Digby, Nova Scotia - Saturday, 09/11/2010

Sunday morning, Sept. 12th, and a review of the weather channel shows today to be the better of the next three days, with it becoming only partly cloudy this afternoon with zero chance of rain. But right now we find the weather overcast, cool and windy. Even so, with tomorrow's forecast being nasty, the decision for "Which Way?" is made immediately. We have breakfast and head out. Guess what we are doing today?

 WHALE WATCHING!!

We make our reservations at the Nova Scotia Tourism Office, and are told the latest ferry that we must catch is the 12:30pm. We drive out of Digby, down Digby Neck to the Petit Passage and catch the 11:30am ferry to Long Island. The Petit Passage is a cut of water between Digby Neck and Long Island, with the Atlantic Ocean/St. Mary's Bay to the southeast and the Bay of Fundy to the northwest.  What a powerful mixing of the two waters, with the currents actually causing rapids, rip tides, and very dangerous whirlpools. The ferry, in fact, came to a complete hault under full throttle for a period of about ten seconds before winning out and again moving forward. After a five minute ride, we disembark, and have 90 minutes to kill. We start down Long Island to the far end (where we could have again boarded a ferry and taken another trip to Briar Island) when we pass the parking area for the Balancing Rock.   After another half-mile and much discussion on the merits of seeing this much hyped, natural point of interest, we decide to turn around and go explore. We are very glad we did. The hike is probably no more than a mile, across two log walkways over coastal bogs, and up and over two small hills until we reach a sign saying we now have to descend 230 some steps.That's OK, but remember, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction(not really the correct scientific statement, but you know what I mean) - ie., We will have to walk back up! Down we go, "1,2,3,4..........51,52,53........149, 150, 151, What did you say Vicki?, Oh, OK. Now where was I?" S--T!, another senior moment!! Lets just agree that we made it to the bottom, and there were the correct number of steps.

To our right was this column of stone sticking straight up in the air along a rugged and rocky coastline that was nearly vertical from the waters edge. A phenomenom caused by molten basalt columns being forced up through the earth's crust, many millions of years ago. Mostly six sided, but can be as many as 12 or as few as 3. Some 15-20 ft across, some only 3-4 ft across. Most broken down to only a few feet above water at high tide or laying, broken, off on their sides on top of larger columns, but the "balancing rock" is still standing after all of those years; 4 ft across and 30 ft high, balanced and askew atop another column only slightly wider across. WOW!! After looking all around, reading the info sign, and taking numerous pictures, I look at my watch and we need to leave to make the hike back, up the stairs, over the two small hills, and back across the two bogs. Not bad, only 50 minutes total round trip, but now we have to get back to the whale watching trip.

We get to the whale watch boat, board, and wait for the last party of four and then we are off with a full boat of 25 fools and 3 crew. Let me define the weather by telling you the outcome 1)four people sick, with one other "macho" guy telling us all that he never gets sick while holding his barf bag and resting his head on his wife's shoulder; 2)an older couple being excorted to the cabin after being found shivering in their seats; 3)everyone holding supplied blankets and rain ponchos over them to stay relatively warm and dry. One of the men that was sick spent 4 of the 4.5 hours that we were out on the floor of the boat alternating with his head in a blanket, barfing into a bag, and wiping his face with an entire roll of paper towels .

  
BUT, WE DID SEE WHALES. Vicki and I both agree that the whale watching crew did everything possible so we would have a positive experience and see whales. We saw probably six whales in all, but the best was a mother whale with her calf, surfacing several times with the requisite blowing of water, and exposing of their backs and dorsal fins. We even saw the mother dive with her tale high in the air. Again, WOW! We did make it back to the dock and even the crew was relieved to be on the dock, as they had told us it was some of the worst weather they had seen in awhile. Needless to say we immediately turned the car heater to high and left it on for the next twenty minutes; which is how long it took me to feel my feet again.

Back in Digby we had dinner at the Royal Fundy, a local hangout owned by O'Neils Fisheries which occupies the warehouse in back of the restaurant. Needless to say, the seafood was very fresh. (The owner's wife on the whale watch told us a funny story when she was at a fancy dinner function with her politically connected nephew in Minneapolis, when the host turned to her and told her that the scallops were probably the freshest that she would ever get. She told us she just bit her lip and agreed.) Oh,did I forgot to mention that Digby is considered to be the scallop capital of WORLD. I had the scallop dinner and Vicki had the fish and chips. Wonderful!! On subsequent nights we had fish cakes, scallops wrapped in bacon, fried clams, fish chowder, and some of the best rhubarb/raspberry pie that I have ever eaten. The food was great, the prices even greater and the staff got to know us and took very good care.

 

The next day we were off to Yarmouth where we passed through so many little towns with huge churches, it seemed every 20-25 km. The main town was Claire, which had "sub-towns", all with french names - Comeauville, Qnse-des-Belliveau Cove (I can pronounce cove), Sauinierville, etc. The natives are mainly Acadians, who are of French descent, but who did not get alot of help from France during the 1600-1700's, but also would not swear allegiance to the British Crown during the French English war in Canada. Because of this the Acadians were deported, or worse, from their homes and land. (one fellow house guest in Digby likened these actions by the British Crown to current cases of "ethnic cleansing") A poor area with small fishing villages at every cove, but their churches were spectacular. One of the churches in Church Point, the Musee Eglise Sainte-Marie Church, is the largest wooden structure church in North America.

Our destination, Yarmouth, is at the south west tip of Nova Scotia, and the closest point on the island to the tourist points of Bar Harbour and Portland, Maine. Because of this there was, up until December, 2009, ferry service from both US towns. For you Rochester residents you will recognize the CAT ferry company, and it seems that they had the same type of contract with Yarmouth as they did with Rochester. And just like Rochester, when they shut down they still owned/managed the Port of Yarmouth. Yarmouth has just repurchased their port and are actively soliciting another ferry. Their economy was devastated when they lost two ferries daily with all the tourist business that went with them. Yarmouth's loss was St. John's and Digby's gain as the the tourist trade and ferry transport moved up the mainland coast, and the Canadian federal government seems to like it that way as they have offered little to no hope to Yarmouth. The trip took us 5 hours to get to Yarmouth by way of the coast highway, and 90 minutes to get back by the main road.

 If it's Tuesday, we're in Annapolis Royal and Port Royal. Just a short drive from Digby, this is the oldest, continuous European settlement north of St. Augustine, Florida and was settled by Samuel de Champlain in 1605. Again, like much of Nova Scotia, the town was passed back and forth between the French and the British until 1710 when the British occupied the town. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 granting Annapolis Royal served as Nova Scotia's first capital from 1710 until 1749, when the capital was transferred to Halifax, and Fort Ann was built by the British to protect the town. Annapolis Royal is a small town(population 444), very walkable, with beautifully maintained/restored buildings (131 registered heritage properties).Britain final control.

The town offers a walking map with the primary properties identified and their history explained. Most of these buildings are privately owned with some being private residences (no admittance) and some being small boutiques and cafes. Most of the buildings are from the 1700's and early 1800's and the walking tour explains the history of the buildings, the owner's geneology, and interesting insights into their live's at the time. After touring the town we walked back to our car, and decided to tour Fort Ann. Built in 1792 and replacing three other forts before it, Fort Ann was built in the Vauban earthwork style of fort (I have just finished the book 1453, where the Turks under Mehmet, finally captured Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) under Constantine VI. Constantinople's land side defenses followed the same type of structure using sloped hills, leading to a large ditch, before an exterior wall, before an interior wall.)



I took this picture myself from a hot air baloon.  NOT!!

After first reading about seige warfare and then visually seeing a fort built for seige warfare, I can honestly say that I would much rather have been a defender than an attacker. Attackers were left in the wide open with steep uphill and downhill obstacles, while the defenders were at the tops of the embankments shooting downhill at the struggling opposition. The British continually occupied the fort until 1854 and saw action against the indigenous Mik'maq Indians and the French, and played an important role during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Really interesting stuff!

While touring the fort we were asked by one of the interpretors where we were from and she quickly informed us that another fort of the same style was located in Ticonderoga, New York. We were just as quick to tell her that our daughter and son-in-law actually live in Ticonderoga. Small world.