Mackinac, Michigan

Fort Michilimackinac and the Mackinac Bridge

As we headed north in Michigan, we started to find more trees that were starting to change colors, especially the maple trees. We stopped at Fort Michilimackinac a reconstruction of the structure originally built by the French in the 1750s and then expanded by the British. When the British realized that they couldn’t necessarily defend it if the Americans attacked, they dismantled everything, moved it to Mackinac island and burned what remained. What was unique about this reconstruction is that it is built above the archeological digs that were begun in 1959. Underground they have several exhibits explaining how they do the digs and what kind of things they found. Especially interesting was the powder keg, where you could still see the burnt logs from when the British burnt the building. The interpreters also put on a good demonstration of loading British and American muskets and firing a 6 pound cannon (without the cannonball – as they explained there boss gave them a cannon ball that wouldn’t fit in the cannon – they had tried.)

Niagra Falls

American Falls

We had a steak dinner last night with Mike and Val at their house. Today, we had a quick 2 hour visit to Niagara Falls. No time to do the Maid of the Mist, and with parking difficult on the Canadian side, we opted to go to Niagara State Park and walk the trails along the falls. It is impressive with the huge volume of water that pours down. The American falls had a great rainbow as we watched it plunge. Then we walked to Goat Island and watched the Maid of the Mist as it approached Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side (the rainbows were good here too). Since we were just passing through, we didn’t spend a lot of time here.

Connecticut and Boston

Mark and Steve (and house)

We spent the weekend with our cruise friends, Mark and Steve. They own a beautiful, old house which is on the national registry. They had a party for us on Saturday with many of the folks we’ve met on cruises. These guys really love their house and it showed.
Then we headed to Boston to visit Ruth, who we’ve made many trips with including our last one to Machu Pichu. Ruth gave us a personal tour of old Boston. We took the T downtown, walked through Boston command and then had a great lunch at the Firefly. We walked many of the downtown streets: the shopping district on Newbury and Boylston Streets as well as the brown stone mansions on Marlborough Street. Ruth volunteers at the Gibson House, a Victorian house with most of its original furnishings and many of the clothes and accessories from that age. The original wallpaper was particularly impressive. We then walked up Beacon Hill to see some of the mansions. Kerry owns a house here that used to be a convent. We concluded the day by going to the North side and having a great Italian dinner.

Ruth and Mary in Boston

Maine

Today was kind of a bust. We left Acadia and started driving U.S. 1 down the Maine coast. It took about 3 hours to go 120 miles. Our stop was the Musical Wonder House in Wiscasset, Maine. We arrived there a little after noon, but they were short-handed. We had wanted to take the 1 hour tour of the Music Box Museum. But our guide was also asked by a couple to look at the antique music boxes, since they were interested in purchasing one as a collector’s item. So we saw an amazing set of music boxes built in 1840 and later. He had about 20 different boxes from lunch box size to suit case size, some played metal discs, and others, cylinders (some of which were interchangeable). That sort of ended our tour, we never saw the museum music boxes because this couple was ready to invest about $5000 in one of these antiques. We had an interesting talk with the other member of the museum – he was from Brazil, had 6 college degrees and risen through the education ranks there all the way to being asked to be in the ministry of Education. But the corruption in the government was too much – he eventually continued his education in the U.S. and immigrated here. At 2:00, we gave up and headed down the road, too late for our next stop at Longfellow’s house. But we ended up in a beautiful campground along the coast in Wells, Maine.

Acadia National Park

View from Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park

We got the last RV site in the park last night. Today, we spent the day riding around the island. The park consists of donated land, primarily from John D. Rockefeller. As part of the donation, he also built a series of carriage roads which allow bikes, hikers, and horses, but no cars. We timed our visit to Thunder Hole perfectly; the tide was coming into this rectangular rock formation just right. About every 4 minutes the wave would crash into the rock creating a thunder like sound. The drive along the coast is beautiful; lots of rocky coast with islands dotting the sea. The other highlight was going to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest (1500 feet) mountain on the Atlantic seaboard. From there you could see the entire Mt Desert island, where the park is located, off to the sea in every direction.

Bay of Fundy

Boats at low tide

We continued driving the Fundy Trail along the Bay. Our most interesting stop was a side trip on the Scenic Fundy Trail outside of St. Martins. This will eventually be a road that connects Fundy National Park with St. Martins, but today there is only about 20 kilometers of road. This was closer to what I expected of Fundy National Park – lots of views of the coast with the wide variations in tide visible along the shore line. The most impressive part was right at the start with the boats on the floor of the harbor since the tide was out. There were also two covered bridges there.

New Brunswick

Flower Pot Formation on the Bay of Fundy

Our final stop in Nova Scotia was Grand-Pre’ Historic Park. Here we heard the story of the Acadians in Canada. They settled here for many years getting along with the native population. But the land was signed over to England and the English didn’t trust these French, Roman Catholic people. The people refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the British, afraid that they would have to fight against other French descendents in New France across the Bay. The British decided to evict the people, they gathered them up over the course of 8 years, burned their houses and either sent them down into the other British colonies, Britain, or France. Of course, some of these folks ended up in Louisiana, created the French flavor of New Orleans.
In New Brunswick, we stopped at the Hope Rocks and series of rock shaped by the tide in the Bay of Fundy. The most famous formations are the flower pots, which had narrow bottoms and wider tops. The tides here are extra high (10-30 meters) because the Bay of Fundy is a long narrow bay, and there is a natural rhythm to the tides that gets reinforced by the shape of the bay here. Tonight, we’re spending out evening in Fundy National Park.

Nova Scotia

Peggy's Cove

Today, we continued down the Atlantic coast to the quaint village of Peggy’s Cove. Our waitress had recommended this as the best sight and it was unique. This is the only place where we saw huge granite boulders everywhere, along with quaint houses among the rocks. We took lots of pictures with the weather just gorgeous. We continued along the coast for quite a ways to the town Lunenberg. Lunenberg is a world heritage site because they’ve preserved most of the original buildings from the 19th century along two of their main streets. We rode along the streets, but didn’t consider it worth stopping. Then we crossed Nova Scotia from the Atlantic to the Bay of Fundy side, stopping at Port Royale. They’ve recreated the original 1607 French settlement from pictures and diaries. The place was only here for about 8 years before the British burned it down, but it marked one of the first settlements in French America.

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Traveling along Cape Breton

We had a beautiful campsite last night in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Today, we started along the coast going up and down the highlands (about 450 meters high) several times. We never did sight any whales and have still not seen a moose, though we’ve seen lots of signs warning of moose. There were many beautiful pull-outs along the highway, even if it was a cloudy day. As we left the park it started pouring rain, which it did almost the entire trip to Halifax. Going along the coasts took a lot of time, so that we arrived in Halifax about 5:00 PM with most of the sights (the Citadel and the Marine Museum) closed and the rain still pouring down. So we went down to the wharf area and had a great dinner next to the Ocean.

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Bell's HD-4 hydofoil

Today was mostly spent traveling from Prince Edward Island to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Our one stop was in Baddeck at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. Bell invented the telephone in his 20’s, which made him (along with his wife’s money) and rich man. He had his summer home here to escape the busy life in Boston and Washington. The exhibit was well done, explaining how his experiments to help the deaf led to the telephone. He enjoyed experimenting and beside the telephone, also made major improvements to the phonograph, then went on to work on gigantic kites that could carry a man. He and his colleagues eventually created several aircraft models and there’s was the first plane to fly publicly for more than a kilometer. He took what he learned here and began working on hydrofoils creating a boat that held the speed record in the 1910’s. He married one of his deaf pupils and they lived their lives together dieing within 5 months of each other – a lover as well as a scientist.

Prince Edward Island

Parabolic Sand Dunes

Today, we took the Eastern Coastal drive to see a little of PEI. We took a hike in PEI National Park, Greenwich. It’s on a spit of land going into the sea and had quite a variety of terrain. We started out next to St. Peter’s Bay in a typical grassland next to the water, then we entered a young forest dominated by White Spruce, it creates a lot of shade so little else grew. Then a few steps away we were in a more mature forest with a variety of tree species including pines, birch, and Maple trees with the ground covered with bright red bunch berries. A little more and we reached dried sand dunes covered with lichens. This was followed by a pond filled with cattails where we walked the board walks until we reached the shore on the other side. Here the distinctive feature was parabolic sand dunes (shaped by the wind). Only a few areas in North America have these and dunes which slowly move across the land.
We continued our drive to the Eastern lighthouse, pretty we decided it wasn’t worth $4 to have a tour of the lighthouse.
On the way back, we stopped in Charlottetown to see the Founders Hall. This was a very interesting interactive exhibit which told the story of the forming of the Canadian confederation. In 1864, the Maritime colonies planned a meeting to consider consolidation, and the colony of Canada (present day Quebec and Ontario) crashed the party and suggested a larger confederation including them. It took another 3 years, but in 1867, London approved the Canadian confederation. Each colony voted whether to join, and the funny thing was that PEI decided not to join initially. Thus only 4 colonies actually started the confederation. New Brunswick actually tried to get out 4 months after the confederation was formed, but London wouldn’t let them. PEI joined several years later because Canada offered to pay for the railroad they had built and couldn’t pay for. It wasn’t until 1949 that Labrador joined the Union.

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island Provincial Park

Yesterday, we traveled primarily through forested New Brunswick to get here. That included a 100 miles of just forest – no towns, just a road that at times shook us to pieces. On arriving we visited the Wyatt Heritage Properties in Summerside. The house was owned originally by one of the shipping magnates – it is one of the best preserved houses I’ve seen from the late 19th century. Most of the furnishing are original (all but 4) and one can tour the entire house – no roped off areas. And best of all, we had a private tour of the entire place. In the afternoon we visited Avonlea of Ann of Green Gables fame. They had many of the original buildings that surrounded the author during her years of writing. The place overcharged as far as we were concerned, but the entertainment (square dancing, little skits, and a good concert of Prince Edward Island music) almost made it worth it.

Quebec City, Quebec

Chateau Frontenac Hotel

As we had read in the War Museum, Canada went from French to British control on the Plains of Abraham during a 30 minute battle. The British in one desperate attempt before winter set in landed their troops and climbed the cliffs to the plains of Abraham under the cover of darkness. The French were surprised to see them there and made the mistake of leaving the high ground to engage them in battle. 30 minutes later they were defeated. The British concerned about invasion from America, built the citadel, a huge fort on top of the hills which could protect both the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the city itself. We toured the citadel as well as a walking tour of the old town, still within its city walls and filled with many historic churches. If one didn’t know better you would think you were in France, all the buildings and streets had that type of flavor.

Montreal, Quebec

Our Map of Montreal

We entered Quebec and all the traffic signs immediately went to French. We were nervous from other peoples’ stories about Montreal and Quebec, but experienced just the opposite. For example, when we stopped for our campsite, the attendant switched from French to English and without prompting said he would draw us a map of how to get around in Montreal. We told him of some of the key sites we wanted to see, he suggested we save the old city for last – because Quebec City’s was so much better. We visited the huge Oratorio of St. Joseph – a huge church that dominates the horizon. From there, we went to Mount Royale for a beautiful view of the city below. Then off to the botanical gardens – one could fit Denver’s botanical gardens into a corner of these. We only saw about ¼ of the layout. Most spectacular were the orchid collection, the Chinese garden, which reminded us of ones we saw in Bejing; and the insectorium, which had a vast collection of insects from around the world. This was much more than a butterfly pavilion – it really taught us about all sort of beetles, butterflies, and assorted insects.

Ottawa

Parliament Hill

We started the day appropriately by seeing the changing of the guard on Parliament Hill. This consists of lots of marching music with the formal inspection of the new guard and then the formal change of guard. We then did a tour of the House of Parliament where we learned a lot about the Canada’s government. The lower house is the House of Commons, 300 some delegates elected by the people. What was surprising for me was that the upper house, the Senate closely matched the British model – the 100 or so members are appointed for life by the Queen as recommended by the Prime minister. Most of these folks tend to be experts in various fields and often sit in on the hearing of the House of Commons committees. After the House of Commons passes a bill they discuss the bill and may recommend changes to the bill but rarely do they kill a bill. We also visited Notre Dame cathedral and the local market street where we had lunch.

In the afternoon, we went to the Canada War Museum. It was interesting to read about the French and Indian wars, as well as Canada’s concerns about an American invasion during the revolution and the War of 1812. There also was quite a bit about the Canadian participation in World War I. Here is a case where the bravery of the Canadian soldiers in several key battles, especially Reims, seemed to move the world’s opinion of them from a British colony to an independent country.

Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario

Alligator

On our way to Ottawa, we went through Algonquin Provincial Park. What an interesting stop! The visitor center had a lot of information about the history of the forest. This was another case (like in Northern Wisconsin) where the lumber jacks came in and started cutting down the huge white pines, expecting them to last for hundreds of years, and it lasting only several decades. At first they only used the truck up to the first branch, then squared everything because that way the logs could be easily transported by ship to England. Later, as the trees dwindled, they started using more of the tree, but they had problems with forest fires because of all the tree remains from earlier cuts. The lumberman actually encouraged the formation of the Provincial Park to discourage homesteading. The Park is managed like we manage National forests – for multiple uses including sustained lumbering.
The unique stop was at the logging museum. Here they pointed out the unique equipment that had to be used to get the logs to market. Most of this area consists of connected lakes. The lumber was cut in the winter and transported to the lakes. Here they had devise flat or declining iced paths for the huge horse-drawn sleds. There were special ice wagons that took water from the lakes and spread them on the paths. If there was a particularly steep portion to the path, they had a series of pulleys to help slow down the sled. In the spring, they used rafts in the lake to pull the logs through until the next stream. First the horses would pull the raft to one side of the lake and then they would tighten the ropes around the floating logs behind the raft to bring the across. This would be repeated and repeated making about 1-2 miles a day of progress. Eventually, the horses were replaced by ‘alligators’ which had engines in them to move the logs across the lakes. And, of course, the lumber jacks had to create water chutes to cross areas of the rivers where there were too many rapids. This museum was just fascinating, showing the ingenuity of the loggers to get their logs to market.

Sudbury, Ontario

We headed through Northern Wisconsin, and Upper Michigan, crossing the border at Sault Ste. Marie. Most of the terrain was typical North Woods. We just missed a big fire which was only 30 miles away from our planned campsite. In Sudbury, we stopped to see Dynamic Earth, a chance to see and here about mining in this area. They believe that a meteorite crashed into the earth here – long before humans were in existence. This left this entire area rich with minerals, especially copper. The tour consisted of entering an exhibit mine (we were only down 65 feet) and then seeing how mining was conducted in the 1900, 1950, and 2000. Going from candles and picks, awls, and hammers as the typical environment, to florescent lighting, hydraulic, water cooled drills, and robotic controlled heavy equipment. While we were in the mine, we could hear and feel the blasting of a nearby active mine. Definitely, a great stop if you had kids, but also quite interesting to us.

Interstate Park, Wisconsin

A "fine" pothole
We’ve joined up with the Balza’s at Interstate Park on the St. Croix river just inside the Wisconsin border. Tony, Grace, Bob, Cindy, Colleen and Laura are here for an extended weekend. On Saturday, we joined the naturalist for 2 short hikes. This area has two unique features – both created from melting glaciers from about 10,000 years ago. The first is the Dalles of St. Croix. The rock here is basalt from old magma, filled with cracks. A huge lake formed north of here (near what is now Lake Superior) as the glaciers melted. When they broke through the ice dam, the water rammed down this valley, carving away the rock as it came through. Its natural flow was to crash through the rocks along the cracks in the rocks forming the Dalles.
The other key feature is the potholes, also formed from the melting glaciers. The river that formed here was over 2 miles wide and it picked up stones, which starting forming these holes, grinding away the rock (the hardest rock found in Wisconsin) to create these potholes. The naturalist pointed out that while on the Minnesota side were the deepest and widest potholes, Wisconsin had the ‘finest’ example of a pothole.

We enjoyed the weekend, catching up with each other and hiking the various trails. Bob and I also took the canoe up the river into the Dalles, and down the river a ways. We had fun though trying to get back up river through the small rapids, twice the water current turned the canoe around. We finally made it through a narrow channel along the side of the riverbank.

Pipestone National Monument

Fashioning a Pipestone
We left Wednesday for the start of our trip to the Maritime provinces of Canada. The wind was howling and the rain pouring as we went through North Platt Nebraska. We had trouble keeping the trailer from swinging in the rain, especially as the semi trucks went by. We spent the night at Morman Island State Park right off Interstate 80 near Grand Island, Nebraska.

Thursday, we crossed the rest of Nebraska, briefly entered Iowa at Sioux City and South Dakota at Sioux Falls to finally reach Pipestone, Minnesota. The National Monument here protects the quarries where the Indians come to find pipestone - a soft reddish stone that can be carved. It is only a 2 to 14 inch layer of what used to be mud. This stone was used from Georgia to the Pacific to create the peace pipes or small ornaments that were used by the Indians for several centuries. It's a stop that only requires about an hour and half. We went through the museum, a couple Indians demonstrated how the pipestones were made, and then we took a walk around the quarry area. The natural area around the monument was as interesting as the quarry - Winnewissa falls; the Oracle, a face-like rock formation; and the natural tall grass prairie, which has largely disappeared in the U.S.

Last night, we learned that it had rained over 3" in an hour and that part of our basement had flooded - no major damage done, but a few things have to be dried out. We're on to Interstate Park today.