Prince Edward Island, PE
Blue skies, red earth, big tides
[From the Badlands in South Dakota, we drove madly east — like Furiosa to the Green Place — through Iowa, Chicago, Indiana Dunes National Park, Cleveland, Rochester (Finger Lakes, anyone?), and Montreal. Soon, I plan to organize separate blog entries and photos for these places. For now, let’s fast-forward.]
On our way to Prince Edward Island, we stopped by Shediac, a town that claimed it had the “largest lobster in the world”, a tourist trap of a sculpture. The island itself was connected to the mainland of New Brunswick by a very long bridge, with a toll payable upon exit, so… one had to pay to go to PEI!
We settled in our campsite at the Cabot Beach Provincial Park and wandered on the beach at sunset.
***
There we were, spending a lazy day at Cabot Beach, minding our business when N. pointed to a bird — a seagull? — and said the bird had dropped a rock. We watched him pick it up again, fly up in the air and drop what I realized was not a rock but a very large clam. The bird picked the clam a third time, dropped it, and he must have been successful in his task, because he started to peck at the clam and had himself a nice snack. What a genius!
We saw this bird do the same thing at least 3 more times: from the sand dune beyond the shore, he brought a clam in his beak, dropped it from on high (and repeated the drop if the clam did not crack), and made short order of the raw clam, without any horseradish or cocktail sauce or mignonette. That was when we noticed many of his friends doing exactly the same thing out in the sand dune. Once attuned to the sounds, we recognized the “tock, tock” of several birds busy-ing themselves with their seafood feast.
Unlike the seagulls, we had to pay for our seafood at a restaurant within walking distance from our campground. After dinner, we walked around the marina and found a fisherman fixing lobster traps in his barn. He burst the romantic notion in our heads that we had finally come to the land of Malpeque oysters: he said that, because of the marketing of oysters, any oysters farmed anywhere on Prince Edward Island were called “Malpeque oysters.” Pffff…
And I had naively chosen Cabot Beach because it was in Malpeque village. Someone should get into the business of making sure that “Malpeque oysters” came from Malpeque Bay.
***
Since we were in the neighborhood, we wanted to drive through the Prince Edward Island’s national park area near Cavendish.
We made our way to the lighthouse in North Rustico Beach, Doyles Cove, Cape Turner, MacKenzie’s Brook, Oceanview Lookout, Lighthouse in New London, Lighthouse in Cape Tryon, Cousin’s Shore. Lighthouses had a soft spot in our hearts.
***
The sign in the bathroom at the campground (!) announced that the local community was hosting Oyster Day at the Kier Museum in Malpeque.
Locals came together to sell oysters, mussels and ice cream — weird combination, one must admit —along with a few vendors who were selling flowers and crafts. We took the opportunity to visit the museum itself — an old repurposed church — which had a nice collection of knick-knacks that demonstrated what life was life in the days of the first homesteaders. The most interesting plaque was one in the kitchen, where, among samples of cooking utensils and coffee grinders, I read that the local women would make oatmeal and place the porridge in a table drawer in order to cool it, and then cut into sections — basically, ancient granola bars.
***
We drove to Charlottetown and walked to Victoria Park and through old town; we also spent some time in the town library. We came back to campground to find someone had stolen our rubber levelers and, while getting ready for an incoming storm, I landed on my foot wrong when hopping from the van and now the left pinkie toe was swollen and bruised. Never an uneventful day in van life.
***
First stop out of PEI: Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park.
We explored the red rocky shores, envying the exuberance of those who had no qualms about getting muddy. In just a couple of hours, the tide began to come in, with Mother Nature offering yet another glimpse of her many wonders.
***
On the way back to the US, we stopped for a couple nights at the New River Beach Provincial Park in New Brunswick. It was a lovely place: well run campground, big-enough-but-not-too-big beach at the edge of the Bay of Fundy.
We ran into a crew of the “Race Against the Tide” of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Teams competing in a reality show were building sand sculptures on the beach, before the evening tide destroyed their work. Teams were judged and eliminated each week. The filming was happening in one corner of New River Beach, but most families left the crew and filming alone. It was a lovely and sunny, with cool breezes that made it a perfect summer day.
More lovely images from a very lovely day at the beach:
I felt for one seagull who seemed to be happy enough while resting on the beach, but who I could see was walking slowly while favoring one leg — the other seemed a bit out of alignment, perhaps from an accident. You and me both, buddy.
A worker came by to pick up bags from the trash cans spread around the beach. He had just gotten into his little motorized cart when he looked at a bbq grill and saw something that needed taken care of: the grill pan was in the lowest position. He got out of the cart, pulled the grill pan up — I’m guessing for the convenience of patrons who would have to pull it up to add charcoal — hopped on his cart and drove away. Any job is worth doing is worth doing well.
By the end of the day, the tide on the beach had come in so far — we were at the Bay of Fundy after all — that the whole broad beach that had been host to countless families enjoying the day disappeared under all the water brought by the tides.
***
We have explored Canada from Tofino in Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest to Malpeque Bay in Prince Edward Island in the Atlantic coast, crossing the Canadian Rockies in Banff and Jasper. Despite the Canadian coffee shop chain, the stolen levelers and what later turned out to be a broken toe, both N. and I have loved our Canadian adventures, heh?
***