The Hagarstream is on the road

[Smartstream]

We have been without a wifi connection for a few days so I'm a little behind on posting but never the less we have been busy.
The other day we toured the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic site of Canada. This is the site of a massive fortress constructed by the French starting in 1720. In 1745 after a 47 day siege the fort was captured by the British. Three years later it was returned to France by treaty. After twice being blockaided by British fleets during the Seven Years' War it was once again captured in 1758 and destroyed by order of British prime minister William Pitt in 1760.
Today about 1/4 of colonial Louisbourg has been reconstructed to it's 1744 appearance. This is one of Canada's largest historic sites and occupies nearly 15,000 acres. You can tour the king's bastion and governor's apartments, a civil administrator's house, a fisherman's house, solders' barracks, royal bakery and supply houses. You can also dine at period restaurants serving authentic period food. The entire facility is staffed by costumed guides depicting servants, solders, fishermen and the upper class. They even test fire cannons, and muskets and put criminals in the stocks.
We had a lower class lunch of meat pie and soup eaten with only one spoon and the napkin was a large cotton cloth tied behind your neck like a large bib. Of coarse the governor had to review your bill before it was presented to you. It was a very worthwhile way to spend the day.

A few pics.

The fortress from across the harbor
Me with the gate sentry after receiving permission to enter
The royal bastion
A solder trying to catch the ladies eye
Buildings in the village
Me buying a loaf of bread from the royal bakery
The waterfront
More of the village

[Smartstream]

From Louisbourg we drove across the island to Baddeck, the home of the Alexander Graham Bell Nation Historic Site of Canada. Bell experimented with kites, airplanes and hydrofoil boats among many other things. A very interesting display of his work. Then it was on to Cheticamp. This is back in an Acadian area and has a restaurant that serves traditional Acadian meals. I had meat pie and Irene had a sampler plate that had fish cakes, meat pie, beef stew and baked beans. I can't give you the Acadian names because the cook book the Irene bought is in English, the French version wouldn't have been much good to her.
There is a beautiful church and two museums that deal with the hooked rugs that are a specialty of the area. Our friend in South Dakota makes a similar hooked rug and showed Irene how. You can imagine Irene and the Acadian ladies going over the finer points of the craft. I was somewhat less interested. From Cheticamp we headed into the Cape Breton Highlands National Park of Canada. The park occupies 366 sq. miles of highlands and coastal wilderness that is said to bear a striking resemblance to the coastal regions of Scotland. The Cabot Trail which goes around the park is 186 miles long and has some grades that go from sea level to over 500 meters. One grade is 5 km at 13% up and 5 km at 13% down. The old Hagarstream was working had on that one.

A few pics.

The Bell Museum
A rug hooking demonstration
The Saint Pierre Church
A hooked rug of the Crucification, this rug is about 6' x 15' and took nearly a year to make.
The Highlands National Park

[BillTex]

Just catching up on your thread as we have been out ~ 6 weeks now also.

Yes, my Folks spotted you driving through Bristol (RI)...the most Patriotic town in America!
When you were at the Herreshoff museum you were 1/2 block away from our house!
Too bad we weren't around...you would have had a place to drop anchor...we could have got lobsters right off my Buddies boat (my treat!).
Oh well...glad you enjoyed RI...we really like living here...

If you head through here again...give a shout!

Safe travels,
Bill

[Smartstream]

Originally Posted by BillTex

Just catching up on your thread as we have been out ~ 6 weeks now also.

Yes, my Folks spotted you driving through Bristol (RI)...the most Patriotic town in America!
When you were at the Herreshoff museum you were 1/2 block away from our house!
Too bad we weren't around...you would have had a place to drop anchor...we could have got lobsters right off my Buddies boat (my treat!).
Oh well...glad you enjoyed RI...we really like living here...

If you head through here again...give a shout!

Safe travels,
Bill

Bill had I only known. I've got the coordinates in the GPS now so I may still take you up on the offer. We really did enjoy the museum, it's kind of a mecca for sailors. The Herreshoff's really did design and build some amazing boats.
Now we are in Antigonosh, Nova Scotia getting ready to take the ferry to Prince Edward Island. We spend the last couple of days at a campground here because we didn't want to get caught in all the holiday madness. We took a ride out to a nice little harbor for a walk and ice cream and yesterday we went to the Museum of Industry in Stellarton. This is a really great museum on the industrial history of Nova Scotia. They have many interactive displays to play with an some great displays. One display is a complete machine shop run from the main shaft and belts powered by a single steam engine. These are real machines not models.
Anyway I'll catch up later as we need to catch the ferry.

Cheers, Dan

[Mike Leary]

A 13% grade, wow! I bet you could walk faster than the Hagerstream.

[Smartstream]

Originally Posted by Mike Leary

A 13% grade, wow! I bet you could walk faster than the Hagerstream.

Uphill or downhill Mike? Actually we were doing 20 to 25 mph. Down hill was about the same because of some killer switchbacks.

Cheers, Dan

[Mike Leary]

Originally Posted by Smartstream

Uphill or downhill Mike? Actually we were doing 20 to 25 mph. Down hill was about the same because of some killer switchbacks.

Cheers, Dan

I forget you've got a fresh engine, smaller coach and prolly a whole less baggage than we full timers do. Cape Breton Highlands National Park is incredible, we got up to Meat Cove just to get bragging rights. Glad you guys are enjoying yourselves.

[Eagle & Bear]

We spent the weekend at the bluegrass festival in Brunswick, ME. Had a great time. On our way to Bangor. Our TV is doing some odd things I want to have Ford to check out. Bangor is the most logical place to have things checked out. Trailer hubs need to be greased and tires rotated. We will leave the Airstream in Bangor while we tour Nova Scotia. 13% grade is a bit much for us to haul. Our TV is a class B Sportsmobile so we will just pop the top in the evening and save on campground fees. Should be over the border on Friday. We have Verizon. How do you avoid the roaming and other fees while you are in Canada?

Michael

[Smartstream]

Originally Posted by Eagle & Bear

We spent the weekend at the bluegrass festival in Brunswick, ME. Had a great time. On our way to Bangor. Our TV is doing some odd things I want to have Ford to check out. Bangor is the most logical place to have things checked out. Trailer hubs need to be greased and tires rotated. We will leave the Airstream in Bangor while we tour Nova Scotia. 13% grade is a bit much for us to haul. Our TV is a class B Sportsmobile so we will just pop the top in the evening and save on campground fees. Should be over the border on Friday. We have Verizon. How do you avoid the roaming and other fees while you are in Canada?

Michael

Verizon has a Canada add on. We have a 900 min plan and get the same in Canada except we loose the free weekends and friends and family min. It's about $35 and we can cancel as soon as we cross back into the states. No such deal available for the mifi card. Pay by the gbite, way too expensive. We just look for parks with wifi and have been pretty lucky so far.

Cheers, Dan

[Smartstream]

We have been meandering around the east end of Prince Edward Island. Compared to Nova Scotia it is very flat. NS has lots of rolling hills, short 5 to 7% grades everywhere. no really long climbs 1/4 to 1/2 mile but very frequent. PEI on the other hand is very flat, the highest point on the island is 499'. The east end is mostly farms and little fishing villages. Everybody seems to have enormous lawns very green and well kept. It rained a bit yesterday and was very overcast. Last night actually got a bit cool. Today the sun is out and warming up. Yesterday we drove through Charlottetown the capital of PEI. It's popualtion is 32,000 but it seemed a lot more than that. There was a cruise ship in and the PEI University and the first day of school so a lot happening but it seemed like a much larger town. Went to the Cow Ice Cream Factory and sampled the goods. They were not in production so we didn't pay the $6 for the tour. We are in a huge campground, Twin Shores with 600 sites, store, cafe, theater, a large facility. We are about to leave so I'll post some pics next stop.

Cheers, Dan

[Eagle & Bear]

Thanks for the info on Verizon and PEI. Since we only have a week, we may just tour Nova Scotia.

[Smartstream]

Going back a bit this was our ice cream stop last weekend. It was a little harbor at Cribbons Point.

This is the belt driven machine shop at the Museum of Industry.


This bus was used to bring the training to the students.

It is a 1942 Ford with a complete cabinet shop in the back.

Here we have taken the ferry to Prince Edward Island and our first stop at Cape Bear Light built in 1881. Just after we left the lighthouse we can across a herd of about 30 buffalo. It was about the last thing I expected to find. Sorry but we couldn't get a picture.


This is the harbor entrance with East Point in the back ground. This is the farthest North-East point on the island.


This is the red sand beach at our campground at Campbells Point. And it really is that red.


Here we are checking out the happenings at Savage Harbor, one of many little harbors along the coast line of PEI.


Well for an old dog I finally figured out how to insert pictures into the text. I hope this make following along a little easier.

Cheers, Dan

[Smartstream]

Tuesday as we wandered around the east end it rained a bit in the morning and was also quite windy. Most of the roads are pretty decent but there are some spots where they like to patch and patch and patch.


Driving into Charlottetown we found these traffic signals.

They must be new because there were only a few of them. The green light is round, the amber is diamond shaped and the red is square. I wonder if this catches on elsewhere?

This is Founders Hall where the original idea and discussions took place to form the country of Canada.


I mentioned it was windy, this is the beach Tuesday afternoon.


Wednesday morning the beach calmed down a little. This is the beach at our campground at Twin Shores.


Along with agricultural farming they also farm mussels around PEI. In this picture if you look closely you can see lines of floats in the water. There are lengths of rope hanging down in the water that the mussels grow on. They eat a lot of mussels around here.


In many of the harbors you find all sorts of sheds.

The few that we found open were stacked floor to ceiling with lobster traps. I guess they don't all fit because as we drove around there were many stacks of traps in yards everywhere. As many boats and traps as we saw it must really be interesting around here during lobster season.

In the city of Kensington we came across this great train station built in 1905.

In the late 1800's 250 miles of track connected 121 stations that served the entire island. We only saw one train during our stay on PEI.

Cheers, Dan

[Smartstream]

Wednesday we drove out to North Cape, the most north-east point on the island. It is also the location of The North Cape, Nature and Technology In Harmony. This a an interpretive center, wind test facility and commercial wind farm. There are great exhibits about wind energy and it's development. There are also about 20 wind turbines of different sizes and types. Here is the Hagarstream in front of a few of the turbines.

After all the wind the day before you can see the flag hanging straight down and the turbines are idle.

And one of the blades on the ground. These things are really long.


Of coarse there has to be a lighthouse.


After we left the cape we visited the Saint Simon & Saint Jude Catholic Church in Tignish.

It was built in 1882 and has a pipe organ that has 1118 pipes.

We found a campground nearby so we called to see if they were open. It's the end of the season and things are starting to close. The guy said all the picnic tables were put away but the power was still on. If we wanted we could pick a spot but no one was there so just leave $20 on the table in the first cottage. He knew the door was unlocked because he was there today to put a new TV in the cottage. It was a quiet spot on the beach and we had the park to ourselves.

Cheers, Dan

[TinCrumpet]

Originally Posted by Smartstream

Wednesday we drove out to North Cape, the most north-east point on the island. It is also the location of The North Cape, Nature and Technology In Harmony. This a an interpretive center, wind test facility and commercial wind farm. There are great exhibits about wind energy and it's development. There are also about 20 wind turbines of different sizes and types. Here is the Hagarstream in front of a few of the turbines.
Attachment 139768
After all the wind the day before you can see the flag hanging straight down and the turbines are idle.

And one of the blades on the ground. These things are really long.
Attachment 139769

Of coarse there has to be a lighthouse.
Attachment 139770

After we left the cape we visited the Saint Simon & Saint Jude Catholic Church in Tignish.
Attachment 139771
It was built in 1882 and has a pipe organ that has 1118 pipes.

We found a campground nearby so we called to see if they were open. It's the end of the season and things are starting to close. The guy said all the picnic tables were put away but the power was still on. If we wanted we could pick a spot but no one was there so just leave $20 on the table in the first cottage. He knew the door was unlocked because he was there today to put a new TV in the cottage. It was a quiet spot on the beach and we had the park to ourselves.

Cheers, Dan

I'm not peeping at any of it until this evening..
We'll be on the Airstream so I'll transfer all your piccys and
make a slideshow for us to enjoy

[Smartstream]

This morning we woke up to light rain and overcast. By the time we were ready to head out the rain had stopped. Our first stop was the town of O'Leary for fuel and the Potato Museum. We didn't have time to tour it but we had to get a picture of the 14' tall potato.


Next was the Notre-Dame-Du-Mont-Carmel. Built in 1898 the brick church has two steeples and a Gothic interior.



From there we headed to Summerside to visit a machine museum but unfortunately it was closed. So we thought we should stock up on provisions.

You guessed it...lobster. We found 4 nice bugs that would make dinner for two nights. By now the sun was coming out and it turned out to be a warm sunny day.

This is the first sight of the Confederation Bridge that connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick.

It rises from the shore to a crossing height until you reach the middle which is raised for ships to pass under.

It also has a slight bend in the middle. This bridge happens to be eight miles long and takes twelve minutes to cross. That is after you pay a $45 toll. It is free to go to PEI but you have to pay to leave. The interesting thing is we went over on the ferry which is also free going over but $87 coming back. If we would have taken the bridge over and the ferry back it would have cost us $42 more.

Arriving in New Brunswick we stopped at the visitor center for info and maps and then headed up the Acadian Coast. We camped at Ocean View Park at Grand-Barachois. We called and they said nobody was at the park but just pick a spot and they would come by later to collect $18. This was the view from the windshield.


Cheers, Dan

[Smartstream]

Leaving our campsite we continued up the Acadian Coast. We found this "lighthouse on stilts" near Barachots.

I'm not sure the reason but we have seen many buildings built like this.

Here is another "worlds largest lobster"

This one is in Shediac which also claims to be the lobster capital of the world. I don't know all the facts but this lobster is pretty big.

We saw many mussel growing farms but this one is very large.


This ship apparently drifted off course and sailed through this building.

A rather clever tourist attraction.

The marsh grasses are very fragile and if you walk on them they die and the wind blows the sand away to cover other growing plants and kill them also. They build these boardwalks so you can visit the area without destroying it.


This is the official Acadian flag designed and adopted in 1884 here at Saint-Louis-De-Kent.


We went over several old wood bridges like this.

The height and weight limits many trucks but we made it with no problem. It is rather interesting where the asphalt is gone and you see the wood base.

This is the bridge at Miramichi.

An interesting historical town at the back of a very long bay. This bridge saves several kilometers of driving all the way around the bay.

Cheers, Dan

[Smartstream]

I have to confess we have been taking it easy for a few days. The pace has been wearing on my old bones.
Back to where we left off we visited the Village Historique Acadien in Caraquet.

The village is set up to depict life in the 1800's and early 1900's with the newest building being 1936. Most are homes or buildings that are original and have been moved to the site and restored. The docents dress and act as people of the period.

This is the oldest home built in 1773. The man is making brooms out of birch saplings. He first cut fine strips and bend them down without breaking them off. He leaves about a 1" core as the center broom in the picture. The core is removed and then more fine strips are cut in the opposite direction from further up the trunk as the two brooms at the left. All the strips are folded down and tied with a string. Now the rest of the trunk is shaved down to form the handle as the finished broom on the right. A very crude but effective tool.
Next is a period dish washer.

We found these in all the houses as there was food of some type being cooked. We were offered samples of breads and biscuits in many of the homes. Here are some bread loafs rising before being cooked in the outdoor brick oven. Many of these were sold in the gift shop.

And here the loafs are being placed in the oven.
The lady explained that she built a fire in the oven and when she felt it was at the proper temperature she stuck her forearm in the oven door and if she could hold it there no longer than it took her to say the Hail Mary then it was at the proper temperature. At this time she removed all the wood and placed her loafs in the oven. We did come back and sampled the bread and it was excellent.
This home actually belonged to one of my family's ancestors. It was built in 1842 and moved here in 1984.

I had a very interesting talk with this lady who had a surprising knowledge of my family history. Another picture of the home.

This is a demonstration of spinning flax fibers into yarn.

[Smartstream]

Continuing at the Village Historique Acadien, this is the wood worker.

He crafted the finer wood products and furniture.

This is where the roof shingles are hand split and shaped.


This lucky family actually had their well inside the house.

It must have been nice on those cold winter mornings.

When you cross this covered bridge you cross into the 20th century.


This sawmill is circa 1929.

All the wood milled here is used on site for the repair and restoration of the buildings.

These gas pumps are circa 1936.

For the younger folk here the long lever on the side of the pump is used to hand pump the gasoline up into the glass cylinder at the top. It is calibrated for up to 10 gallons. Next you place the hose nozzle into your gas tank and the gas gravity flows into your tank.

This is an example of early indoor plumbing.

All you had to do is pump the handle. You still had to put wood in the stove and build a fire if you wanted hot food.

This is the Hotel Château Albert, circa 1907.

You can actually rent a room here for a night of fine living in the early 20th century without television or telephone.

[DIR1]

Great stuff Dan/Irene... Like Lili, I have to go back and look several times..so much detail in the photo's...OPPS!!! PICCY'S...
ok, keep having fun, hugs from here, gail