Tab 13: Charlottetown, Pictou (encore), Truro

"[Exasperated sigh]"

-from Marco, when Adrienne signs the Truro Visitor Centre book as "Cordelia DaVere"

Not an exciting day to report (but I shall report, anyway!) Left Charlottetown, drove to Wood Island, got on the ferry to Nova Scotia (different ferry, not the same one we rode over on…different in its lack of a Cow ice cream store and its plethora of transport trucks).

We decided to go back to Pictou because Marco wanted to buy a chef knife at Grohmann Knives.

I stopped in briefly at the Water Street Studio Crafts, right next door.

The last time we were in Pictou, it was closed. Guess what I found?

YARN! A totally hidden yarn store on the Interprovincial Yarn Crawl of 2007. The brand is called “Cobweb Woolies” and it’s made by this lady in Scotsburn, Nova Scotia from her flock of sheep and angora goats. The yarn is all handspun, pink is 100% wool, the purple is alpaca. I have it earmarked for a Christmas chapeau…

On the way to Truro, Marco and I indulged and went somewhere we only go about once a year…

I feel dirty.

We finally got to our B&B around 2:45 pm. Although check-in time was 2:00 pm, we were greeted by little note on the door: “At a funeral, back by 3:15”. A bit peeved because we were not telephoned about this, but trying to be understanding, we decided to go for a walk to pass the time. Sadly, Truro is a bit of an armpit and there’s not much to walk to. To make matters worse, we got caught in a torrential downpour. We rushed into the visitors’ centre…where we found there was REALLY nothing to do here except view something called the “Tidal Bore”. As we missed it today, we are going to view it tomorrow before the airport. I believe it involves tides… we’re hoping it doesn’t live up to its name in other ways…

We made it back to the B&B, drenched, where we were told they were late because the owners had to go to a medical appointment… umm. People: if you’re going to make up stories, at least do it right. The key to a good falsehood is consistency. Don’t change the story partway through. Doing so destroys your credibility.

The place seems fine, however; clean and cheerful. The torrential rain continued all afternoon so we passed the time playing computer on the intermittent wireless connection, packing the suitcases, and watching TV.

We’ve run into a little problem regarding the bags. We could probably fit everything back into the two suitcases but it would involve a maneuver known as “The Beached Whale”. This suitcase closing technique is not pleasant for the “whale” or “The Closer”. Consequentially, we’ve decided to check the laundry bag. It should be OK – it’s a heavy-duty sleeping bag sack and we are relatively sure we can close it well enough so that our dirty underthings won’t spread out over the baggage claim conveyer belt. Keep your fingers crossed.

Dinner, at least, was fabulous. We ate at the John Stanfield Inn.

You may remember the name “Stanfield” from such garments as: your underwear. Yes, the Stanfield underwear line originated right here in little Truro. The Inn itself is a Queen Anne-style house with amazing woodwork that has been completely restored. The food and service were excellent; this was a great final dinner in Nova Scotia.

Tomorrow, it’s farewell to Nova Scotia and back to Toronto. See you in Ontario for the final Tab of Fun.

Tab 12: Brackley Beach

"You know, it’s kind of nice when the day’s not scheduled."
-Adrienne, with surprise

Today was a pretty relaxed day. Unusual, but enjoyable. Weird.

We had breakfast again at the Great George. I should note there is no dining room for breakfast so the good folks here have resorted to the same solution I did in my tiny bachelor apartment in Ottawa.

After breaky, Marco and I drove up to Brackley Beach on the north shore of PEI. Brackely is actually part of PEI National Park. Our hotel has a season’s pass to the park so we were able to avoid the $17 admission fee, making the day’s activities uber-cheap.

The beach was amazing. Red sand, like the roads, Anne of Green Gables dunes, a lighthouse, and hardly anyone there at all… we basically had the whole beach to ourselves.

We set up a little camp out of the way of the wind with our two umbrellas we bought at Canadian Tire yesterday.

They only blew away once.

We spent a really nice morning. I passed the time by reading Anne of Green Gables. I was oh-so-PEI.

At about 1:00 it started to get really cloudy and colder. Marco and I left in search of lunch… but were stopped by a yarn interlude!

First stop was North Shore Island Traditions Past & Present Rug Shop in North Rustico… a deceiving name as it is actually doesn’t seem to have much to do with rugs. Instead, it is a Fleece Artist mecca!

The lady who runs the shop, out of the back of her house, has tons and tons of Fleece Artist and Hand Maiden yarns. I bought a lovely thrum sock yarn kit (the sock will be bluey, the thrums are green)

I was trying to follow my own rule and buy local but the lady at Island Traditions explained that yarn from PEI is generally coarse and scratchy and not used for garments.

She was right. At the next stop, Rustico Bay Wool Sweater Company, all the PEI yarn was not something you’d want to knit a sweater out of… or anything really.

The yarn trail and lack of food had made Marco grumbly so we headed off in search of lunch… at a place not recommended by Frommer’s. Yes, we were *off* the schedule here, people. We took a massive risk. However, it paid off. Lunch at the Blue Mussel Café was delicious, and we made it just in time to avoid a massive downpour.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for dinner. I actually sent it back to the kitchen. Some of you may not believe this but I have never done that before. I ordered the stuffed chicken and it was burnt one cm thick on the bottom and the top was completely dried out. We were the only people in the restaurant… it does not inspire confidence if you’re only cooking for two and you still can’t get it right. A bummer, but also a free meal for me so there is no lawsuit pending at this time.

Tomorrow, back to Nova Scotia. See you in the booming metropolis of Truro.

Tab 11: Anne's Land

“Call me Cordelia.”
-Adrienne to Marco, who didn’t

If you don’t like Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, just keep moving. This blog entry is not for you. If you think you and your bosom buddy might get a thrill from reading the following perfectly tragical blog, or that reading it might give you some scope for the imagination, then read on kindred spirit, read on!

Today was Anne of Green Gables day! Cavendish is the home of all the Anne sights and the area that was the inspiration for the fictional Avonlea. Unfortunately, the white way of delight, the violet vale, and birch path are not clearly marked in the real world. We got lost on the way. However, after some minor car-fighting (where I did not break a slate over Marco’s head), we ended up at Green Gables.

Green Gables (now operated by Parks Canada) was the inspiration for the setting of Anne of Green Gables. In real life, this farmhouse was the home of David Jr. and Margaret Macneill, brother and sister, who were cousins of Montgomery’s grandfather.

The house has been furnished according to descriptions in the book, including Anne’s bedroom. Note Anne’s carpet bag on the chair and the dress with puffed sleeves hanging on the closet door!

We walked in the Haunted Woods,

saw where Montgomery lived with her Macneill grandparents (after her mother died when she was 21 months old and her father moved to Saskatchewan)... sadly, only the foundation remains...


and then walked along Lover’s Lane.

After all that walking, we were tired and so had a break to have some raspberry cordial. I just love bright-red drinks, don’t you?

I have to say, I was surprised that the Green Gables mecca wasn’t crowded at all. I’d been warned about the bus-loads of Japanese tourists but the whole place was relatively uncrowded. No overly perky Anne and Gilbert greeting people. No Diana Barry running around drunk and barfing following a current wine incident. No one yelling at old gossipy women saying they were fat and clumsy and probably didn’t have a spark of imagination. No one nearly dying of croup. For all this, visitors had to use their imagination, which was nice.

In fact, it was quite civilized and full of historicality.

It started to get a bit busier around noon but that is when we left for Montgomery’s birthplace in New London.

Montgomery was born in this little house in 1874. We saw the exact room where she was born, saw her wedding dress and accessories, and looked at her personal scrapbooks.

Next it was off to the Anne of Green Gables museum at Silver Bush, which Montgomery called “the wonder castle of [her] childhood.”

Montgomery’s Aunt Annie and Uncle John Campbell lived here. After her grandmother died, she moved to this house and spent many happy days here. The house is still owned and operated by the Campbell family. Notably, Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables in her bedroom on the second floor. On July 5, 1911, she was married in the parlour in front of this mantle:

People still get married here today! Apparently, people from Japan and the US are particularly fond of it. Modern marriages also take place in front of the mantle and they play the same pump organ that Montgomery had played when she got married.

I think I have to call Casa Loma…

Right beside the mantle is the bookcase that was inspiration for Anne’s window friends. The left pane was for Katie Maurice. The right, for Lucy Gray.

The lake near Silver Bush was the inspiration for something special:

I think even Marco enjoyed himself. At the end of the touring, he agreed his life was not a perfect graveyard of buried hopes, after all. The iron had not entered his soul. In fact, the whole experience may have even given him a thrill (although small).

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Village Pottery (not an Anne site)

a shop which (of course) sells pottery and also something else

Meet my new friend, Fibrensemble handspun, hand dyed wool from Romney sheep, made by Louise Lortie in PEI.

After all the Anne mania, Marco and I drove back to Charlottetown and had lunch at the Olde Dublin Pub

where we fortified ourselves...

for… ANNE THE MUSICAL!!!

The musical was awesome. Cheesy swing dance numbers? Yes. Bad sets? Of course. Rhyming "parrot" with "carrot"? Unfortunately. But it was just ridiculous enough to be wildly enjoyable. There's a reason it's Canada's longest running musical. Even Marco had an excellent time. Seems he may be a kindred spirit, after all. ..

See you tomorrow at the beach.

Tab 10: Charlottetown

"It's been a long time since someone's tied a bib on me. Probably too long, given the way I eat."

Adie, at the Water Prince Corner Shop

Marco and I got an early start in Pictou in order to visit Grohmann knives. Many sharp and pointy implements available at factory discount = knife shop fun.

Marco then got back at me for the lobster trap picture.

Then it was off to the PEI ferry. We had made reservations for the ferry to take us from Caribou, NS to Wood Island, PEI on what is probably the worst internet website in history. It’s impossible to use and extremely confusing – we were grateful that through some miracle of interwebbiness, they actually had our reservation and we were able to get on the 11:15 am ferry…

…with at least 2 buses full of tourists from Asia.

Apparently Anne of Green Gables is really big over there and so PEI draws a huge numbers of tourists from Japan.

Driving on and off the ferry was a bit stressful... lots of cars, tight spaces, steep and narrow ramps. We were glad we drove, though… driving is only slightly more expensive than paying to drive across the bridge and we were sick of the car from yesterday. The views from the ferry are also awesome.

After de-ferrying, we drove about an hour to Charlottetown and checked into the nicest hotel we’ve stayed in so far, the Great George.

The Great George is actually a collection of striking buildings on or near historic Great George Street. We are in the main building, the Pavilion hotel, and our room is lovely.

After checking in and having a bit of a rest, we had lunch at PEI’s only microbrewery, the Gahan House.


The beer was great – of note was the special summer maple beer. However, too much beer makes for sleepy tourists and as a result, we didn’t get as to tour as much as we wanted to after lunch.

We walked around downtown Charlottetown, which didn’t take long given its very small size. A major disappointment was when I discovered that Great Northern Knitters had closed. All that was left was this sign:

Again, no yarn. Only sign re: yarn. This put a significant crimp in the Interprovincial Yarn Crawl. Now I have to locate another yarn shop in PEI for island yarn. Suggestions welcome.

After a brief period of mourning for me (and celebration for Marco), we stopped in on Province House, the current provincial legislature. It is also the place where the details of Confederation were hammered out in 1864. Lots of historicality and probably the most Canadian short film ever, depicting hockey, a moose (looking stunned), the Father of Confederation, maple syrup, mounties, and the Canadian Flag.

Tonight was also special because we finally did a lobster dinner!

The place we ate at, the Water Prince Corner Shop, looks like a newsstand or a convenience store from the outside . However, inside it’s one of the city’s best mom-and-pop-type seafood restaurants. The lobsters were delicious, Marco only dropped a piece of his lobster once. I especially enjoyed when the nice lady tied the bibs right onto us. I could use her on a daily basis.

See you tomorrow, for the BEST DAY EVER* in Anne land!

* according to Adie. According to Marco, it may be the worst day ever.

Tab 9: Tiverton to Pictou

“That was great but the one thing you don’t want to hear while in a zodiac is ‘are you going to vomit, honey?’”
-Marco, after the whale watch

Call us Ishmael.

Today was whale watch day and we were not disappointed.

To see the whales, we had to drive out to the Digby neck of Nova Scotia and then take a ferry across the bay of Fundy to the booming metropolis of Tiverton. Note the boomingness.

The whale watching outfit we chose was called Ocean Explorations. It is one of the only environmentally friendly whale watches operating out of the Digby neck. The guy operating it, Captain Tom, tries to ensure that his actions don’t harm the whales or the ocean. This appealed to us, especially after the horrifying whale exhibit at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. We didn’t want to participate in contributing to the local dog food industry.

Apparently, to watch whales you must look redunkulous. This is so the whales will approach the zodiac and then linger to laugh at how completely insane you look. This floatation suit is from the 2007 collection and is lightly scented with mildew. Hat is from a giant bucket at the whale watch outfit. Please take a moment to enjoy this look, which I have decided will be my new work outfit (but only when I meet with clients). It’s not only practical… it’s ever-so-slimming.

Hang on a tic – “what’s a zodiac?” you might ask. Well, kids, it is essentially an inflatable pool raft with an outboard motor. You sit on the inflatable edges while the guide whips around in the choppy ocean. Your job is to hold onto the ropes on the top edges of the inflatable bit and try not to jostle uncontrollably about the boat like a rag doll.

We went out about 5 miles from the shoreline of Tiverton. As a warm-up, we saw some pretty cool sea birds

and also some puffins, which you may not be able to see in the following picture but which I assure you, were pufftastic.

Of course, the whales were the real attraction. We were able to get really close (about 20 feet) to some Minke whales and some humpback whales, including a baby humpback. It was very difficult to take pictures, considering the boat was bobbing wildly up and down and I needed one hand to hold on to avoid reenacting Pinocchio.

However, I managed to get this cool movie of a whale “fluking”.

Even though Captain Silas told us that a whale could easily flip over our pool-toy-boat, we remained cool and collected. The only tense moment was when the small blonde boy from Ohio that we were sharing the zodiac with started to turn green. His parents kept telling him in urgent tones that if he needed to vomit, he should do so over the side rather than all over the nice people from Toronto. Of course, nothing ruins a good time like a boat full of puke. Thankfully, he managed to hold it together and we didn’t have to feed him (accidentally-on-purpose) to the humpbacks.

The rest of the day was quite dull. We had to make it to Pictou tonight to catch our ferry to PEI tomorrow. I’m not sure if you’re aware but Tiverton to Pictou is quite a trek… if you don’t believe me, google maps will set you straight. The car trip was uneventful. We stopped in Wolfville for lunch and managed to make it here by 6:15 pm.

Aside from being a modern day ferry connection to Green Gables mania, Pictou (pronounced, pic-toe) has historicality. It was established as part of a development scheme hatched by speculators from Philadelphia in 1760. Under the terms of their land grant, the speculators needed to place 250 settlers near the harbour. That was a problem. Few Philadelphians wanted to live in the middle of absolutely nowhere… I wonder why. So, the company sent a ship called the Hector to Scotland in 1773 to rustle up some impoverished souls who thought starting over in North America was a grand idea.

This worked out a lot better. About 200 passengers came over to the New World, mostly Gaelic-speaking Highlanders. The voyage was baaaad (storms, starvation, etc.) but when they arrived at Pictou, they disembarked playing bagpipes and wearing tartans. Perhaps they should have packed a few more canned goods and a few fewer bagpipes. In any case, the Scottish heritage still pervades the town.

We are staying at the Customs House Inn. It was built in 1872 and renovated in 1997.

The rooms are MASSIVE. Ours is about 18’ x 18’ with 12’ high ceilings. Lots of room for cartwheels and practicing my version of the Anne of Green Gables musical (involving a short gymnastic number.)

The only nasty thing about Pictou (so far) is the horrible blight that can be seen across the harbour:

Ummm… whoever decided to put a giant, smoke-belching pulp and paper mill right across from the town’s waterfront has exceptionally poor judgment. As we were driving to the town, we saw the smoke and thought something was on fire. As it turns out, it pumps out vast amounts of smoke 24 hours a day… I can only imagine what it does to the water. Ick. Remind me not to eat any Pictou scallops.

Tomorrow, we leave Nova Scotia for PEI. See you in Charlottetown.