Last August(2007), we embarked on a month long trip to Canada’s Atlantic Provinces. I will try to give a sense of what we experienced and enjoyed, what YOU might like to know and find useful in case you choose to make a similar trek. First,and most importantly, do not put up a screen room when you hear the word ‘GALE’ in the weather report; If it is already up, take it down! More about this below.
Our principal goal was Newfoundland, where we spent 16 days. Our second focus was Cape Breton Island which we toured briefly on our return from NL. At the end of this post I have a few ‘if you go’ notes to help with costs etc. The North Atlantic is Windy ALL the time and in August, can be rainy as well. It showered about half the nights, showered 1-2 days in 3. The Snuggle Inn was a trooper! We were warm and dry all the way, slept like babies. This is a trip that ‘Snuggle’ made a great fun adventure, a good way to keep the brains and joints working!
PICTURE OF NEWFOUNDLANDS FLAGS
Going to Canada’s Maritimes is going into the North Atlantic and its weather, and when you reach Newfoundland, you are also experiencing the Canadian Shield, a unique blend of geology, geography and climate, shaped by geological and climatic changes millions of years ago. You are also going to a different culture, most noticeable when you reach the true ‘edges’ of civilization on the coasts of Newfoundland and Cape Breton, which are now dominated by Scot descendents and in the 16th and 17th century were first settled by the French
This is beautiful, haunting country. Sea and Land are in intimate contact and weather and all else is shaped by this basic reality. It is a great place to beat the heat and humidity of the mid Atlantic region in the summer (as Roosevelt’s family knew, spending summers on Campobello Island, NB) and the real plus is that the people are wonderful and are worth the trip all by themselves. One final, critical point: If you need a cup of coffee in Canada go to Tim Hortons--they are ubiquitous (1 for every 12,000 Canadians!) and with the exception of a coffee shop in St. John, NL, served the best coffee on the trip....On to the trip....
This trip could be summarized by a paraphrase of John Kennedy’s quip when he went to Paris to meet with DeGaulle, ‘I’m the fellow who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris’ We were the people who accompanied ‘The Snuggle Inn’ to the Maritimes. Everywhere people wanted to look at it, ask questions and expressed surprise at the ‘package’ the Inn is.
On Sunday, August 5, we departed for our first enroute camp in Eddington, ME. We arrived about dinner time, cooked, met some very nice people from Nova Scotia (the lady, like Nancy, is a quilter) and gave them the requested ‘tour’ of Snuggles and departed early the next morning for Murray Beach Provincial Park in New Brunswick.
Murray Beach PP is right on the Northumberland Strait, which lies between NB and Prince Edward Island, at the extreme eastern end of NB. New Brunswick Provincial Parks can be contacted on the web. They have both serviced and unserviced sites. They are clean and well run--at least Murray Beach was and so was Herring Cove on Campobello Island, where we stayed on the way home.
You do need quarters for their showers--Canadian and ‘Murican both work--, though!
Pic of Murray Beach Provincial Park, New Brunswick—our first official visitor!
The park is quite nice. Tent sites are in the wooded area, RV and serviced sites in grassy open area or edge of the wooded area. When we arrived, their faux pas meant that while they had a record of our reservation, they had not assigned us to a serviced site as we requested and all serviced sites were full. So, we took a non-serviced site until the next day. In return, they gave us our first night (of two) on the serviced site for free.
Picture of Murray BEACH PP looking out to PEI and Northumberland Strait
‘Hey, you mind if we look at your trailer?’ The first of many such requests in Canada, this greeted us after breakfast and before we moved to our new site, and we duly showed and explained. The folks were tenters (inquiries on the trip were evenly divided between tenters and humongous RV owners) Once set up on our new site, we explored the park trails, honored several more ‘Do you mind....’ requests and for dinner went to a seafood restaurant ‘up the road’ for the first of many delicious Canadian seafood dinners. They can do fish and chips better than the Brits, simply wonderful!!
The next day we were off to PEI, via the Confederation Bridge (Opened in 1997, 9 mi long). Going TO PEI on the bridge is ‘free’ Coming BACK costs you $45. The ferry back costs the same. We went to ‘Green Gables’, the farm at which Lucy Maude Montgomery, author of ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and subsequent stories in the series, was raised by her maternal grandparents.
This is a Canadian National Historical site--Her works are the equivalent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House On the Prairies’ stories-- in recalling childhood in a nation at a defining time in its history. ‘Anne of Green Gables’ has also been a HUGE hit in Japan (!) and many Japanese tourists were there the day we visited. Many Japanese travel to Green Gables to get married! I have no idea why ‘Anne...’ resonates in Japan...???
We briefly visited Charlottetown, capital of PEI, on the way home and, after paying our $45! bridge toll, (just for the car, no trailer) returned for a second night to the restaurant we had eaten at the night before--can’t get enough good seafood! Oh, by the way, they accept Visa and Mastercard at the Bridge <g>
We had bought an ETON weather radio and it worked in Canada as well as US. Very, very useful, it turned out (highly recommended if you do extended travel with no TV etc.)
Going to bed that night we listened to WEATHER CANADA (both french and english) and they DID mention ‘gale force winds’ but we weren’t familiar with place names and thought nothing of it...big, big, mistake!
7AM Gale at Murray Beach
About 4 AM we woke up in a full gale. The PA HA QUA screen room, though staked and tied down, was still whipping around like a kite, though still fully rigged. It was banging against the trailer. So we got dressed went out and began dismantling the screen room in the gale blowing off the Strait--the rain was horizontal and stung! We dismantled the screen room, which, except for one bent roof pole did admirably well (and was still quite usable the rest of the trip) Later in the morning, after breaking camp, I would realize that the spots on my glasses were SALT water spray off of the Strait!
Since we were due at the Newfoundland ferry in North Sydney, NS the next day, we HAD to break camp in the continuing gale: We did so. Snuggle Inn had one small drip at the corner of my door...later easily fixed with additional weather stripping but otherwise it was a great ‘port in the storm’. Tent campers and even the RV folk had troubles with tents and awnings etc. whipping in the wind and rain and spray and many, like us, were engaged in breaking camp in a full gale. Once the PA HA QUA was down we didn’t have much to do except I did have to pick up the tongue to load onto the hitch after the wind blew the trailer off of its stands (we hadn’t done a good job of placing the stands--our bad!
After breaking camp, we had a WONDERFUL breakfast at a local restaurant on the way to the bridge to Nova Scotia. We met other people from the campground, exchanged war stories about breaking camp. One family said this was the 3rd year in a row that this happened to them and that, though they loved the park, they might not come back. Our drive to North Sydney was through the continuing gale but since we were inland, it was less intense. Snuggle is very roadable in high winds! When we got to the Canso causeway between NS proper and Cape Breton, the seas were still rough!
PICTURES OF CANSO CAUSEWAY
Here is another invaluable tip: When you are going to drive in a GALE be sure you close the windows all the way in your trailer!! (see below)
In North Sydney, we bailed out into a Best Western motel rather than set up in the gale. We took this opportunity to take our clothes and bedding (see below) to the laundry for washing and drying, which they promised to have ready for us at 10 AM the next morning. Check in time for the Ferry was 11 AM the next day. We had dinner at the motel. The motel is sited on a hill overlooking the harbor and ferry landing. The ocean was still being roughed by the wind.as we ate, and we wondered if our ferry would be back from Port aux Basques in time for our departure the next day.
The next morning we woke to a bright, sunny day. We called Marine Atlantic (they have a website for schedule and reservations) and found that our ferry, originally scheduled for noon departure, would not depart until 5:30 PM because it had been delayed by high seas on its trip from Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. We retrieved our clothes, gassed up the car (last chance before NFLD, where gas would cost between $4.16 & $4.55 an American gallon) We also took time to dry out Snuggle--we had not closed one of the windows (!) all the way and on the drive from Murray Beach, the bedding got wet in the driving rain.. The WIND, sun, strategic placement of water bottles under the mattress and the Fantastic vent made short work of drying out the mattress over the afternoon, we and got on the MV Caribou nice and dry. We always double checked the windows after that!!!
Here is the Ferry Caribou and us in line at the dock--we thought these were a hoot!
The first 'Caribou' was sunk by a U-boat in 1942. It DID have about
15 soldiers on it so by rules of war was a legit target...
Into the belly of the whale...
The fare going TO NFLD was $172--car and trailer measured at 28’. For some reason, coming back it was only $139--the only reasons I can think for the difference is that either our gear shrank in the rain, or the lady doing the ticket was distracted by the guy in the booth hitting on her..
Fortunately, both the trip TO Port aux Basques, NL and our later return trip to North Sydney, NS were pretty mild, with only a little ‘rock and roll’ in the Cabot Strait (we DID take Dramamine just in case) We landed at Port aux Basques about 10:30 PM NL time (9:pm EDT) and headed to J. Cheeseman Provincial Park, about 8 miles west on the Trans-Canada highway. The staff was obviously prepared for the late ferry--we and others were waved through the park check in and rangers directed us to open campsites and told us to pick one, register in the morning. Really cool. We hopped out of car, went to brush our teeth and just fell into the Snuggle Inn for sleep (it is SO great to be able to do that!)
PIC OF CAMPGROUND AT Cheeseman PP
The next morning we departed for our first stop: GROS MORNE NATIONAL PARK on the west shore of Newfoundland on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which lies between NL and Quebec. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site ....... and it reveals the first attribute of NL: 99% of all people live on the coasts. The interior of the island (which in total area is nearly the size of Japan) is Boreal forest--rock, water and pines--the Canadian Shield. There is ONE road north-south through the center of the island. The Trans Canada runs East- West along the Western and Northern Perimeter to St. John. There is no road running East-West in the Center of the Island.
About the Park: It is huge, with many trails, spectacular fjords and lots of moose. The comfort stations are clean, showers are hot, and you do not need quarters! The daily camping fee there was $24. The sites are roomy and well screened for privacy. These signs appear everywhere--There is a sense of humor, but the message here is very serious....
History
Newfoundland was for the British, French, Basques and Spanish of the 17th century a virtual fishery ‘gold rush’ Cod were so plentiful that the countries fought wars over the control of NL and the small slice of land at the tip of Quebec which we now call Labrador--which together with Newfoundland is now one of Canada’s provinces. Ultimately, the British won the ‘Cod Wars’ and the current character of the culture and settlements of NL reflect that, with the Scot and Irish communities dominant, with some continuing Francophone presence on the western shore. We spent 4 days at Gros Morne NP...I am including pictures of the natural features, and the communities. It is a wild and beautiful, beautiful place!
Gross Morne Mtn....looking out from Norris Point
Tablelands--scraped flat by glaciers, used to be sea bottom eons ago!
This is Corner Brook, just south of Gros Morne--second largest town in NFLD--25,000 or so. Paper making is big industry.
Below is a picture of a boat just outside of Norris Point...
Most of fishermen of this size are either out of business or have combined to work one bigger boat...with very restricted seasons.
PICTURES OF THE GROS MORNE AREA
The weather, influenced by the St. Lawrence river valley as it empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence is wet and WINDY. The ocean fjords, miles long, are buffeted by strong winds, sometimes of hurricane force.
Fishing here and throughout Newfoundland, including the Grand Banks on the Eastern shore was destroyed by the excess harvesting of the ‘factory’ ships and only now is beginning a slow, but uncertain, recovery. Long line fishing is the only kind permitted by treaty in Canadian waters. My mind has a hard time wrapping itself around the fact that factory ships lay net lines 70 miles long and catch everything when they close them...
The failure of the fishery has changed communities throughout NL. Young people have left for mainland Canada, settling there permanently. Many people leave NL in the Spring to go to Alberta to work in the oil fields and construction in Ontario and return in the winter. Many of the small shore coves and towns are now mostly made up of senior citizens and perfectly good 2 and 3 bedroom homes could be had for $30-40,000!
From Gros Morne, we headed to the North Central coast of Newfoundland, to Twillingate, a community which was originally French, but with the British defeat of the French became English/Scot. We stopped overnight in Windsor-Grand Falls at a very nice, clean campground—Sanger Memorial Park ($24) on the Exploits River, a fine fishing spot for Atlantic salmon--which is why people go there. There is easy access on and off of the Trans Canada
PICTURE OF CAMPSITE At Sanger
Moving on, We stayed at Dildo Run Provincial park, south of Twillingate--we loved the name <g>
Newfoundland Provincial Parks comfort stations are ususally exceptionally clean, though none offer electric serviced sites and water is usually not on your campsite but at a central station. They do have dumping stations. The showers are hot, with roomy dressing areas and you don’t need quarters!. And you can’t beat the price at $13/day! The amenities are simple, similar to what they might have been in the States in the 40’s & 50’s, early 60’s
LONG POINT LIGHTHOUSE--North of Durrell on North Coast
I am going to allow the pictures to speak here. Remember what I said about coastal communities earlier as you look at these pictures. One thing we found to be true was that people do everything they can to make some living--see the ‘Split Peas’ singing group below. They sell berries, jams, crafts, quilts, and hand made clothes and jewelry. Several places along the way had internet cafes where we caught up with email.
One characteristic of communities throughout Newfoundland is that there is still a lot of local pride and care for local history--every town had a museum, usually a converted house....
The Split Peas have appeared on the CBC and all over Canada...they are local ladies--who have a good time--they do the evening programs in an old Orange Order Hall during the summer:
Here is Pike's Arm, a typical fishing village, just south of Twillingate
Below is a picture of the Boats in the harbor at Pikes Arm
An Older Gentleman makes these figures--his children are in Alberta, working in the Oil Fields...This is Richardson's Cove, near Twillingate...
This is an abandoned home just outside of Durrell on the North Coast...
After 4 days in the Twillingate Area, we turned East again on the Trans Canada to go to St. John. We camped at Butter Pot Provincial Park—easy on and off of the Trans Canada,just East of St. John, the largest city in Newfoundland--@ 95,000 people. The next largest city, Corner Brook on the West Coast, is @ 20.000 people. The whole province of Newfoundland-Labrador has only about 595,000 people (when they are all there) St John is a small city but a dramatic one. It sits on a beautiful protected harbor and it is placed on rapidly rising headlands surrounding the harbor, giving you dramatic views from almost any point in the city....here are a few...
The first is looking out to the mouth of the Harbor from THE ROOMS...
Because of its location, the St John area was on the cutting edge of communications and intercontinental airline travel in the 19th and early 20th century. The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid from there, ditto the first transatlantic telephone cable, the very first transatlantic airplane flight took place from there--two British army pilots in a biplane--and the first solo flights over the Atlantic by a male--Wylie Post and female--Amelia Earhart started there as well. Marconi received the first intercontinental radio message there. We spent an afternoon at the Memorial University Gardens--with our yellow slickers on, dodging raindrops, showers are frequent in St. John.
The picture below is from the entrance to the Harbor--the lighthouse still works--the ruins are of a fort that once guided the harbor
The next picture is looking into the harbor from the top of the headlands at the harbor mouth...
This next picture is of the city from the headlands at harbor mouth. The large colored building in the center is THE ROOMS...if you let your eye drift to the right you will see St. Patrick's RC cathedral. St. John had many fires in the 19th century, especially in the lower part of the city...building higher up gave you some protection from those...
This next picture is taken from THE ROOMS--looking down into the older part of the city...
Auntie Crae’s (272 Water St.) is a great place for coffee and sandwiches, salads, baked goods and music at lunch time...just a block from the waterfront.
Although we didn't know about it until after we got there, St. John's has a park in the city where they allow camping. You can look on line at pippypark.com.
We spent a day at THE ROOMS a dramatic modern facility overlooking St. John, with art museum, theater, history museum, the provincial archives and a very, very good restaurant. We could have spent another 3 or 4 days at St. John but we were running out of time....
On one of our days at Butter Pot , after consulting our trusty weather radio, we took off for a boat trip to the Witless Bay Seabird sanctuary-- an island off the coast-- south of St. John. Our principal reason for going was to see the PUFFINS!
Before getting on the boat at Witless Bay, it was important to rub the spot that brings good luck before sailing....!
Here's the best puffin pic:
We were not disappointed, we saw thousands of them--I have a couple of pics to show, but it is hard to get pictures while rocking and rolling in the North Atlantic....the camera has a heck of a time focusing. One thing that surprised me about these birds is that they are fairly small-8-10 inches high. The weather was beautiful, the seas not too rough--swells about 1-3 feet. There are hundreds of humpback whales that spend the summer off of Witless Bay and we saw some of those as well
After our Puffin cruise, we headed south, along the coast on a circular loop called ‘The Irish Coast’ because that is where the Irish settled when they came to NL.We saw some woodland caribou on that drive. Caribou and Moose are not native to Newfoundland, but they have prospered there, especially the Moose. There were over 650 car-moose collisions in 2006! We saw some caribou...here's one:
We were scheduled to return on the Ferry on Sunday, August 26, so we turned back west for the 470 mile trip back to Port aux Basques. We stopped at the Windsor-Great Falls campground again and stopped at Barachois Pond Provincial Park the second night. On the day of our arrival at Port aux Basques, it was raining with a near gale blowing so we chickened out and checked into a motel (just our second night in a motel) MV Caribou was on time the next day and departed at 5:30PM arriving in Sydney at 10:30 (9:30 EDT) and since we already knew we did not like the campground we had thought we might use (an open field) we checked into the Best Western again, woke up to a beautiful day and started our adventure in Cape Breton, NS.
We began with a visit to the Cape Breton Miner’s Museum at Glace Bay. Thousands of miners worked the soft coal seams under the North Atlantic doing dangerous, hard work for what amounted to wage slavery--they HAD to buy everything at the company store and you know what that meant.....We took the tour into a small section of the mine and it hit home what it meant to never be able to stand up straight in an entire 12 hour shift!!! The mines are closed now, but some companies want to start up strip mine operations, against some strong local opposition. We saw a Cheltenham Caravan Tiny Travel Trailer (British, 1960’s vintage) in the museum parking lot and exchanged ‘visits’ with the mother and two daughters travelling with her.
CAPE BRETON NATIONAL PARK AND THE CABOT TRAIL
We then proceeded south from Glace Bay to the town of Baddeck situated on the Bras d’or Lakes, the town where Alexander Graham Bell invented what we know as the telephone. We stayed in a commercial campground for only the second time (we used one on the layover in Maine) It was outrageously expensive--$35, though we did get ‘lectric and water. The next morning we were off to do the Cabot trail around the headlands of Cape Breton. The Cabot Trail Loop can be driven in a day with plenty of time for pull-offs. Entrance to the Park (the coastal trail is entirely in the park is $7/per person. The coast is beautiful....I will let the pictures do the talking here....
PICTURES OF CAPE BRETON CABOT TRAIL...
You can see the volcanic pipes in the rocks along the shore--look like lines running through the rocks...
While the coasts of California and Oregon may be more dramatic, the Cabot Trail is close to them in beauty. Cape Breton is the center of Scot-Gaelic culture in Nova Scotia, including a Gaelic College--http://www.gaeliccollege.edu/ -- and in summer, nightly Ceilidhs, traditional Scottish music with fiddle and piano and Scot step dancing--can be heard everywhere. After our drive, we went in to Baddeck for another fantastic seafood dinner--wonderful cedar planked atlantic salmon, seafood chowder, homemade bread--all the food you could eat--some good Canadian beer and homemade pie and then off to a foot-tapping ceilidh in a small church hall in Baddeck--a great day!
The Next morning we broke camp (late, because of several ‘Would you mind if we had a look...’requests.) We headed back over the Canso Causeway (no gale this time!) and stopped for the night at a commercial campground just west of Moncton NB. (Campers City RV $37.00! seviced sites but way overpriced)
The next day we broke camp again, heading for New Brunswick’s Herring Cove Provincial Park ($20.42)on Campobello Island, the summer retreat of President Franklin Roosevelt’s family when he was growing up and later as he raised his own family. We did not stop in St. Johns, NB because we were pressed for time ( also,we had visited Fundy when kids were small, so didn’t to a repeat) We took the ferry from L’Etete NB to Deer Island (its free!) and then the ferry from Dear Island to Campobello (toll for car-trailer and passengers $24)
These ferries are unusual. The Bridge and engines are in a pod at the end of an arm. After landing and taking on cars, the ferries back out,
and then the arm swings the bridge and engine around to face in the opposite direction...amazing! Here's what it looks like...when the 'swing' is finished the bridge is snug up against the side of the ferry...
We arrived at Herring Cove just before dinner, set up our PA HA QUA and went exploring. We explored trails along Passamoquoddy Bay and also stopped by the restaurant at the golf course in the park. They advertised a $10 special for scallop dinner-hey what’s not to like? I kid you not, they were the BEST scallops Nancy and I had ever had-- sweet and tender, cooked to perfection, as were the chips that came with them and Keith’s nut brown ale helped things along, too!
The next morning, we packed up and drove down the road one mile to Campobello, the Roosevelt Summer Cottage. Now, if you have ever seen the ‘cottages’ in Newport, RI, Campobello is modest by comparison. Still, with 34 rooms and 24 servants in residence for a summer-long residence it was no slouch.
It did not get electricity until the 50’s. Roosevelt had contracted the polio virus before visiting in the summer of 1921 but it was at Campobello that the disease struck. It is now a joint US-Canadian International Park.. After our tour we had lunch on an overlook over Passamoquoddy Bay--a beautiful finish to a great trip.
After lunch we crossed the bridge to Lubec, Maine a MUCH BETTER place to cross than Calais-St Stephens farther north, far less traffic, less time wasted waiting in the lines. At customs, after showing passports, answering questions, we got the the ‘Would you mind opening....’ request...so, of course, I got out and showed off Snuggles to the customs guy, the real star of the whole trip <g> Customs guy, ‘Will you look at that...!’ In Maine we stopped near Portland for gas and a potty. Two bikers were getting gas in front of us. While I pumped gas one guy came over and said ‘Do you sleep in that thing?’ Me, ‘Yes". Biker, ‘Would you mind if.....’ <g>
Biker, ‘I LIKE that!’ We made Boston by about 9PM and gratefully piled into our friends’ house to share a glass of wine and get out the road kinks....
finis!
If you go:
Here is where to get info about US reqpirements for ID to get back into the US, which are being toughened:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html
Medical and auto insurance: be sure you’re covered in Canada. For us, Medicare DID NOT cover us while there, so we bought health coverage through AAA--$200 for two people for one month with a $2500 deductible (which I chose to save $$) Our auto coverage DID cover us--I also have AAA RV coverage. The exception to this rule is that Medicare WILL cover you in Canada while enroute to Alaska, DIRECTLY. That last is critical. By way of Newfoundland would not cut it, I don’t think.
All of the Provinicial Parks and Canadian National Parks have websites where you can plan your trip etc. They all have online reservation capability. National parks charge about $24/day, NB charged $20$/23 day Newfoundland parks charged $13/day.
If you want electrical power in Newfoundland, you will either have to go to a private campground or carry your own generator if you plan a long trip away from shore power. We used private campgrounds for ‘refueling’ the battery.
The Canadian LOONY is at near PAR with the American DOLLAR right now and may be worth more than the DOLLAR by next year. Do not expect to go cheap....the ‘ Bushie’ (the American Dollar) is dropping like a stone...
Gas prices in Canada are higher than in the states. The more remote the location, the higher the prices:In western New Brunswick, gas was about $3.16/an American gallon and it ranged to $4.55 a gallon on Newfoundland. Gas prices are much lower in Alberta, but then Alberta is not in the North Atlantic <g>
Exchange your American money just over the boarder in Canada. As the bank in Calais, Maine told me, ‘They give you a better exchange over there’
The Trans-Canada highway is mostly two lanes, with passing lanes on hills. Canadians religiously follow the ‘keep right except to pass’ signs (greatly different than the US!) and expect you to, also. On the whole, in the Atlantic provinces, highway courtesy is still alive and well.
Seafood and its cooking is uniformly outstanding in Atlantic Canada. If you like seafood, you have died and gone to heaven.
Earlier in the summer--June and July--is high tourist season and if you are principally a ‘tourist attraction’ kind of person, that is the time to go.
Be prepared for wind. It will be a constant no matter when you go. That is one of the things that makes the weather cooler there. Occassionally there will be gales. DO NOT put up a screen room when a GALE is anticipated! <g> There will be showers and if you have raincoats with hoods, you’ll be fine. Temperatures are moderate--70/80’s daytime, 60’s at night. By late August, some nights are in the 50’s. We were very comfortable at night with the Fantastic Vent.
Berry season in Atlantic Canada is mid-late August (blueberries, strawberries, partridgeberries--the latter are delicious!)
Bring camera and good trail shoes of some kind--the latter are the best way to see the beauty. If you fish, bring fishing rods, great fishing to be had. Kayaking--this is iffy unless in waters covered by headlands. Otherwise, be prepared for a hard paddle--THE WIND. If you do it in the ocean, be prepared to wear a wetsuit in case you capsize.
Do NOT assume your cell phone will work in Canada--check with your provider before you go! Our cell phone (Verizon) did not work in Canada. We have pre-pay which I found out on our return does not provide roaming coverage in Canada. I should have checked this before we left—my bad.
Pay phones are everywhere but are legalized highway robbery. $3.05 for the first minute, $1.15 each additional minute in Laborador and Nova Scotia.
Take time to talk to the people!!!
Do take time for local music etc...fine stuff!
It really is a different pace of life up there!
The Cliffs at seaside at Durrell NFLD
