Bill's Blog

Nova Scotia

On Friday the sixth of October, we drove all day long through Massachusetts, along the coast of New Hampshire and through central Maine. As the sun was setting we entered Canada at the end of I-95 and drove another 40 minutes to a beautiful new home overlooking the St. John River. Again a wonderful Couchsufing family hosted us. We spent all day Saturday exploring Fredericton, New Brunswick. The best thing was the Saturday farmers' market that looked more like a county fair than an ordinary farmers' market. There were dozens of vendors providing lunches. There were cheese and meat sellers from which we got some excellent sausage. And the fruit - mostly apples - and vegetables were a beautiful sight.

Sunday was another long day of driving. In the late afternoon we arrived in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Wolfville is in Kings County and I had long wanted to visit Kings County. This is where my great-great grandparents came from; their surnames were Tupper and Porter. We were staying with a wonderful Couchsurfing host, Melinda Norris. She had the hobby of spinning and knitting wool and other hairs. One night she brought us to a country shop, called Gaspereau Valley Fibres - Farm Wool Shop. Betty bought two skeins of wool. From which she made two cute little scarves for our granddaughters.

Over the next five days we saw much of this extremely beautiful peninsula. One day we drove to Scotts Bay and Halls Harbor where my family came from. Both villages lay on the Bay of Fundy. While those ancestors were said to be farmers, they must have enjoyed the fruits of the sea, because the bay is plentiful with lobster, fish and mollusks. We enjoyed fish-and-chips in Halls Harbor. Another day we went to the other side of the peninsula, where we visited Chester, Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. These picturesque towns were a delight to see. We took lots of pictures. In Mahone Bay as part of a autumn festival, they had dozens and dozens of scarecrows in montages. Again we stopped for a lunch of lobster bisque for Betty and homemade meatloaf for me.

Our impressions of the Cornwallis river valley were very positive. The land along the river is very rich and two long ridges protect it. We saw many, many orchards with trees laden with ripe apples. We found the people friendly and helpful . We could see that the people had a good sense of humor too, because, like the Scarecrow Festival of Mahone Bay, Kentville and Wolfville had montages of pumpkin people. Checkout the photos to see for yourself.

On our last day, we visited the very small village of Annapolis Royal, which was the first European settlement in Nova Scotia. It is a nice little village that seemed geared to the summer tourist trade. We had a nice lunch of fish-and-chips. The nicest shop that we saw was full of Southeast Asian antiques and art. We could hardly believe that such a small village would have such a shop, but there it was. After talking with the owner, we learned that the shop was able to survive from the patronage of distant customers and the super rich summer residents that come to Nova Scotia. There are the remains of the very old Fort Anne in Royal Annapolis, but only one structure was still there. After Annapolis Royal, we checked out Digby. We did not find it an interesting town to visit.

Posted by bill at October 16, 2011 04:29 PM