Tour of Canada's Maritime Provinces, Part 1 - Royersford to Oxford, Nova Scotia

   After last year’s Benelux adventure, we were initially thinking of a very simple getaway of a couple weeks this summer. We started discussing something to the north, and before I knew it, my should-have-been-a-travel-agent wife had in place the outline of a trek through Canada’s maritime provinces!

   We certainly didn’t want to sink money into air travel, and when the idea of taking our trail bikes and kayaks crossed our minds, the only option was hitting the road with our Odyssey van. I don’t mind driving at all, and after taking our boys in 2006 on a six-week cross-country tour nearing 10,000 miles, a prospective trip of just a couple thousand didn’t even make me blink.

   Anyone who knows us is aware of our “bikes in the car” rule, so the van’s middle seats came out, and we still had plenty of room for luggage, cycling gear, coolers and gluten-free supplies for me (we weren’t too sure what we’d find along the way). Paddles and life vests were also thrown inside, and our kayaks were strapped to the Odyssey roof.

   It’s always a bit amusing to fine-tune the kayak straps, as they tend to hum like violin strings if they aren’t pulled tightly down to the hulls, but we did remarkably well, as there was only some rattling from the padlock cable we had fed through the middle for security. We have a trailer that we had been using during trips down the Schuylkill or at local lakes, and it had been years since we last used the Thule kayak mounts on our roof rack.

  Our trip strategy was to divide the 950-mile outbound trip into thirds, stopping first in Bangor, Maine. In choosing our route, we added a bit of distance in a tradeoff to avoid all major metropolitan areas. We also managed to hit the minor cities outside of rush hour – the only real slow-downs were slight construction delays caused by a reduction of lanes. We were making wonderful time through New England.

   Sue had arranged Airbnb accommodations along the way, and they are a bit of a lottery sometimes, particularly within our budget range. We tend to deal with rustic conditions better than most folks, as we focus on the idea that the surroundings, not the sleeping arrangements, are the main attraction. Bangor really turned out to be neither an attraction nor an accommodation.

   The location choice was actually a back-up for an earlier reservation that had fallen through when the owner notified us – on rather short notice – that she was no longer hosting guests. The shabby apartment in which we ended up felt more like a dorm, with a downstairs common kitchen and lounge and an upstairs hallway of doors to other guestrooms and a shared bath. However, the queen-sized bed was comfortable enough, and we were only staying there overnight, so it was no big deal.

   A few guests had arrived later than us, were courteous and quiet, and surprisingly disappeared before we even got up in the morning! We had the kitchen all to ourselves for a quick morning breakfast, a check of the email and brush of teeth before leaving on our next leg of the trip.

   Much of the route through Maine was familiar territory to us, as we had visited Bar Harbor several times. Other than the obvious change from deciduous to coniferous (or carnivorous, as we enjoyed visualizing in our imaginations) forest, there wasn’t anything too remarkable to comment on along the way.

   At the border crossing into Canada, just south of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, we were reminded of a trip up through Niagara Falls into Toronto in 2001. We had the boys with us, and during the return into the U.S we were absolutely grilled at the border crossing. A mini-van with two small boys and only a small bag of postcards purchased in T.O. – we shook our heads in exasperation as the customs officer went over us with a fine-toothed comb, and this was a few months before 9/11!

   We weren’t expecting the impressive superhighway across New Brunswick, and we quickly arrived for a planned visit to St. John and the Reversing Rapids. Here the outrushing St. John River flows over rapids through a narrow rocky channel to meet the Bay of Fundy. The incredibly extreme tides in the bay cause the river to change direction over the rapids.

   Now I'm going to get all geological on you! The area is a collision point of two terranes, which are broken off pieces of tectonic plates. The rocks south of the bridge at St. John are Cambrian age rocks of the Caledonia Terrane (542 to 490 million years old). North of the bridge the light gray rocks are Precambrian age from the Brookville Terrane. Both terranes originated in the southern hemisphere, but they are 500 million years different in age!

  We didn’t want to stay throughout the full three-hour process when small boats are actually allowed to navigate through the narrows during slack tide, so I've included the shot Sue took of the area, and I'll leave you to investigate more photos on the 'net, if you are interested

   As we traveled through the communities of Saint John and Moncton, I found it incredible to think that these, and farther-reaching communities such as Halifax and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and even Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, were once the homes of American Hockey League franchises. I’m not sure why NHL teams would want to spend the money on travel for players on their farm teams – from 1988-96 Cape Breton hosted the Edmonton Oilers minor league squad!

   Our stop-over point this evening was Oxford, Nova Scotia, the “Wild Blueberry Capital of Canada”, and we were pleasantly surprised by a small, 100-year-old house that we had all to ourselves. We were regretting somewhat that we were only doing an overnight in such a charming place!

A large Blueberry Man statue greets visitors as they swing down Main Street.

   While browsing some brochures left on the kitchen table, I found that the Trans-Canada Trail passed just a couple of blocks from the house. Since it had been a few days since I had been on the bike, I suggested to Sue that we eat a light dinner and go for a short ride – well, she could go as far as she liked, but I would probably go farther.

   We quickly found out that trail sections in Canada that are far from the more densely-populated areas are not maintained at all, and even worse, see a good deal of traffic from ATVs! The surface was mostly a thick layer of small rock, not quite railroad ballast-sized, but just as rough to ride over. Pedaling was an extremely nervous affair, not only because of the minor risk of flatting but also the danger of crashing. The 30+ millimeter ‘cross tires we both had on our wheels proved durable enough, but a wider, mountain bike tire would have been more appropriate to take on this unstable surface.

   If we noted one side of the trail was barer/smoother than the other and tried to switch over, our front wheels would slide in the rock and cause us to lose control. A few sections were just unrideable, and we attempted to walk but were met with an attack of mosquitoes and large, black biting flies. A couple of insects smacked hard into my helmet in unsuccessful dive-bomb attempts to my face, and we both resorted to a cyclocross-style run with the bikes until we felt the riding conditions were manageable.

   After three palm- and butt-numbing miles, we were able to ditch the trail onto a side road and hooked up with Main Street back into Oxford. I continued on for another 15 miles or so, on a very pleasant route out and back along the River Philip. In hindsight, especially after I later saw a map and realized that I was only a couple miles from the Northumberland Strait when I had turned around, we should have just done the river ride and saved ourselves some torture.

   Internet availability will be sparse during our trip (I'm actually "checking in" at a local library right now), so I will update my blog whenever possible. Be patient!