O, Canada!

Bar Harbor Sunrise

Perhaps today’s title is a little misleading since most of our day was spent in Maine. But, knowing that we would come into Canada today, I've had that song echoing in my head all day.

The day began early in Bar Harbor because we wanted to see the sunrise and spend some time in Acadia National Park. The sunrise was predictably pretty and, after a cold front passed through with last night’s rain, it was sunny, colder and quite breezy.

We found a good breakfast spot, Jordan’s in Bar Harbor Village, famous for their blueberry pancakes. We stuck with our protein plan except for one of their wild Maine blueberry muffins since they advertise their blueberry muffins and pancakes in very large type. The muffin was not a thriller, only average as these things go, so we nibbled enough to know what we were not missing and went on our way.

Acadia NP

Acadia National Park lives up to its reputation as a wonderful place. It wraps around Mt. Desert Island (which we learned is pronounced as di-ZERT, as in “desert one’s post”), flowing up from the waters over the hills and to the top of Cadillac Mountain at its height. There is a terrific 27-mile loop that we drove around, as well as lots of hiking trails, carriage tour trails and horse paths.

Our drive took us down to Sand Beach in a cove that is washed by the Atlantic. Further on we stopped at the “Thunder Hole,” where a rock formation on the shore funnels waves through a sort of tunnel and blows it up into the air. Since it wasn’t high tide, we didn’t get the full effect, but it was a beautiful spot.

Sand Beach

We found ourselves driving through the beautiful woods that cover the island with both hardwoods and evergreens. In some places we seemed to be in tunnels of gold as trees grow up from both sides and out over the roadway, covered now in golden leaves that were lit this morning with the special slanting sunlight that makes this time of year uniquely picturesque.

We spent a couple of hours riding, stopping to take pictures and glorying in the beauty of it. We could have easily spent the entire day there, but wanted to get to Saint John, New Brunswick before sunset. Since this part of Canada is in the Atlantic Time zone, an hour earlier than Eastern, we knew it would be getting dark well before six p.m.

We made a brief stop at the park’s visitor center, then headed out of Bar Harbor. We stopped long enough at a little post office to mail a couple of postcards, then off the island to find our way to the road that would take us to Canada.

Blueberry Field

Heading north, we found this part of the journey took us through roads that reminded us of the back roads in our part of the U.S. There were long stretches without much sign of life, a number of abandoned properties falling into ruin and signs for “towns” that didn’t have much town to them at all.  We did see a lot of fields that combined rocks and beautiful low-growth red plants.  Later we understood that these were wild blueberry fields.

When we turned east onto the Airline Highway, there was even less sign of life and, much as we experienced yesterday, we weren’t seeing places to eat lunch. We came to the Airline Lodge and Snack Bar, accompanied by the Airline Rest Area (restrooms in a newish building), so decided to take a chance.

We found the food was good and enjoyed it all the way through the homemade blueberry pie, justifying this departure from our protein-centered diet with the thought that we owed it to Maine to consume their famous Wild Maine blueberries. The pie was, in fact, delicious, as was the vanilla ice cream that came with it. Every place is famous for good vanilla ice cream, eh?

We enjoyed listening to the other diners, too. We heard quite a bit about hunting and fishing and farm maintenance since these are the primary activities in this neck of the woods. It is, in fact, a thickly wooded area with trees for miles and miles, interrupted occasionally by lakes and more rarely by a sort of roadside community, usually a stretch of houses and farms a couple of city blocks long from end to end, if that.

We asked about the name of the road, Airline Highway. It seemed an unlikely name for a place that seems remote from any airline. It was, they said, named that because years ago when it was a dirt road, the small planes that occasionally landed on an airstrip nearby, called it the airline road. Perhaps it was the bush pilot’s idea of a joke as he delivered hunters and fisherman into what was then and still is a wild area.

When we reached Calais on the U.S. side of the border, our navigator (me at that point) got confused by our Mapquest directions (a common occurrence), so we missed our turn toward Canada, but discovered the mistake quickly enough to turn around before we got too far. Reading the map more carefully, I discovered that, if we had continued in the wrong direction, we might have ended up at the island made famous by Franklin Roosevelt, Campobello.

We cleared Canadian customs at the border between Calais and St. Stephen, Canada, without a hitch. Thanks to Mike, we had passports in hand, and, when he ascertained that we weren’t carrying any firearms, the border guard was friendly. He noticed that we’d been in the Yukon this past summer and told us he had recently moved to this post from Alberta.

Canada, like the U.S., is always working on their highways, but most of our road to Saint John was in really good shape. Away from the coast for some miles, the foliage was not as colorful as we had been seeing, but once we came back to the water, we saw more color. We also discovered we would have to go through a toll booth entering Saint John without having changed any currency. Then we got in the wrong lane and had to depend on other kind motorists to let us move to the lane we needed to use.

I apologized to the toll booth attendant, suggesting we are yet another couple of crazy Americans, but he assured me kindly that the locals do it all the time. It was a 50-cent toll, but we didn’t have a “loonie” (Canadian dollar), but he took our U.S. dollar and returned our change. I drove away wondering if he was thinking he had just helped another couple of “loonies”!

Fall Color

Once again, Mapquest directions had us bollixed up, driving around uptown Saint John in circles trying to get to the Hilton Hotel on the harbor. We finally overcame the madness and got to the hotel. We’re told that we’re only five minutes from the ferry. I’m not sure that I’ll be comfortable allowing less than half an hour to get there by eight a.m. tomorrow, based on today’s twists and turns.

We plan to have dinner nearby at a place recommended by the hotel concierge and make an early night of it. We’re both excited about tomorrow’s ferry ride across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia. So far, so fabulous on this trip!

(All photos by Mike Lumpkin)