Fundy Tides, Lobster Buckets, And One Seriously Big Axe

Good morning!  It is a beautiful Saturday morning, though quite chilly.  I am writing this from our campsite, about ten meters from the banks of the St. John river, just outside Fredericton NB.  Promises of views of the aurora borealis last night did not pan out and instead it was just cold in our tent.  Probably the chilliest weather we’ve camped in since Gros Morne (though not nearly that cold) and even right now, sitting outside of the sun’s view, my hands are very icy.  Yes, friends, I think summer is just about over.

note:  when i first started writing this blog entry it was Saturday morning.  It is now Monday evening.  I got waylaid by all the awesomeness that you will soon read about. 

When we last left off we were in a hotel room in Moncton and I had just eaten one of the best meals of my life, at the Tide & Boar.  Krissy was still down with that nasty cold and even though we were to head to Fundy National Park the next day we ended up extending our stay by a night.  Krissy spent the day in bed and I lazed around for a while and then went out in search of record stores.  There were supposedly four stores in the city but one was closed.  The other three were decent, the best of which was a place called Spin It, on Main Street.  They specialize in metal and punk but they had a great selection of all kinds of other stuff and it took a lot of restraint to not walk out of there with anything more than a few used CDs.  The rest of the evening was spent at the hotel and very lazy.

Wednesday we got up and had breakfast and made our way to Fundy, which is a couple hours away.  We eventually got there and it was nice to see that park, and the little town of Alma, again.  The first time we ever escaped to Canada, in 2006, we went to Fundy and we had such great memories of that time.  It did not disappoint. 

We got our camp set up and went off to do a hike.  We did a wonderful waterfall hike at Laverty Falls.  It was steep going down and a bit of a treacherous hike back to the top but the payoff was, again, completely worth it.  There were lots of spots to scramble around on the boulders, even up to the edge of the falls.  It was quite lovely.

The trees are starting to change here.  Sometimes it comes it small but dramatic waves.

The flat part of the Laverty trail, before it got steep.

Ferns!  So many ferns!

The tranquil trickly part that leads up to the big falls.

The big falls.

Hans looking pensive in the middle of the big falls.

Next, we stopped at a nice little beach and hung out there for a little while.  We were perched on a rock on the shore and laid back for a bit and before we knew it the tide had come in such that we had to get off that rock quick.  We kinda had to cling a bit to the shore to get back to where we could get out and we each wound up with one wet shoe.

We;re gonna miss these tiny little red squirrels.

Bird looks square into the cave and sees what?

Hans heads down the beach in search of the awesome spot that will eventually get him wet.

Lots of red sandstone in the Fundy area.  This place is very rich in iron.

Again, these things are weeds but, but, but they are delightful.

From there we went into Alma to pick up some food things and also hang out a bit at the shore.  For those who don’t know, the Bay of Fundy boasts the most dramatic tide shifts of anywhere in the world.  Apparently it has to do with the way it is shaped and the way the Atlantic waters flow in and out.  Between high and low tide the waterline can fluxuate by up to 40 meters.  For a place like Alma, that means that at high tide the water goes right up to the road and at low tide, you can walk out almost a kilometer into the bay and not get wet.  It is pretty badass.

Anyway, when we were there on Wednesday, after the little beach episode, the tide was totally in and the water went right up to the road almost.  The views are outstanding and you can see Nova Scotia off in the distance.  We walked around there and played for a little while and then made our way back to camp for a scrumptious supper of beans & ramen noodles and then spent some time in the hammocks before heading to bed.

At around 3:30am I woke up and really had to use the washroom.  I tried to fight it for about a half an hour, because it sucks having to schlep all the way there and back in the dark, but I eventually gave in and made the trek down the dark camp road.  When I came out, there was a coyote outside.  Now, that was the first time I’d ever encountered a coyote and I was not keen on it, lemme tell ya.  Especially since he saw me and knew I was there.  And there I was, alone, in the middle of the night, totally unarmed, wearing flip-flops.  I coulda been a dead man.  Instead I went back in and hid in the loo for about a half an hour before I came out, saw he was gone, and cautiously made the hundred-meter trek back to the tent.  I could not find a stick to carry so I liberated a jagged rock from a rock wall and did a lot of 360s with my flashlight until I got back.  Needless to say I was a little rattled.  I know with all the camping that we’ve done that there are animals like that (and perhaps even scarier) roaming about when we are sleeping but it’s another thing to actually see one, even if I knew that he probably didn't want much to do with me anyway.  It was a little tough getting back to sleep but finally I did.

Thursday I woke up, refreshed and somewhat over my coyote experience.  It was a gorgeous morning, blue sky, sun, warm.  I spent a couple hours just swinging in the hammock and then we made breakfast and headed out on a couple of hikes.  The first one we did is called Dickson Falls.  We did this hike in ’06 and some of you might even have a photo from this place on your wall somewhere.  It is an amazing, trickly set of falls (with one bigger one towards the end) in a lush, mossy piece of forest that is too cozy to be believed.  It reminded us of the Olympic area, in Washington, or of Costa Rica.  Beautiful.

Some seriously mossy business at Dickson Falls.

And more mossy business at Dickson Falls.

And even more.

And the big falls.

And then there is this, which is just plain awesome.

I remember when we were at Dickson Falls in 2006 and - oh yeah, we had flown in to Portland and rented a car.  We had requested something similar to the Hyundai Accent that I drive but instead they gave us this maroon Mercury Grand Marquis...a grandpa car...we got the craziest looks from everyone we came across.  Except when we were coming out of Dickson Falls, there was a white model parked near mine and an elderly couple standing next to it, and he looked at me and said, "son, that's a fine automobile you've got there".  Ha!  Then we chatted for a while and they made some less-than-mildly racist comments about living in Toronto and we got the hell out of there quickly.  Still, I felt like an old man.  About a week later, I would get that car, and its shitty turning radius, stuck in a ditch in St. Anthony, but that story is best saved for another time.  So...

After that we went down to Alma and had a picnic near the water.  The tide was mostly in and we walked around and got some photos and then headed back into the park to do a short trail through a bog and that was pretty cool too.  My foot was killing me so we headed back to camp to chill out for a while.  Krissy read in the tent and I went to the kitchen shelter to write an article for the Old Town Crier (I reviewed that surprise new U2 album….it is a monster….check it out if you haven’t already).  Then came the super exciting part….I was finally going to get my lobster!!!

Right up at the water's edge.  I took a photo from the same rock the next day and it looks totally different.  Stay tuned for that one.

Likewise, here the water is up to the edge.  There are two points in the day when what you would see is the opposite of this.

Dunes along the Fundy shoreline.

Boats in Alma.  Krissy took a very similar photo in this same spot in 2006 and a black & white version of that photo appears on the cover of my 2007 album, The Importance Of Being.  Maybe this one will go on the reissue.

Despite my deep love for lobster and the fact that we have been in Atlantic Canada for over four months now (the home of the best lobster in the world), I’d yet to have any.  Sometimes I would set out to get one and then change my mind, in the interest of saving money.  Not this time.  We went all out and got the bucket – or, as Krissy likes to call it, “the entire Bay Of Fundy”.  It had a whole lobster, a bunch of shrimp and scallops, and about a hundred mussels.  Lots of corn and potatoes as well….a proper lobster boil.  I took that thing down like a champ and was the happiest man on earth.

The happiest man on earth and the entire Bay Of Fundy.

We headed back to camp and it had started raining and was totally cold and gross outside.  We hunkered down in the tent and got us a good night’s sleep.  Well, once I got over my fear that a coyote was going to invade the tent and gobble us up.  Ugh.

Friday we got up early and broke camp (packing a wet camp sucks) and headed to Alma so that we could take in Fundy at low tide.  We got there right after the tide started to change direction and we walked WAY out.  Like, almost a kilometer.  You get out there and turn around and look at Alma and it is tiny (I mean, it's pretty tiny anyway but you know what I mean).  With all the rocks and sand out there it really looks like the surface of another planet - in fact, there is a never-released record that I did, years ago, with a photo from there on the cover and the album is called This Is Where They Faked The Moon Landing…it coulda been. 

Hans on the same rock as before.  Where'd the bay go?

Every few hours this bit of land gets to breathe again.

Tiny channels remain but not much.

More of that good red Fundy floor.

Yup.  This is where they faked the moon landing.

Right at that point where the water starts to trickle back in.

Out by the water's edge.  We were quite far from Alma at this point.

Alma's boats at low tide.

We said goodbye to Alma and went back into the park to do one last hike.  We were going to do a trail called Matthew’s Head but instead went to Point Wolfe.  This is over near where we camped in 2006 and there is an awesome covered bridge.  We photographed it back then and we did again that day.  The road, for some reason, is closed right before the bridge so we parked and walked over, soon after meeting up with the Shiphaven trail.  This is a series of bridges that go through some old-growth Red Spruce that are very tall and lush and I swear you’d not be surprised to come across some Ewoks in there.  We got down to the shore, in the cove, and Krissy went about taking photos while I plopped down on a log and took in the scenery.  My feet were hurting quite a bit and I admit that I was a bit grumpy for it.  The trail was worth it though.

This is the entrance to the awesome covered bridge that leads to Point Wolfe.  It is a shame about the construction bit there and the orange crap that is blocking an otherwise lovely photo.

The inside of the covered bridge.

Point Wolfe, on the Shiphaven trail.

Old growth red spruce.  I am pretty sure a photo was taken in this exact same spot in 2006 and was used on the back cover of my album, The Gravity Tree.

Remnants of the pilings from the former Shiphaven ports.

A lone piece of driftwood on the low-tide floor.  It would not be long before it continued its journey.

Look behind that bush.  There is an Ewok there.

The covered bridge, with construction woes concealed.

After a while we made it back to the car and hit the road towards Fredericton.  It was a somewhat long and not very scenic drive but we eventually got there and to Mactaquac Provincial Park.  The campgrounds of the park are very large and seem to consist mainly of seasonal RV campers but every so often they will have an awesome site that is reserved just for tents.  Ours was right on the lake and even though it was right by the path to the lake, as well as the washrooms, it was still pretty well secluded and we did not feel out in the open.  It was a beautiful Friday evening and we got our camp set up (after hanging much of it out to dry first) and set up the hammocks in the woods between our site and the lake and had some good swings.  For some reason I thought it would not be necessary to get wood for a fire and that was something that I eventually regretted, as the evening descended into bitter chilliness.  We had heard that the Northern Lights may be visible and we stayed up as long as we could but never saw anything and so we were bored and cold and went to bed.  I got up in the middle of the night to check on the sky and still nothing.  Bummer. 

It was a cold night in the tent and was not the most pleasant sleep I’ve ever had.  Woke up Saturday morning to blue skies and sunshine.  It was still freakin’ cold but it was beautiful.  Spent all of the morning just being lazy at the camp site.  I was swinging in the hammock and Krissy stayed in the tent, reading and freezing.  We eventually got ourselves together and made our way out of the campground around 2 or so.  We were headed into downtown Fredericton and the Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival because moe. was scheduled to play there.  One of my favorite bands in the world, who I've been seeing live since 1996, was playing in New Brunswick for the very first time, at a pretty well-known festival that I've been wanting to attend for years, and I just happened to be in the area at the same time?  Serendipity!

So we started making our way towards town pretty early and we were just going to kill time.  But then we passed an apple orchard and so we made a swift u-turn and headed in to pick some apples.  That is one of our favorite fall activities and while we missed having the usual big apple fest with all our folks back home we still had a good time picking apples - mostly ginger crisp but also some whose names I can't recall, and I raided the crabapple tree because I love those little tart things.  Since I don't think we can bring them over the border we had to restrain ourselves from picking more than we could eat in a week.  That said, we ate a lot of apples that day, and the days that followed.  

Feeding an apple to a horse.

In the beautiful gardens at Everett Orchards

Apples!

Andersons love picking apples.

That beautiful New Brunswick countryside, taken from outside the orchard while we were eating apples.

Then, as we were driving further down the road, we passed another orchard.  So we stopped again.  Mostly we wanted to see if they were picking different varieties, and they had McIntosh, so we figured we should get a few.  They had a fixed price on a full bag and we told them that we couldn't take that many so they sent us out to the trees to pick whatever we wanted and then they let us have them for free.  It was a very sweet thing for them to do, especially since this was a much smaller and far less successful orchard.  

We eventually made it to Fredericton and got parked and headed down to the festival and it was very awesome.  There were tents in various parts of downtown, hosting special ticketed concerts, but there were tons of food trucks and small jazz bands set up on various spots as well as buskers and street performers and all sorts of business.  It was not what I was expecting but instead so much better.  I almost want to make this an annual pilgrimage.  There were a lot of big name acts playing there over the course of the festival - Joel Plaskett Emergency, Gord Downie & The Sadies, The Wood Brothers, Bahamas, Dr. John, David Clayton-Thomas, Ruthie Foster, Arkells, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, John Hammond, Buckwheat Zydeco, Blues Traveler, and more - but they were all individual shows and that would add up a bit.  So anyway we wandered around and got some bites from trucks and checked out some of the street performers, which included a couple in white formal ballroom gear, dancing through the streets on stilts.  Amazing.  We stopped into this Indian joint to try this spicy curry poutine that they were advertising and it was delicious.  On the way out, I missed a step and fell down a small flight of stairs.  I was not drunk, mind you.  Still, some of you would find that hilarious.  

This was taken on my iPhone and it is not a great photo but it's the best I could get.  You guys had to see this.

We made our way down to the show and the whole night was excellent.  First up was the Chris Robinson Brotherhood and they were really good (Chris was the singer in the Black Crowes but has now gone on to do his own thing).  They played a bit longer than I was really in the mood for, especially since I didn't know any of the material, but it was still quite enjoyable.  During the break, we moved all the way up to the rail in the front, right in front of Chuck.  That was the spot that we always used to aim for back when they played small clubs.  It's been a while since I've seen them play from that spot and it was amazing.  They opened up with "Seat Of My Pants" and it was raging.  Oh so very loud.  After a few songs, Krissy took off and found a place in the back to hang out because it was too loud (also there was some dancin' dude that kept bumping into her).  moe. really brought the heat during this set, which also included "Not Coming Down", "Okayalright", "Annihilation Blues", "Blue Jeans Pizza", and a few more.  Oh yeah, a nice long "Recreational Chemistry" to close the set.  Chris Robinson also came out at one point and they did "Up On Cripple Creek", by The Band, and it was a great jam.  Towards the end of the show there was this totally drunk dude, right on the rail next to me, shouting and just goin' nuts.  Then, when we were waiting for them to come back for the encore, he started screaming for "Timmy Tucker", over and over again, like a hundred times, really loudly.  Hollered to the band when they came back on stage but they either ignored him or didn't hear him.  And he was still shouting for "Timmy Tucker" even while moe. were playing "Mexico" instead (at least it's from the same album, ya wingnut).  There has to be at least one at every show and, well, at least this time it was not me.  The show ended around midnight and I left there tired but very, very happy.  While I would have loved to see a full two-set show, it was still a great set and I feel lucky to have been able to be there.

Chris Robinson and the Brotherhood lay it down.

Chuck burns it up during "Annihilation Blues" while Rob grooves on the bass and Jim fades into the glow of the lights.

Chris Robinson trades solos with Al during "Up On Cripple Creek" while Rob looks on.

We got back to the campground at around 2am and hung out for a little while before going to sleep.  Woke up on the early side Sunday morning and, even though we were dragging a bit, we got our camp broken down and packed up (for the LAST time).  Oh yeah, as a final jab for us, it decided to rain in the middle of the night so we got to pack up a wet camp.  Fun.  

We had a long drive to Quebec City ahead of us and so, after a tasty breakfast of sausage & apples,  we got moving.  We made very few detours, since it was to be a long drive, but we did take a quick pass though Nackawic to see the World Biggest Axe.  Folks, it is one big axe.

One big axe indeed!

The true spirit of Canada.

We also passed through Edmunston (one of the largest predominantly Francophone cities in North America, outside of Quebec & the Caribbean), where we were supposed to have stayed for a night, and looked around for a bit.  It seemed like a decent enough city and it's a bummer that we didn't get to know it but we were in a rush so we got back on the highway and bolted it into Quebec.

The thing that struck me the most about driving through Quebec wasn't the fact that all the signs were in French only (which neither of us speak at all) but the landscape.  After months of so many hills and dramatic coastlines and other quirky geologic features, to see vast expanses of flat farmland, with massive mountains looming in the far distance, was so different.  It was very cool.  

We finally made it to Quebec City around 6pm and made our way into the walled portion of the city, the Old Quebec part, which is where we are staying, at the HI Hostel.  We paid the difference to upgrade from a dorm (which is what our HI letters get us, for free) to a private room and that was most necessary after the long days we've had.  We made dinner in the (very busy) kitchen and made our way to bed for a very early night.

We woke up this morning, Monday, and went down for breakfast - they do a continental breakfast in the mornings which is a nice touch.  Oh yeah, this hostel is massive.  It spans three buildings, connected with skyways and tunnels, and has like 275 beds, a pub, theater, game room, industrial kitchen, activities, just a big crazy place.  By far the biggest hostel I have ever seen.  It took us a while to stop getting lost when we were trying to find our room.  I definitely would never have the energy to work here, though this is one of the rare hostels that is actually totally run by paid staff, rather than woofers.  Which is good.  This place is so busy that they better be getting paid.

Anyway, so we got ourselves together and went out walking around the old, walled area of Quebec City.  Being that it's the last and most well-preserved fortified cities in North America, this whole section is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  This makes for the sixth site we've visited on this trip, after Lunenburg, Gros Morne, L'anse aux Meadows, Red Bay, and the Joggins Fossil Cliffs.  The nerd in me loves checking sites off that list.  

Our first taste of the quaint, after leaving the hostel this morning.

Dormers and spires and all sorts of pointy things.

Part of the chateau with another rotunda-ed building in the background.

The chateau is massive.

Spires and steeples add to the majesty of this skyline.

One of many old churches in the city.

The spire of the university.

Krissy's got a gun....

Hans tells you what.

This city is totally stacked.  It is seriously good exercise to walk around here.

Not sure what street this is but is is bustling.

Quebec City kinda looks like the Tower of Babel in this shot.

Captaine Hans

Quebec flags fly proudly over the rue.

There is a lot of interesting art in this city,.

Cathedrals are such majestic places.

As you can tell from the photos, this is one of the cutest and most quaint cities I've ever visited.  Everyone always said that this place was so European and it is true.  It is hard to believe that I am in Canada while I walk these streets.  We spent most of our day walking around and popping into shops every now and then.  Got some delicious chocolate and Krissy got a cute sweater at this place.  We had lunch at Le Chic Shack, which is a burger place with a distinct local twist.  It was featured on You Gotta Eat Here, on the Food Network, and with good reason.  It was fantastic.  In fact, that burger was so good that I didn't even bother to remove the tomato (note: i loathe tomatoes) for fear of upsetting such a wonderful balance.

Came back to the room and vegged out for a few hours, napped for a bit.  Then it was time to go in search of dinner.  Since we are in Quebec City we wanted to splurge on an awesome French meal.  We had our sights set on this one place that had good reviews but when we finally found the place, and found that it was outside the city walls and attached to the cruise ship terminal, we set out to find something else.  After a big uphill detour we finally settled on this place called Aux Anciens Canadiens.  It is a very old place and was not at all cheap but man was it delicious.  Such a quaint spot in such a quaint city.  We got the fixed menu and were treated to a many-course meal that wound up being way too much food (fresh bread, wild caribou rillettes w/ carrot comfit, soup, main, dessert, coffee, and a shooter.  My main was a meat pie and bison stew and Krissy got a bison bourguignon.  For dessert, Krissy got a trio of sorbets while I got this maple syrup pie thing that was intense.  It was a long few blocks back to the hostel but it was worth every heavy step.

Like I said, there are a lot of odd art installations in the city.  One area has all these walls covered in beach gear.  Some are made of sandboxes and buckets and stuff.  This alley was a gauntlet of flotation noodles. 

The Notre Dame church at night.

The Chateau is even more badass at night.

Aux Anciens Canadiens, where we ate tonight.  It was amazing.

And that brings us up to now.  Tomorrow we leave for Mont Tremblant, which is about an hour or so north of Montreal.  We will be there for a couple of days, and will swing though Montreal on the way in and out.  We will be staying in a suite that belongs to some customers of mine, from the bank.  It will be a very sweet, relaxing couple of days.  Then we head to Ottawa for a night where we will be staying in the HI Hostel that was formerly a jail (kinda creepy but cool, from what we've heard) and will also get the chance to see my buddies from St. John's, Green & Gold, play a show (they are on tour right now).  It will be a good last night, but that is getting way ahead of ourselves.  

It is hard to believe that, in just a few days, we will be back in the States.  Just can’t wrap my head around it at all.  It will be great to see all the people that we miss (and I can’t wait to go to the MUNCH) but that is pretty much all I am looking forward to at this point.  Everything else that goes with coming home….well, I don’t want to think about it now.  And I shan’t.  We are still on holiday and we will do what we can to make the most of every second.

Hope y’all have a great week!