Halifax

I travel by bus down the east coast of the Gaspe peninsula and arrive in a small town called Campbellton, which isn't a destination in itself; most people seem to go there on their way to or from the Gaspe peninsula, or to catch the train and I am here for both reasons, as from here I am planning to catch the train to Halifax in Nova Scotia. The hostel here is in a little wooden lighthouse and it is owned and run by the town. It only has 2 dorms and a lounge cum reception in the old lighthouse keeper's house and a kitchen in the base of the hexagonal lighthouse. Only the ground floor is accessible, as there is still an automated light at the top.

Lighthouse Hostel at Campbellton

Apart from two snorers, the only other guest in the hostel was a Swiss girl, called Mirjam (pronounced Miriam). She recognises me from the hostel in Quebec City. It's funny how travellers meet and re-meet; everyone pretty much does the same circuits. Since leaving Quebec City were have both pretty much done the same route, but in opposite directions and we have been trying to work out when we passed each other. We have just been comparing photos and laughing that we saw many of the same things, but in different weather. She has a photo of her at a lookout at Land’s End with a beautiful panorama behind her and in my photo there is only me in the mist and we have almost the opposite shots in another location, me in the sun at Tadoussac and Miriam in the mist.

Mirjam She is also travelling to Halifax on the train today and is also staying in the same hostel as me there, so I have some company again for a while, which is nice. We join the train at 7am and are due to arrive in Halifax just after 5pm. The train originated in Montreal, so the other passengers are sleepy from their overnighter and arms and legs hang out of seats into the aisles. The train rumbles along quite slowly and to begin with are close to the coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence and look out across the water on this grey misty day. It is reminiscent of the train journey along the South Devon coast from Teignmouth to Exeter. That's a coming home/going away memory for me, as I used to catch the train from Newton Abbot to Liverpool during my college years. After we leave the coast we travel through broadleaf forest and sometimes break out to run parallel to a road as we approach a small town. It’s a single track line, with an occasional piece of double track, like a siding, where we stop from time to time to allow a freight train to pass. When we pass into Nova Scotia the countryside becomes more familiar and opens out into rolling farmland, with rather scruffy-looking fields surrounded by trees and the occasional farm house and out-buildings dotting the landscape.

I read my guidebook on the train and it tells me that in 1917 Halifax experienced the greatest man-made cataclysm of the pre-atomic age. In World War 1 Halifax was a departure point for conveys transporting troops and armaments to Europe. Two ships collided in the harbour, one f which was carrying half a million pounds of TNT. The blast killed 2000 people instantly and flattened 300 acres of Halifax and with fire destroying much more. Part of the anchor of one of the ships was later found in a field 4km away. To make matters worse 40cm of snow fell that day, hampering rescue attempts and bodies of many of the victims were not recovered until the following Spring.

Via Rail to Halifax

Halifax is a small city and our hostel is in an old heritage building close to everything we want to see and visit. The waterfront has a boardwalk which is pleasant to wander along at any time of day or in the evening. It goes along by restaurants, a small marina, tourist kiosks, passenger ferries and docks where tourist boats wait. The city looks out across the water of Halifax Harbour, with its various islands, to Dartmouth on the other side, where there is an oil refinery and a flame and plume of smoke escape from the top of a tall chimney.

Halifax Waterfront

Oil Refinery

The city is somewhat of a hotchpotch of old and new buildings, but they seem to be making an effort to keep old building where they can, even if it is just the facades.

Old Town Houses

Old Building Façades

Restored Waterfront Buildings

Public Garden in Halifax

On a hill at the top of the city is the Citadel, which is the original fort, built in a star shape. From here they fire a noonday gun and a changing of the guard is enacted for the tourists.

Changing the Guard at the Citadel

We visit a farmers’ market where people wander around inside and outside an old waterfront building. One stall is selling Eccles Cakes and Cornish pasties. There are many free tasters on offer and we stop to try homemade chutney at one stall and chat to a woman there. She tells us that she was born in Scotland and immigrated with her family when she was a baby. For 45 years she was officially a ‘landed immigrant’, with a British passport and she only sought Canadian citizenship after 9/11, because she said that then ‘everything changed.’ 

Cornish Pasties and Eccles Cakes in the Farmers' Market

Cow

Stall Holder

We visit the immigration museum at Pier 21 to find out more. It was here between 1926 and 1971 that all immigrants to Canada arrived. It was also the departure and return point for Canadian troops during the Second World War. We learn about the different waves of immigration during these years from various parts of Europe and the reasons why people decided to move across the Atlantic. For many they had very little choice, no possessions or documents, as they were refugees. It is all very informative, well-presented and moving. There is also an exhibition which celebrates Canadian multi-culturism and how people have maintained and continue to celebrate their original customs and practices in their adopted country. 

Pier 21

Immigration Hall 

On the wire fence surrounding a large building site there are blackboards printed with the starter, ‘In my life I have learned….’ Chalk is available in a box to add your own wisdom. Many of the phrases are serious such as ‘happiness is a choice’ and often to do with love in its many forms, such as, ‘that there is always room for more love’; ‘the best present is my own family’. But there are also truthful light-hearted ones such as: ‘always bring my camera’; ‘sushi is terrible for hangovers’; ‘that I should have gone back to Ontario’; ‘everything is better with cake’; and written at the top of one board, ‘it’s useful to be tall’. 

In my Life I have Learned 

Do you remember when I stayed with Ann and her grandson in Orillia, north of Toronto? Well Harold lives in Dartmouth, across the water from Halifax, with his Dad, also called Harold and his mum, Michelle. I give them a ring and arrange to meet up and fulfill my promise of taking Harold for icecream. Mirjam and I take the ferry across the harbour and as I am early, Mirjam and I take a look around the waterfront and admire the view across the water back to Halifax. 

Me with View of Halifax

In the ferry building there is an event going on and as we walk through the doors it is like entering a parallel universe. This is a comic book festival. Stall holders sit behind trestle tables displaying their art and many are absorbed with drawing their strange and often violent images. Punters mill about and watch and I catch snippets of strange conversations that I don’t understand and wouldn’t know how to join in. They are all taking it very seriously, but also having a good time.  

Comic Book Festival

Just along the waterfront there is the ‘World Peace Pavilion’. The idea came from a youth group in 1989 and all the countries in the world were asked to contribute a piece of rock or a brick. The rocks are to represent the earth we all share and bricks to represent our ability to shape the future. It is interesting to see the different contributions from the various countries; some exhibits come with a little explanation and others have no information, other than the name of the country – maybe those just sent any old rock and didn’t give it much thought. There is a piece of ‘The Wall’ from Germany, complete with graffiti and metal reinforcing rods. Standing out amongst all the pieces of rock and bricks, there is a clay pot from Fiji. I bet when the Fijian delegation saw it in with the others there was a lot of whispering and nudging of each other, 'Hey, everyone else has brought a brick...'  'I thought they said ‘pot’, not ‘brick’ 'Never mind, keep smiling and no-one will notice'.

Piece of the Berlin Wall

I meet up with Harold and give him a hug and meet his parents for the first time. They take me a short way along the river in the direction of the sea, to a little place called Eastern Passage. Here a shingle bank juts out, with the ocean on one side and the river on the other and a pleasant sea breeze .freshens the air. We wander along a pleasant broadwalk past colourful wooden kiosks, mostly selling gifts. In Nova Scotia lobster is plentiful and the local delicacy and we visit one shack where live lobsters lie in an open tank of water, with their pinchers tied closed. The girl there tells us she doesn’t like to eat lobster herself, but she shows us a couple of 5-6 pounders and tells us that these are really bigger than the most sought-after specimens. She picks a couple of smaller ones out of the tank and they buck and clack the shell plates on their backs. Smaller lively ones like these make a tasty dinner. 

Eastern Passage

Kiosks

Lobsters

Shingle Bank at Eastern Passage

We stop at a kiosk and choose ice cream. I discover a new flavour of orange and liquorice, called tiger tail. Then we take a wander along the beach and shingle bank where families paddle in the incoming tide and fish in the fast-flowing water of the river mouth. It has been very nice to see young Harold again and meet his parents and Ann will be pleased to know. I’ll send her a picture for her to enjoy our meeting vicariously.

Ice Cream with Harold and his Parents

Harold and his Dad, also Harold

Gaspe

In the morning the sea mist still covers the Festive Sea Shack hostel and I say my goodbyes to Carly, Steph and Riana. They are returning to Montreal and I have arranged a lift further up the coast towards the end of the peninsula with a French girl called Perrine.  She doesn’t have much English and I begin to regret being so typically-English lazy last week and allowing the others to communicate in French for me. I pull out my very rusty school French, which is strangely punctuated with the occasional German word, but we manage to maintain something of a conversation. On the journey Perrine wants to stop at tourist places to take photos, but the sea mist shrouds everything and there are almost no views of what I imagine would be beautiful coastal scenery. We pass several lighthouses and stop briefly to take a picture at one which is also an historic site where Marconi set up the first North American maritime radio station.

Lighthouse

We arrive at the hostel where we are both staying. It is a remote, rustic affair, with an outdoor bar and a garden looking out over the sea. I sit in the garden looking out across the grey, misty sea and watch flocks of sea birds dive-bombing themselves into the water with a plop to catch fish. My dormitory is a little wooden house with bunks downstairs and a wooden ladder leading up into the eaves, Heidi-style, where there is a double and a single bed. I am lucky enough to have the double bed and it almost feels like my own space.

Hostel at L’Anse au Griffon

Dormitory House

There is a national park at the end of the peninsula and I want to hike to Cap Gaspe where the Appalachian Mountains rise out of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The name Gaspe comes from the native Micmac name meaning Land’s End. Nearby is also where Jacques Cartier landed in 1534 and  'discovered' Canada. I find myself attracted to remote places where the sea and the land meet. The park information tells me that there is a lot of wildlife here, including black bears, but encouragingly the park blurb says that no-one has ever been attacked by a bear in this park.

My hike starts at a harbour and passes through restored buildings of an old fishing village. It was mainly Jersey and Guernsey Islanders who settled here at the end of the 19^th century and made a living from cod fishing and salting. There is a restored general store which was the hub of the settlement and a house where two women in period costume sit quietly sewing and chatting.   

Hyman and Sons Store

Historic House

Women Sewing Inside the House

The sea is calm and the mist is still hanging around today and as I take the path along the cliff top it is difficult to tell the difference between the sea and the sky. There are views to small stoney coves where cormorants sit on the rocks and the cliffs are made of interesting diagonal strata. The path passes through wild flowers and into an old cemetery where a plaque reads:

‘They came on the sea from the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey; beside the sea they built churches, homes and schools; from the sea they lived and by the sea they rest.’

Misty Sea Shore

Wild Flowers

Indian Cove Cemetery

Rock Strata

As the path carries on there is evidence of the bears as some of the grass and flowers are flattened and there are piles of fresh bear poo on the path. I am not too worried, as this is a popular path and there are many other people around. After 2 hours I reach the end of the land at Cap Gaspe where a lighthouse stands. A plaque marks the start of the International Appalachian Trail which leads 4500km from here to Georgia. 

Cap Gaspe Lighthouse

Retracing my steps back along the trail I come round a corner to see a small black bear cub on the path in front of me. I stop and he takes no notice of me. A man coming in the other direction claps his hands and the bear trots off into the undergrowth. The man and I chat briefly to speculate about where the cub’s mother might be and then we hurry off. From here I clank my walking poles together from time to time to make some noise.

Black Bear Cub

The next part of the trail is up to a lookout and I take the path, eventhough  the mist still hangs on the hills and I don’t expect to get a view. At the top of the hill a wooden tower has been built which affords a 360 degree view. On a clear day the view would be of the Appalachian Mountains and the Gulf of St Lawrence, but I can only imagine it as today there is a 360 degree view of cloud!

Me in the Clouds

Parc National de la Gaspesie

Carly, Steph, Riana and I check out of the hippie hostel at Tadoussac and take the car ferry across the St Lawrence River to the east bank and as we drive north east along the Gaspe peninsula the road follows the coast and passes through flat farm land divided into small strips of fields, some of which are hay meadows filled with wild flowers, others have been cut and contain hay bales and others grow root crops.

Since we left Quebec City and travelled out into the countryside to Tadousac and now on to the Gaspe peninsula, places feel more and more remote and become almost exclusively French-speaking, with signs and information boards now in French only. Tourists and travellers from anywhere other than Quebec or France become a rare breed. Fortunately for me, Riana is a native French-speaker and Carly and Steph are linguists. It is interesting to be in a province that feels so different from the rest of Canada, because of the language. I could almost think I am in Europe. But it seems inconsistent that the rest of Canada has to be bi-lingual (there is even a government department that checks that all signs and packaging are printed in French as well as English. But Quebec is allowed to be mono -lingual.

As it starts to get dark, a turn in the road brings us face-to-face with a beautiful sunset and we park by a beach and stop to admire it as it sinks quickly into the sea. We stay overnight in a nice hostel in an old clapboard building just back from the rocky shore in the small town of Sainte Felicite.

Sunset

Me, Steph and Carly at St Felicite

The following day we continue driving and the landscape starts to become hilly inland. The Appalachian Mountains start here, rising out of the Atlantic at the tip of the Gaspe peninsula then striding across Quebec and into the US. Looking across the St Lawrence River, the opposite shore disappears from view as the river widens out even further. Tonight we are staying in a hostel called the 'Festive Sea Shack' and when we arrive we can see that it lives up to the ‘ sea shack’ part of its name as it is a collection of rustic huts, hammocks, yurts, tipis and camping on the beach. The ‘festive’ part of the deal is an open-air bar, live music until late in the evening and free condoms in a jar on the reception desk.  

Festive Sea Shack

The next day we drive into the Parc National de Gaspesie to stay for 2 nights. There are huts here to stay in – very like the ones in New Zealand, except they are accessible by road, which means that we don’t have to carry provisions, but makes it less of a wilderness experience. We don’t have all the cooking equipment we need, so we spend the previous evening at the hostel smuggling out ‘borrowed’ plates etc and a large cooking pan. We are hoping to be able to use our best Girl Guide skills to produce meals on the hut stove or camp fire. We plan to do some day hikes in the Appalachians and hopefully see some wildlife. Our first day’s hike is to the summit of Mont Albert. The ascent of 870 meters is pretty hard going and I can feel in my legs that it is some considerable while since I hiked like this.

All of us on Mont Albert

From the top of the mountain the path leads across a plateau of heathy moorland and strange bare patches of Mars-like red rocks, before descending into a steep rocky valley passing several waterfalls.

Red Rocks and Valley

Waterfalls

On the descent it starts to rain and by the time we get to our hut we are pretty wet and Carly quickly gets the fire in the stove going and we hang our wet things around to dry and we feel pretty pleased with ourselves when we produce a satisfying meal of potatoes baked in the fire and sausages cooked in the pan on the top of the stove. What a team!

Refuge at Mont Albert

Drying Out and Cooking

Dinner

The next day we take a short walk to an area of the park where there is the possibility of seeing moose. The walk is beautiful; through semi-open birch forest and moorland, with wild flowers and a low-growing plant with a proliferation of red berries. We arrive at a lookout where we take some time to take in the misty clouds rising from the valley and hanging below the mountain tops. But unfortunately although we think we hear a moose moo in the distance, we don’t see any.

Respect the Mooses 

Berries

Misty View from Lookout

After the walk we drive to another area of the park, where we will stay by a lake. Tonight’s meal of fajitas is successfully cooked on the camp fire.  

Lunch at Lake Cascapedia

Lake Cascapedia

Fajitas for Dinner

Camp Fire

The next day we return for a second attempt at moose-spotting, but even though we make an early start, which is recommended, we are still not lucky.

Still Looking for Moose

Then we hike to the top of Mount Olivine. On the way up we spend some time watching a red squirrel who is very cute and keen to share our trail mix. He is tame enough to take a nut from Steph’s hand.

Red Squirrel

The Girls on Mont Olivine

On the way back down we get wet again and spend the rest of the afternoon in the park’s well-equipped visitor centre having showers and doing laundry before returning to the Festive Sea Shack. When we arrive at the hostel a sea mist has settled over the place and dampened the festive spirit slightly. Tonight is the last night of our week together, as tomorrow the girls return to Montreal. Steph and Carly have been very generous and gracious to share so much of their time with me and Riana. I think we have made a good team and for me it has been a real pleasure to share their company and do wilderness activities that I would not have been able to experience on my own. Hopefully we’ll meet up again in the future – maybe in the west country.