Well, we arrived in Beresford, New Brunswick on Sunday May 15 after a rainy, windy drive of just under 4 hours.
But, before saying more about now, I want to go back a bit.
The day before we left the Hunter Mountain area we drove for a couple of hours on a “scenic” drive along one of
the “Bras” of the Bras d’Or Lake. It turned out to be a fairly low key scenic drive but we did find the Iona Highland Village, an initiative which is committed to developing awareness of and sharing the heritage of Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia. And it certainly gave us some interesting insights.
For example, Gaelic as a unique Scottish Highlands language apparently evolved from Irish Gaelic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and it accompanied Highland Scots who emigrated to what is now Nova Scotia. At Confederation in 1867 Gaelic was the third most common language spoken in what was then Canada and in 1900 over 100,000 people in Nova Scotia still spoke Gaelic as their mother tongue. In the this heritage village there are several renovated and preserved historic buildings from the Nova Scotia Gaelic era, including a unique round stone and thatch “house” with
stone steps built into the wall (presumably to minimize the difficulty of accessing the thatch roof for repair), and a small but prominent white church sitting high on the landscape. I’m not sure of the denomination of the church but as the Highland Gaels who emigrated to Nova Scotia were predominantly followers of either Roman Catholic or Presbyterian churches, it could be either or represent both.
The discovery of this village was definitely the interesting and informative high point of the drive for me.
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| Church at the Gaelic Heritage site. |
Now I’m sitting in a comfortable room at Danny’s Inn, Restaurant and Conference Centre in Beresford, New Brunswick, with the all day rain continuing to fall. The folks here are very friendly and accommodating (very few customers at the moment). The place is quite nice and we are ready for another "rest" from driving and unpacking and re-packing every day. So, before pressing on we will likely stay here for a couple more nights.
So far the weather here has been pretty unpleasant with persistent cool and rain so not much exploring. We hope to get to one of the Parks here in Bathurst.
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| Acadian Village home. |
Another bit of clarification. When we started this trip we intended to go from Nova Scotia on to Newfoundland but a number of factors contributed to our decision to scratch that part of the plan. First, though it is nice to have her along, travelling with a dog presents a number of difficulties. It is not always easy to find accommodation that accepts pets. And travelling with a dog on a raw food diet adds an enormous complication as the food has to be kept frozen or cold.
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| Acadian Village Grist Mill and dam |
We have a neat refrigerator that works in the car and on 110 V systems in motels but we are still limited by the amount we can carry. And the sources of raw food along the way are relatively few. And, though we found a source in Newfoundland, other factors precluded this part of the trip. The ferry ride of about 8 hours presents its own complication. The dog can be accommodated on board either on deck in a hard plastic crate or in the car. No one is allowed to stay with her in the car and we would not have access to the car during the trip to "The Rock".
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| Acadian Village Grist Mill |
Neither of these options was acceptable for us, so, sadly, the Newfoundland visit was not possible.
Back to Bathurst. One of our 3 days there was rain free and as there was a threat of sun, on the advice of a tourist information person (at a not yet open information office) we decided to drive to Miscous Island, relatively close to Bathurst (about 60 Km or so) where there are said to be spectacular views. It turned out that the
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| School and Church |
original destination was a bit further than we thought and, with our usual stopping and starting, time prevented us from reaching our goal. But, one of the stopping places, an historical Acadian Heritage village, proved to be a lucky find! Once again, not yet open - but there were lots of folks around working hard to have the park open by early June. In spite of the time pressures they were facing and that the park is actually closed, they were extremely friendly and went some pains to make it possible for us to walk through the heritage
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| Acadians seem to have had Credit Unions! |
village! A bit like other such places, the buildings have been moved from their original locations in different areas of the province and placed here in their original compass orientations and in relation to each other to create a semblance of an authentic Acadian village. The walk through the entire village was about 2.5 Km and we really impressed with the buildings and the overall ambience of the entire village.
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| Tinsmith's Shop - taken through the closed window |
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| Tavern |
So, here we are preparing to depart from northern New Brunswick for the Gaspé Peninsula where finding accommodation is a bit tricky for two reasons. Once again, finding pet friendly places that fit with our driving schedule has not been easy and secondly because many places are not yet open!
But, having said that, I am happy to say that we have found and booked places for the first 3 nights on the Gaspé Peninsula.
Nest stop, Carleton sur mer, Province of Québec.
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