Halifax and the Evangeline Trail

Our kilted guide Ken toured us through the Anapolis Valley where French Catholic settlers, known as the Acadians, first settled.
They built clay dikes to permit the high Bay of Fundy tides to flood the area, leaving mineral rich silt for farming when they rolled out.

The British forced their expulsion from the land in the mid 1700s. Longfellow's narrative poem "Evangeline" popularized the cause of the Acadians internationally. In the last century, Queen Elizabeth dedicated the histroic park at Grand Pre to the memory of thier tragic exile.

We ate in the small college town of Wolfville. Mom and I tried out the "national obsession" Tim Horton's coffee shop. I had a few sips of the brew - my tounge grew fur and my ears began ringing. Later, we journeyed to a local apple orchard where I tasted a 400 year old cultivar, the German Gravestein. Most everyone else enjoyed a scoop of homemade ice cream.

When we passed back through the Anapolis Valley the tide was high and the clay dikes we'd photographed earlier in the day were now swollen marshlands. As a bonus, our coach took us to the star-shaped dry moat Citadel that looks over Halifax, guarded by soldiers in traditional costume.

St. John's Surprise

Our unreally perfect weather continued into St. John's, Newfoundland. Rough winds, however, chilled us at our first stop, Cape Spear.

This handsome stetch of coast, a lookout station during the second world war, still boasts a working lighthouse and status as a national park. Wild yellow lupins, thistle, milkweed, and black eyed susans bind the soil with their roots and prevent it from blowing away. The evergreens all bend in the direction the wind blows and lose their needles on the eastern side.

After a pass by the settlement of scenic Petty Harbor, we drove through downtown St. John and up Signal Hill.


We could see our cruise ship from this site that overlooked both the harbor and the Cape Spear lighthouse. I climbed the steps to the Marconi Turret where the first wireless transatlantic signal was exchanged.

Our guide Laura, a young Newfoundlander, though less steeped in history and fact than our other guides gave us the best demonstration of what it was like to live in the area as she joked with the driver and shared personal anecdotes.

The locals easily gave us our best welcome and our best send off of the cruise. At the pier, huge furry Newfoundland dogs, Canadian mounted police, actresses in Victorian dress and a Tv crew greeted us. As we departed, our friendly hosts lined the piers, cliffs and roads surrounding the inlet and waved to us until we passed from sight.