Campobello (08-10-18)

Once you head north out of Acadia National Park, it isn’t too long before you run into Canada. We had no reservations anywhere, so we looked at a map to see what looked interesting. Campobello was the answer to that question.

Campobello is an international park- basically that means that everyone who comes to visit needs a passport. Its also an island, and the border stops are at either end of the bridge.




At the border stop our way onto the island (which is in New Brunswick) we were asked, as usual, about our alcohol. Paul replied our agreed upon answer :  not a lot- just enough for personal use. Deliberately vague, since we are only allowed basically a liter apiece, and we perhaps had more than that. (We sort of had forgotten we brought a .75 liter bottle of the good tequila.) The agent was very nice and let us know that  next time, we need to know exactly what we have, in case they check, and find more than we said- in which case they could flag us. Hmm…now we had to drink for two days or heaven forbid, dump something out.

We had booked two nights in the Provincial Park, and once we were set up, we went off exploring. At one end of the island there is a smaller, very picturesque island, with a light house on it.

Both the island and the mainland we were standing on had stairs leading down into the water-and a big sign:

When we looked into the water, we could see arrows painted on the rocks, showing where the trail is. It would have been fun, but we never did get there at low tide. That’s ok, we got to watch the whales off the coast.

So, what is Campobello? An escape from everyday life and the heat of the city for the rich and who cares if they are famous.



Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s parents took him here when he was a young child and was sick, because they thought the sea air would do him good. They fell in love with the place and built a “cottage”. They were one of about 30 wealthy families who had homes on the island. Whenever they were here, they mingled with the locals and were really just interested in the fresh air, being outdoors, and sailing.



Franklin grew up spending summers on the island, and his children continued the tradition as much as possible. When the next door neighbor passed away, she left her cottage to Franklin and Eleanor, and they no longer had to share space with his mother.

We took two tours on the island, which are offered free of charge. The first was a half hour tour of the Roosevelt cottage. The tour guides are really knowledgeable and the tour was really interesting.

The second tour was longer, and was called the FUN tour. She started by asking us all to introduce ourselves by adding an adjective in front of our name that starts with the first letter of our name. We went around the circle, and I became Silly Sue, since that’s all I could think of. When we were done, she said she just wanted to see if we would do it. There was some silliness like that, but also we got to go behind the scenes more, and heard more personal type stories of the people on the island.




At a neighbors cottage, we heard about the crazy parties they would have, with dancing and live music. Franklin would often play the piano at the parties. Then she asked if anyone played, and everyone who did, was given a chance to play the piano.

Usually the dancing would take place on the large deck, and once we got there, each family group was given 5 minutes to practice a dance to perform for everyone. There would be a prize for the best dance.

I was surprised that everyone was pretty inventive. We had the Chicken Dance, the Macarena, and the Hokey Pokey.

I was even more surprised when we actually won, for our version of the “Porter Polka”.



Most people participated- and the guides were very upfront before the tour- if you didn’t want to have fun and be silly, its not the tour for you!





After the death of Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962, the land was deeded to the United States and Canada and is jointly owned and operated by the two countries.


After leaving the island, we spent one night back in the U.S. before heading back into Canada. We stocked up on some food items and did some laundry before we would need to pay for it with Canadian coins.

Once we crossed into Canada again, we headed straight for Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy. We have been here before but it was a good stopping point along the way to Nova Scotia.

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world- up to 50 feet.  When the tide is low, you can walk on the sea floor. There is an up stair case, and a separate Down staircase, due to the amount of people. You buy at ticket that is good for two days, so you can come at low tide one day and high tide the next.

Lucky for us that a) we have been here before and b) we chose to go at low tide first- because the second day, the weather was awful and certainly was not worth getting drenched to see high tide.

Anyway, this is what the rocks look like at low tide and  high tide- to get a perspective, you can see people underneath the rocks in the first picture.





















We had one more treat to repeat before we headed into Nova Scotia. The tidal bore. Along with such a huge tidal change, comes a tidal bore.  Basically, so much water rushes in the river so fast, that it comes in as a wave.  In Moncton there is a park where you can watch the bore come down the river. Once the wave passes, the water level raises at an incredible pace.

Now we were ready to move on to Nova Scotia.

Moving to Prince Edward Island (06-25-13)

Moving from St. John to PEI  wasn’t going to be an all day affair, so we stopped in Moncton along the way.  Moncton is one of the best places to witness the tidal bore. The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, and in certain areas (rivers), when the tide comes in, it arrives in the form of a wave, called a bore.   

So many people come to see this phenomenon that they built a viewing park and someone came to give a little explanation as to what the bore is.  We missed by one day the tallest bore of the year, but it was still cool.  When the moon and sun line up perfectly, the pull makes a higher tide and a taller bore.  The tide in nearby Hopewell Rocks was 44.3 feet.

This is the bore as it passed us:

It was actually really awesome to see. Once the bore arrives, the river rises about 26 feet in an hour. That was cool to watch too. For a while. Then we left. I took two videos of the bore as well, but the campground Wi-Fi blocks certain websites at peak use times and YouTube is one of them. If I stay up late enough to try again later, you’ll see the two videos here:

                                          

Once we left Moncton, it was a short trip to the bridge over to PEI.  Paul and I both smiled at this sign that we saw along the way.  They sure do grow their moose big up here!

Once we were over the bridge, it quickly became clear how beautiful the island is. 

In many ways it feels like going back in time a bit.  Much of the land is farmland, and Lupin grows wild along all the roads, and picturesque harbors seem to be around every corner.

We took the day and drove around parts of the island, because frankly, it was cold, windy, and spitting rain every once in a while, so we didn’t feel like doing anything else.

We did brave the coast to go check out PEI National Park, and bought an annual pass so we can spend as much time as we want in the Canadian National Parks. The red sandstone here makes for a dramatic look along the coast.

We had to make it back early enough to have dinner and head out to a show.  The town we are staying in, Summerside, is home to the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts.

They put on a show all summer long, called Highland Storm, which technically opens for the season tomorrow night.  Lucky for us, we found out they do a dress rehearsal the night before they open, and we were able to get tickets to that.

We both thoroughly enjoyed the show, which was a combination of bagpipes, drums, dancing, and singing, with a little comedy thrown in too. Very entertaining, and some of the performers were quite talented. Many of them compete on a national or international level.




Tomorrow we head to a provincial park for about 5 days and I know it has no Wi-Fi, so I wanted to get this posted before we leave. That was more frustrating than usual, since the campground system wouldn't let me even upload my blog using my usual software, Live Writer, so I had to do it the old fashioned way.