were a couple fancier 19th century homes including one with an indoor well, and another that was partially built of stone at behest of the owner who was a Scot. He held a number of official posts in local government.

The first 20th century building I visited was built from a kit ordered from Sears! I laughed on hearing that having ordered a book about such buildings for Alice for her birthday.

All through the visit, I had seen the shoe prints of a massive horse. As in, the diameter was about that between my pinky and my thumb when spread. Easily more than 6 inches. Coming out of the Sears building, I saw the flaxen chestnut creature placidly hauling a wagon with tourists in it. I had to laugh when I noticed that a man in the back was holding the handle of a kiddie wagon which was rolling along behind! I snapped a picture of the amusing scene as the man smiled at me clearly enjoying himself.

The last house was that of a tin smith whom the interpreter described as un patenteu or ingenious as he had to come up with solutions to the demands of the Acadians who, it seems, were delighted in all the things one could do with sheet metal. This was part of the 20th century portion of the visit. I got the feeling that the Industrial Revolution was something that for the Acadians had happened to other people.

I recovered my bags and Leonardo and headed off for Caraquet, arriving mid-afternoon. After visiting a few notable sights in town, I went to my hotel. There was a bit of back and forth via voicemail, text messages and a phone call to get me the necessary codes to get in, as the people running the place weren’t there, but thanks to 21st century technology, I was able to get into the Hotel Paulin. It is over a century old and thanks to the owner’s wife and son has a gourmet reputation. Or at least had. Between the pandemic and an ongoing kitchen renovation, they are not serving food. Thankfully, there are options other than Dixie Lee in Caraquet in August.

On a reasonable day

 I’d opted for a lower berth for the trip to Bathurst. It seemed less indulgent. I was in the last car of the train and the last section of four berths of the car. It was a full section as I had as companions, a mother and her mid twenties aged son from England and a man from New Delhi. We compared and contrasted trains of Canada and the UK. I filled them in about just how old the Château sleeper car we were in was, viz roughly 70 years old.

I slept badly, tossing and turning a lot which caused the under sheet to come loose. This was in part because I was fairly close to the wheels. When I got to Bathurst, I made a point of changing my cabin for one on the return journey to one further from the wheels.

The train got to Bathurst about an hour and fifteen minutes late. While waiting for Leonardo and the panniers I had checked, I ducked into the station to use the facilities. By the time I had done my business, just about all the checked luggage had been dealt with. The woman took one look at me, wearing bike clothing and a bike helmet and carrying panniers, and said: “You must be the cyclist.”

“Yes, I am.” I replied, then added facetiously, “Do you need to see my bagged stubs?”

She didn’t.

I had an early lunch in Bathurst, before heading off. The road was well paved and quiet and featured gentle hills along with views of the Baie des Chaleurs. It was cool, humid and overcast. The middle one caused me to change into a sleeveless biking jersey and sweat cap as I was sweating profusely. It began to sprinkle at Pokeshaw, so I pulled the municipal roadside halt and park to admire the view of a cormorant infested sea stack and a cliff with a hole in it. I also put on my rain jacket as the rain was getting heavier.

Just after entering Grande-Anse, Gateway to the Acadian Peninsula, it started raining in earnest, so I stopped at a roadside veggie stand to pull on rain pants, shoe overs and waterproof hat. This served to expose me to the attentions of the Acadian mosquitos which I have since heard are vicious. One local said that the government should put up a warning sign! I found refuge from the rain the mozzies in the Musée des cultures fondatrices. Unsurprisingly, it is interested in the Acadian settlement of the area along with the experiences of the local First Nations as well as that of the Irish and the Scots who settled here. More surprising was the large scale model of St-Peter’s Basilica in the Rome, as donated by the Franciscan order in Canada. I chatted with the staff, one of whom lived in Pokeshaw. When I mentioned I photographed the cliff with the hole in it, he said that he owned that property! 

The rain had petered out by the time I was finished. I passed Grande-Anse’s Dixie Lee where the Parents and I once ate. I rode a kilometre or two further before stopping at Grande-Anse’s tourist information centre to ask a question that embarrassed the young people who should have known. Had the building we were in actually been a lighthouse or was it just a piece of architectural license? ;-) (I have since learned it is indeed a folly, in the architectural sense of the word.)

I stopped for the day at the Château Albert Hotel which is located inside the Village historique acadien. It seemed impressively well preserved for something built about 1910. It also reminded me a bit of Robin Hill, built in roughly the same era. After signing in and hauling my stuff up to room, I relaxed in a lovely seemingly period bath tub and read the information in the handouts I’d been given. In fact the original hotel had been built in Caraquest and had burned down in 1955. The place I was staying in had recently (2000) been built from the original architect’s plans!

Sleep beckons.

On being packed

Well, my panniers are packed. My train tickets are in the map case which is on Leonardo. The tires have been changed to true touring ones. Only two freak outs over misplaced essentials which were located. I have about an hour before I should head to the train station to catch the Ocean to Bathurst, New Brunswick.

My plan is to explore the Acadian Coast more leisurely than the Parents and I did in 2009. Also it will be close to high season so more things will be open. In Moncton, I will pick up where I left off last year on account of Hurricane Fiona and head to Halifax.

Time for a bath.