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Map of Bike Trip through the maritimes Including
Nova Scotia, PEI, and New Brunswick
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Day 15 - Kejimkujik National Park to Lunenburg, NS
The rain was over by morning, but it was still
pretty damp and miserable. I rolled up my muddy
tent, thankfully accepting a cup of hot coffee
from my neighbours who had had the patience to
get their stove going. I just wanted to get on
the road. Once underway I realised that I was
impatient to get to Lunenburg, and started
thinking about going there directly, rather than
heading to Liverpool first as I had planned.
The historic town was designated a UNESCO World
Heritage Site in 1995. This designation ensures
protection for much of Lunenburg's unique
architecture and civic design, being the best
example of planned British colonial settlement in
North America. Lunenburg is the birthplace of the
world famous boat Bluenose.
I stopped at a gas station to get the tires
pumped up nice and hard and then headed out. I
figured it might be a challenge to get there by
suppertime (it was already 10 am) but it turned
out to be a fast day. Why are some days fast and
some days painfully slow? Does it have anything
to do with warp speed technology or wormholes?
For whatever reason it was just one of those fast
days - a great road with no traffic, lots of
slightly downhill sections with no uphills big
enough to break your rhythm, pretty countryside,
and a continually brightening sky. I did the 69
km into Bridgewater in about 3 hours and rewarded
myself with lunch in a pub, on a balcony that
overlooked the LaHave River. I got into town
about 330, and struggled to the top of
Blockhouse Hill to the town campground. The folk
festival was in full swing just next to the
campground, and I listened to the music for a
while after setting up the tent. That evening I
went to a chowder supper (Lunenburgers probably
make the best fish chowder in the world), and ran
into George and Nora, the Vancouver cyclists I
had met in PEI. We chatted for a while, comparing
notes. In the evening I wandered around the town,
taking pictures.
Distance for the day 100 km
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Days 16 and 17, Lunenburg, NS
On Sunday morning I went to church. St. John's
Anglican Church in Lunenburg has to be one of the
most beautiful churches anywhere (my bias
again...). The original church was built in 1753,
the year the town of Lunenburg was settled by
several shiploads of Swiss and German
Protestants, ferried down the coast in British
ships from the newly established military bastion
of Halifax. It burned down in 2001, but was
recently rebuilt.
The majority of buildings date from the mid to
late 19th century, a time of great prosperity in
Nova Scotia, and relatively little has changed
since then. The main street has some newer, and
newly-renovated, buildings but you can still
wander block by block through 'Old Town' and
'Goose Town' among hundreds of old wooden houses,
some humble and some grand, many built right to
the street, most with their original doors and
windows and front stoops intact, and with the
occasional kitchen garden, all sleeping quietly
in the summer sun. It is an amazing little town,
with a highly individual character and identity.
I read somewhere the comment about how 'you
cannot become Japanese' - you're either born
Japanese or you're not - and I think the same
kind of idea applies to Lunenburg in some small
way. Its German Protestant background, overlaid
with generations of hard seagoing history and
long periods of relative isolation in a new land,
have created a town with a unique character, a
'tiny nation' in some ways, with its distinctive
history, family names, way of speaking,
traditions, and even cuisine . My family and I
lived there for six years, including for me the
formative high school years, but I don't think I
ever thought of calling myself a Lunenburger, and
as a teenager in the 1960's I sometimes railed
against what I thought of as its backwardness or
inward-looking nature. But going back made me
see it more clearly, as a place of great
character and beauty, with people who have a
strong pride in their town and their history, and
where the no-nonsense values of discipline and
industry of those first German Protestant
settlers are still very much alive in their
descendants. I feel fortunate to have lived
there.
Distance cycled 40 km
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Day 18 - Lunenburg to Graves Island Provincial
Park, NS Left Lunenburg in the late morning and
biked along old Highway 3, which not so long ago
was the one and only highway into Halifax.
Stopped for the day at Graves Island Provincial
Park (great campground), just past Chester.
Joined to the mainland by a short causeway, the
island is typical of many of the small islands
found along Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast. This
quiet ocean side campground has long been a
popular vacation spot for Nova Scotians and
visitors alike. The campground is an excellent
base for outdoor adventures including ocean
kayaking and biking along the South Shore as well
as day tripping to the area's many attractions.
After setting up, I went back into Chester to
look around. Chester's a very pretty village,
with a lot of beautiful old homes built by
vacationing Americans and Canadians in the
decades before air conditioning made the summers
in Ontario and New York bearable. Its one of the
wealthiest communities in the province as a
result of being a vacation destination, with many
seasonal and year-round estates and mansions.
I took the last (return) ferry of the day out to
Big Little Tancook Islands, and had a welcome
beer in the local pub. Tancook and Little Tancook
are 2 islands located 6 miles off the southern
coast of Nova Scotia in Mahone Bay. Today, the
population of Tancook Island is approximately
190. The people make their living solely on the
sea as inshore fishermen or ferry crew. Little
Tancook has approximately 35 people, all subsist
on the sea for their living as well.
Graves Island Provincial park
Scenes from Tancook Islands
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Graves Island Provincial Park
Little Tancook Island
Big Tancook Island
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Day 19 - Graves Island Provincial Park to Glen
Margaret, NS
Leaving Graves Island I continued along Highway
3, turning right at East River onto the Aspotogan
Peninsula. It's pretty country to begin with but
becomes progressively more barren as you head
south, a stark contrast to the more lush areas
around Chester and Lunenburg. At Bayswater, near
the end of the peninsula, I stopped to look at
the Swissair memorial which at that time was
still under construction. Swissair Flight 111
crashed into the sea between Bayswater and
Peggy's Cove in September 1998, killing all 229
persons aboard. The memorial was nearing
completion and workman were busy at various
tasks. The tablet with the inscription had
already been installed. The wording was pure Nova
Scotia, a province with many memorials to many
disasters along its rocky and dangerous coast.
The inscription mourned yet another group of poor
souls "who perished off these shores". In front
of the tablets were several concrete caissons,
and I wondered at first whether they could be for
planters? Or for ponds? They were of course
graves, where many unidentified remains were
buried together with the consent of the families.
I continued on around the peninsula, arriving
back at Highway 3, and continued east past the
popular beaches at Queensland. At Hubbards I
turned south again towards Peggy's Cove but
stopped at a pleasant campground in Glen Margaret
for the night. Had a great supper in a small
roadside restaurant, located in a small house and
open only in the summer months.
Glen Margaret
Graves Island Provincial Park
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Day 20 - Glen Margaret to Halifax, NS I cycled
into Peggy's Cove for breakfast, with the weather
gradually worsening. I have to admit I'm not a
huge fan of Peggy's Cove. It has become a Nova
Scotia icon, and although new development is not
permitted anywhere near the village itself, it is
still the destination of probably more than a
thousand bus tourists every day in the summer. If
Peggy's Cove ever vanishes into the sea, they
will be able to recreate every house, every cleft
in the rock, every stone on the road, just by
issuing a call for people to send in their
holiday snaps.
From Peggy's Cove it was a rather dispiriting
ride into Halifax. The trip was almost over, and
the landscape is quite poor and barren until you
get close to the city. The usual suburban
dreariness and the clearly approaching rain
didn't help.
Halifax itself however is a great city with a
long and interesting history, and with the
character and sense of place that go with it.
It's large enough to have a variety of sights and
activities, but small enough to see pretty
thoroughly in a few days.
Good bars too - like most places in the
Maritimes, Halifax is a town that likes to drink!
It's also a major university town, with probably
close to 25 000 students in an inner-city
population of only about 150 000.
Even in mid-summer it seemed that the majority of
the people on the streets were in their teens and
twenties. I arrived in town just as the rain did,
and my picture taking for the trip ended.
Distance for the day 57 km
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Day 21 Halifax
Originally named Jipugtug, or Chebucto - which
means "biggest harbour" - by the Mi'kmaq people
who lived there, the town of Halifax was founded
as a British military outpost by General Edward
Corn-wallis and some 2500 settlers on July 9,
1749.
It subsequently became one of the British
Empire's prided cities, and the monarchy spared
no expense in protecting the harbor. Halifax's
intricate defense network can be seen at notable
sites like the Prince of Wales Tower, the York
Redoubt fortification, and the Halifax Citadel, a
unique, star-shaped fort overlooking the city.
The purpose of Halifax's founding was as a
defensive outpost to protect the New England
colonies from French forces to the northeast in
what is now Cape Breton Island. French forces
from Louisbourg had attacked British fishing
outposts and fishing vessels at Canso in 1744
during King George's War, and New Englanders were
terrified of the perceived French threat.
Near the center of the bustling port city of
Halifax, on a high point of land overlooking
Halifax Harbor, you will find the 19th century
military fort, the Citadel. The present structure
of steep masonry walls and numerous stone lined
underground rooms, was completed in 1856 and is
the fourth in a series of British Forts at the
site. Today, the restored complex is a national
historic site, commemorating Halifax's role as a
key naval station of an earlier British
empire. A daily firing of a cannon at noon is a
ritual upheld since the mid 19th century.
Exhibits of early military life in the Citadel
are everywhere. As well, you can observe
precision drills in the parade square of soldiers
in 1800s military dress. This includes the 78th
Highlanders who occupied the fort from 1869 to
1871.
Halifax is a city that has everything a city
dweller could hope for urban elegance, rich
history and eclectic flair. Halifaxs urban core
is the highest population centre in Atlantic
Canada and is the major cultural centre within
the region. It has flourished as a prominent port
situated on the world's second largest natural
harbor. The Halifax Regional Municipality
consists of several communities, including
Halifax, Dartmouth, Cole Harbor, Bedford and
Sackville, an amalgamation that became official
in 1990. Central Halifax is ideal for exploring
on foot, as most major attractions are within
walking distance of each other.