Through a Curtain to France

These French-speaking maids gather around a window to chat between chores in Louisbourg, NS.

Louisbourg likely is unknown to most of you. It now is a quaint little fishing village on the outer edge of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Back in its day - that would be 1713 to 1758 - it was a money-making machine for those who lived here. They mostly were French, Spanish, Portuguese fishermen. And they relentlessly fished the cod: 30 million pounds of it every year.

This was the capital of the French colony of Ile Royale back then. It was the most eastern part of New France and included Ile Royale (now Cape Breton Island, Ile St.-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and the Magalene Islands. Today, France can lay claim only to the St. Magdalene Islands, just south of Newfoundland.

England liked the cod just as much as France. And even though she was battling the Scots back in 1745, she was a powerful nation that could battle on two fronts (do you begin to see the Iraq-Afghanistan-U.S. linkage?) back then.

She sent a flotilla up to the enormous fortress that had hundreds of cannon, all facing the sea. But the English slid their fleet around behind Louisbourg and came at the fort through the back door. No cannon back there because the French thought no one would dream of attacking from overland.

The English sent all the French home with honor the first time. Then they agreed to hand the fortress back after a few years. The French learned nothing from the experience, though, and set about making more and more money from the cod fishing again.

And the English came back and did the same thing again. Through the back door again. This time they send the French packing without honor and they took apart much of the fort, using the wood, the doors, the windows, the slate roofs for their own buildings down in Massachusetts.

Now the cod is no more. So the fortress at Louisbourg essentially disappeared.

We came to the fortress and our minds boggled at the size of this place. This is the largest national historic site to be reconstructed in North America.

The work began in the early 1960s when the coal ran out in Sydney, to the north. The government stimulus plan retrained the out-of-work miners as carpenters, stone masons, and other craftsmen. Then they set about restoring this site. They have excavated about a fifth of the old fortress - but the rebuilding job is impressive. They spent $25 million over 25 years. The miners got work and we got a treasure-trove of history.

Re-enactors, dressed as French soldiers, are everywhere and will gladly share their experiences with you.

Jo and I settled in for a discussion with one on the ramparts. She told us about her lot in life. (Of course, there were no female soldiers back then!) She said she had been living in France, without a job so this opportunity seemed like coming to the promised land. She signed on for six years, was given a pay of 9 livres per month. But she soon discovered that 7.5 livres were deducted from her pay for her quarters and food. This leaves just enough for a bottle of bad red wine each month.

She said she works 24 hours on and 48 hours off. This allows her to work for the fishermen in her off hours. But the officer who arranged the extra work keeps most of the money she makes because she is illiterate and doesn't really know how much she makes. At the end of her six years, she needed to re-enlist for another six years to pay off her debts. Because people generally lived to be about 35, they usually could only manage about two six-year deals before they died.

Another man, a fisherman, explained how he doesn't think about doing better in life. "I only think about surviving," he said. He says he was born to be a fisherman and he has no aspirations to anything other than that. Now I was beginning to understand India's caste system. You don't fight being an untouchable for that is what you know you are!

The merchants in Louisbourg made a fortune. They traded in everything - from silk to cocoa, to shoes, to spoons, to cloth. The little people didn't do so well, of course.

I love this re-enacting business. It allows you to step through a curtain in time and see the world through a different lens.

The previous night we attended a concert in Louisbourg Playhouse which was fairly close to being a ceilidh- that Scottish speciality in which people sing, play and dance their jigs while a party atmosphere prevails. This event had some woefully lame comedy skits which proved once again how hard it is to write funny material. They should have stuck with the singing and playing and dancing. That was wonderful. One girl, named Erin, had a quirky smile and was an expert at playing the box. That's right. She sat on a wooden box that had a microphone inside it. She made that box talk and reverberate in ways you would not believe.

One of the perks of the concert was intermission where tea and oatcakes were served. Mmmmmm!

Hair-raising Entertainment

The blue light and the smoke casts an eerie air to the Tattoo in Halifax.

Gerald and his wife Ellie sat on the concrete steps outside Halifax's Metro Center, awaiting the opening of the doors for the International Tattoo. (A tattoo is defined as a signal on a drum, bugle, or trumpet at night, for soldiers or sailors to go to their quarters. But it is much, much more than that. More about it later.) We joined them after a pretty good dinner at Maxwell's Plum bar where we enjoyed fish and chips.

Gerald and Ellie are natives of Newfoundland, where we head in another week. They love their island, even though they no longer live there. Their children are scattered to the world: Alberta, Australia, as well as Nova Scotia. So they have come off the island after Gerald worked at the pulp wood mill for many years. “It was a good living,” he said. “Mostly because of the union.” He said he made newsprint for the Daily Mail in Britain, as well as The New York Times and the Washington Post … “and that newspaper down in New Orleans with the funny name; what is that name?” he asked. I suggested The Times-Picayune. “That's it,” he said with the smile. “I can't tell you how many times I slapped a label on a roll of newsprint for the Times Picayune.”

He waxed eloquent about the good old days on Newfoundland when the villages were isolated – with few roads - and only had oil lamps. “People would choose their village when they came on the island depending on where they came from in Scotland or England or Ireland,” he said. “There was a bad class system back then, though,” he said. He's not a big fan on the English. “The manager of the pulp mill, an Englishman, expected us to stand when he entered the room for a meeting,” he said. He and the other managers were above themselves, he said, but that is pretty much gone now.

Gerald's father was a fisherman. He would get the two boys up at 3 in the morning, Gerald said, and they would launch the boat for fishing the cod before anyone else in the village. “It was a point of honor,” Gerald said. In those early days, they would throw back the crab or the flounder they caught in their nets. They were worthless, from his father's point of view.

He and Ellie said the island is doing well financially now, despite the demise of the pulp wood mill. “We have the oil off the east coast of Newfoundland now,” he said. Now the biggest worry is keeping the icebergs away from the oil platforms. He said men will attach the cables to the bergs and try to pull them clear. Otherwise, the platforms have to be moved.

The doors of the Metro Center opened and we left the old couple who were joined by two of their grandchildren from Australia who were visiting for the summer.

Inside, we settled in for a night of music and dance as 1,700 performers from all over the world – Estonian, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, the U.S., as well as countless bands and an excellent 150-voice choir from Canada – entertained us for 2.5 hours.

My experience with military tattoos circles around the spectacular one on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. This was a gentler, less militaristic affair – more in keeping with the quieter, less macho character of Canada. This is not to say it wasn't exciting. The massed pipes and drums, as well as brass bands made the hairs on our arms stand straight up. But there was a more youthful element – tumblers from Denmark, brilliant cyclists from Germany, as well as twirling young people on hoops.

But what lives on is the spectacular finale, when the floor of the hall was filled with all the performers. Because we had chosen July 4 – America's Independence Day – for our visit, and because the U.S. Consul General for Nova Scotia was present, the U.S. National Anthem, sung and played in unison by so many performers was a sound to bring tears to your eye. And that was topped quite easily when they morphed into “Oh Canada” an anthem that is easy to sing and is exquisitely moving.

Then the lone highland piper took up his lonely call (the very definition of “tattoo”) from the highest point in the arena. Amazing Grace was just that. His pipes stood alone, but then the melody was picked up by the other massed pipes, followed by the choir. Memorable.

We returned to our campground in thick, wooly fog. But we were warmed inside by the spectacular event.

Now we have edged along the eastern shore of Nova Scotia. This is an unpopulated land. We are only an hour east of Halifax, but there is little but woods and water. As we sit in our new campground, we can hear the plaintive call of the loons on the lake. This is heaven.

A Bore that's Worth the Visit

A Great Blue Heron is about to be overtaken by the tidal bore at Moncton, New Brunswick.

The tidal bore on the Petticodiac River in Moncton, New Brunswick, is not boring. The water comes in twice a day, racing around the elbow of the river with a wall of water pushing hard against the down-flowing stream. It fairly races along, with birds riding it like surfers.

Jo and I were there at the appointed hour on Thursday morning. There is a place called Bore Park where you see the sweep of the tidal bore. We were surrounded by a busload of French-speaking lst or 2^nd grade students, along with a couple who were visiting from New Zealand and who were proudly showing their currency to a Moncton native. The money actually had windows in it which, to my view, was unique.

Anyway, as the bore came in, the Canada Geese that had been riding the wave decided it was enough. They swam to the muddy shore and waddled up the bank.

Suzanne, a perky young woman from the Moncton Museum, told us in alternate French and English the history of the area, along with the lore of the bore. It comes in because Moncton is at the head of the Bay of Fundy where the largest tides in the world are to be found. The water rises up to 50 feet twice a day and that results in awesome currents. Jo and I had sailed the Bay of Fundy back in the summer of 2003. It was wonderful to sail with the tide – we made 13 knots in our sluggish little boat.

Suzanne explained how the Acadiene French were pretty friendly with the local Mic-Mac Indians. But they refused to swear allegiance to the French king. Nor, when the English arrived and took over, would they swear allegiance to the British king. The price: all their homes were burned and they were shipped out. This explains why Louisiana is loaded with “Cajuns”. Lots of them found their way into the deep South of the U.S.

The previous evening, we visited Magnetic Hill to experience the wonder of putting our car in neutral on an apparently level surface and having it roll along backwards, gaining speed until it climbs a hill backwards. I'd asked the woman at our campground whether or not it was worth the visit. She sagely suggested we go there after 7 p.m. and get in without paying. “It eez a how-you-say optical illusion,” she told us in her French-accented English. She was right. It is not really worth paying $5 to experience. But it was fun to see the car take off on its own on an apparently flat road. We couldn't figure out the illusion even after letting it happen to us three times.

PS: I have received a response from Don and Terry, one of our fellow-travelers, about how lucky we were with the $60 charge from Verizon for our use of Canadian cell towers. While they were in the northern U.S., near the Canadian border, they were regularly using the cell towers without knowing it. Their monthly bill was $1,200! Happily AT&T let them off the hook after they howled.

Internationally challenged

A bronze cast of a French settler on the banks of the St. Croix River welcomes you to the early settlement.

Vital information for travelers: When you use Verizon's Mi-Fi modem (as do we) there's a green light on the device. When that device switches to blue, however, its a signal that you are connected to an international cell signal. Well that will never happen while you are traveling in the U.S., of course, you say. But that would be wrong!

While we were west of Machias, Maine, (many miles from the Canadian border) and after we moved to Calais, Maine, the light was blue. We, of course, had no idea of the meaning of the blue light special. What it means, we learned, is we were hooked up to Canadian cell service because the cell service in Canada is much more powerful than in the U.S. because of fewer regulations. During those three days we uploaded and downloaded 33 megabytes of information for which Verizon wished to charge us $60.

We received an email from Verizon which informed us of our usage of Canadian cell towers. I called them to challenge this and the best they were willing to do was provide me with 50 megabytes of data for an additional charge of $30 for one month. They were totally unwilling to remove the charges.

We are currently in a delightful, hidden campground east of the village of Penobsquit in New Brunswick. The campground is owned by a couple from Newfoundland. They are hard-working and very friendly. But they have no wi-fi here. When we pulled up to the office, there was a note on the door: “We are out and about. Please call us on the walkie-talkie that is hanging from the door knob. The woman arrived after I called. She was bubbly and welcoming. When we told her we are on our way to Newfoundland she exploded with enthusiasm. She and her husband had come from there seven years ago. She was full of information – particularly when we told her we would be on the island for about a month.

On Sunday, we had driven to the very eastern edge of Maine, just south of Calais. Just to the east, in the middle of the St. Croix River which separates the modern U.S. and Canada, is the island of St. Croix, first settled in April 1604 by French folks aboard the Bonne Renomee. The ship was led by Samuel Champlain, one impressive exploring captain. He dropped off the settlers on the island and they began the task of setting up shop, trading with the local Passamaquoddy Indians for furs. There's a U.S. National Historic Site to mark the event.

Their leader chose the island but failed to understand the importance of fresh water, of which there was none on the island. Water had to be brought over from the mainland. The natives were friendly, visiting the island to fish for alewives and shellfish. Everyone seemed to get along well, the French trading hatchets, beads, rosaries, and tobacco for the furs they trapped.

Acadia, as the settlers called their new land, was on the same latitude as their native France so the visitors assumed the climate would be similar. Wrong. They soon discovered they were quite unprepared for the severity of a harsh North American winter. In addition they came down with scurvy and almost half their number died.

In the following spring, they decided to leave the island, deciding that water is actually pretty important to survival.. Champlain moved them as far south as Cape Cod in Massachusetts. But the settlers found nothing they liked. They returned to St. Croix, dismantled their houses and moved them to the mainland of Nova Scotia at Port Royal.

Jo and I drove up to Calais to scout the town. Sunday is a pretty quiet day in this little town and the only place we found open was a museum that was a dreary little place – clearly a piece of federal pork that Sen. Susan Collins managed to bring to the community. There were great, empty rooms with very little history visible. The only thing that worked was a tidal pool with all manner of sea creatures – starfish, urchins, snails and slugs. It's a perfect example of congressional funding that is a total waste of taxpayer money because the funding starts something but there is no funding available to fill the space with useful material.

Going Downeast

A fisherman's house clings to the rocky coast of Maine at Harrington Bay, east of Bar Harbor.

Two sets on friends came back into our lives in one day this week. Nothing can improve on that.

We met up with old workmate Jose Azel and his wife for breakfast in Portland, Maine. We have not seen them for three years and there was much catching up to be done.

Then we climbed back aboard our rig and pushed north and east to the little town of Newport, Maine, where we found Rick and Gayle Perlmutter – old sailing buddies from the 1970s. There's nothing quite so fine as walking back in on a warm and solid friendship and picking up the threads again.

Rick is an astonishingly good cook who seems to turn his talents to new styles of food each time we meet. This summer, he has been dabbling at mastering the art of Mexican cuisine. He has done just that and we were the lucky recipients of some spectacular taste treats. Rick and Gayle built their wooden home, with soaring ceilings, on the edge of lake Sebasticook. As a result, they are visited by all manner of birds – from hummingbirds to downy woodpeckers.

Gayle, in the meantime, has become passionate about genealogy and has traced her roots back and back and back. She told us part of her family tree resides still in the little town of Trinity, Newfoundland. This is right beside Dildo Cove, and we have promised to check out the little village when we make it to Newfoundland next month.

I took advantage of their local knowledge and went to their dentist in town to have a new crown re-cemented into my mouth. It had fallen off while I ate lunch a few days back. The dentist did a fine job of making me whole again.

Rick and Gayle headed off for work before we arose on Friday morning. We had a leisurely breakfast and then slowly backed out of their homestead and filled up with gas in Newport before pushing on to Ellsworth, where we parked and visited the L.L. Bean Outlet there. Jo took the wheel and took us along the magnificent, rocky coast of Maine, past deep-cut bays and east of Schoodic Point where the natives tell you “the real Maine begins.” We have sailed this rock-strewn coast, of course, but this was a wonderful way to see it from the land.

Our navigation software told us to turn right onto a dirt road which supposedly would take us to our chosen campground in Harrington, Maine. But the road ran out in the front yard of someone's home. We had to unhitch the car from the rear, then back out and regain Route 1 where we found a sign on the highway that guided us down another road – this one tarred – to Sunset Point Campground. Oh, bliss.

Here we sit, on the banks of the Harrington River which flows into Harrington Bay. And that touches Pleasant Bay, which, in turn, connects with the Gulf of Maine just east of Petit Manan Island.

When we sailed this bold coast in the summer of 2003, much of it was shrouded in thick fog each day. We remember straining our eyes and brains to make out any lobster boats working the shrouded waters ahead of us. I would be glued to the navigation computer to keep me off the rocks while Jo stood at the bow, peering out into the fog. It was exciting voyaging and felt oh-so-good when we would stop for the day, pulling into a cove and dropping anchor. Nothing tasted quite so fine as the Dark and Stormy (rum and ginger beer) that we'd sip while the cormorants fished around us and fish hawks and gulls screamed overhead.

Friendship

Two sets on friends came back into our lives in one day this week. Nothing can improve on that.
We met up with old workmate Jose Azel and his wife for breakfast in Portland, Maine. We have not seen them for three years and there was much catching up to be done.

Then we climbed back aboard our rig and pushed north and east to the little town of Newport, Maine, where we found Rick and Gayle Perlmutter – old sailing buddies from the 1970s. There's nothing quite so fine as walking back in on a warm and solid friendship and picking up the threads again. Rick is an astonishingly good cook who seems to turn his talents to new styles of food each time we meet. This summer, he has been dabbling at mastering the art of Mexican cuisine. He has done just that and we were the lucky recipients of some spectacular taste treats. Rick and Gayle built their wooden home, with soaring ceilings, on the edge of lake Sebasticook. As a result, they are visited by all manner of birds – from hummingbirds to downy woodpeckers.

Gayle, in the meantime, has become passionate about genealogy and has traced her roots back and back and back. She told us part of her family tree resides still in the little town of Trinity, Newfoundland. This is right beside Dildo Cove, and we have promised to check out the little village when we make it to Newfoundland next month.

Rick and Gayle headed off for work before we arose on Friday morning. We had a leisurely breakfast and then slowly backed out of their homestead and filled up with gas in Newport before pushing on to Ellsworth, where we parked and visited the L.L. Bean Outlet there. Jo took the wheel and took us along the magnificent, rocky coast of Maine, past deep-cut bays and east of Schoodic Point where the natives tell you “the real Maine begins.” We have sailed this rock-strewn coast, of course, but this was a wonderful way to see it from the land.

Our navigation software told us to turn right onto a dirt road which supposedly would take us to our chosen campground in Harrington, Maine. But the road ran out in the front yard of someone's home. We had to unhitch the car from the rear, then back out and regain Route 1 where we found a sign on the highway that guided us down another road – this one tarred – to Sunset Point Campground. Oh, bliss.

Here we sit, on the banks of the Harrington River which flows into Harrington Bay. And that touches Pleasant Bay, which, in turn, connects with the Gulf of Maine just east of Petit Manan Island.

When we sailed this bold coast in the summer of 2003, much of it was shrouded in thick fog each day. We remember straining our eyes and brains to make out any lobster boats working the shrouded waters ahead of us. I would be glued to the navigation computer to keep me off the rocks while Jo stood at the bow, peering out into the fog. It was exciting voyaging and felt oh-so-good when we would stop for the day, pulling into a cove and dropping anchor. Nothing tasted quite so fine as the Dark and Stormy (rum and ginger beer) that we'd sip while the cormorants fished around us and fish hawks and gulls screamed overhead.

On Leaving Vermont

This picture, shot by Jo, should pretty much be on my tombstone since it is the perfect representation of my life under the rig.

“Oooh! That can't be good.” The words came from grandson Graham when he saw me stop the rig moments after pulling out of the driveway in Colchester, Vermont. The accursed red light for the emergency brake was flickering.
He was right. It wasn't a good thing. I put some more fluid into the reservoir (yet another trip of squirming under the rig). The light went out and we pulled away. Five minutes later, however, the flickering light was a solid light. We were on the expressway south.
Decision time: Do I stop on the interstate or do I push on for 10 minutes to the only RV repair shop in Burlington? We chose the latter. We arrived at Peter's RV with smoke plumes pouring from under the rig. That got their attention!
I had visited the place earlier, seeking some regular maintenance and they'd refused to help unless I could wait four weeks. I'd even written a letter to the pretty awful local newspaper in which I made a pitch for hiring more help to turn this recession around – and to serve customers better.
Now they had to deal with my emergency – and they did. When the emergency brake cooled down sufficiently (two hours), a mechanic slid under the rig. He filled the reservoir with my brake fluid and asked me to start the engine, put the rig in gear – and definitely keep my foot on the regular brakes. I did and he was sprayed with brake fluid for a grey relay switch. When he disconnected this switch he found the tiny O-ring was broken. This O-ring had leaked when my son in law and I had changed out the heavy-duty actuator on the brake system back in May. We had made a 30-mile trip to replace this tiny piece at an auto parts store. The salesman said it needed a metric O-ring which surprised me on an American-built relay switch. But we installed it and it was the wrong size.
The mechanic installed a new O-ring and I asked for two spares. No leaks. So we scooted south and east and came to Northwood, New Hampshire. We had been to this tiny but delightful campground a few years back. The place has room for 20 rigs, all nestled in trees around a pond filled with croaking bullfrogs and trout that leap for flies in the setting sun. This is one of our favorite campgrounds in New England.
Now we head north to Saco, Maine. This takes us to the seacoast just south of Portland. This is the city we left aboard our sailboat, Quiet Passage, almost 11 years ago.