L'anse Aux Meadows was our destination today. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and thank goodness it is of such importance as it is a very long drive and a small thing to see. It was phenomenal to think that people hopped into small sail boats with no compas, just the will and determination to find new lands. The Viking's reference to "Vinland" in their folklore "sagas" was a mystery and is widely believed to be solved with the discovery of this Viking settlement in Northern Newfoundland. It was a beautiful drive of 200 km each way for us today. We are still with the Taekema family and trading kids in our back seat which is giving Yvonne the excitement of company, so all is going well. I'm sure she will have major withdrawal symptoms when she goes back to the only child again.

The middle picture is of gardens that are found at the side of the highway. We found this kind of odd, so we asked about it. Turns out that the soil on the Island is so poor, people can't even grow gardens. When they put in the highways, they also laid down fertile topsoil, so people just stake off areas next to the highways and plant a garden. Also, each home is entitled to 8 cords of wood each year, so a person gets a cutting permit, cuts the allocated wood and piles it next to the highway to dry and be stored until they can come and pile it in their own yard. As they say, they trust each other. We can't help but think that at home if we don't chain it and lock it down, it's gone by morning.

We had a lovely evening and sunset back at the campsite and we are all very sad to be leaving here tomorrow. This is one of the most loveliest places we've ever seen. It is so quite just now, I can hear the waves crashing a short way from our trailer where I'm sitting.

Arches Provincial Park north of Rocky Harbour was a stop on our way to Port Au Choix. Pretty isn't it? We (the Taekema family and us) all stopped at Arches to have lunch and the kids climbed the rocks and arches, much to Richard's chagrin. We then motored north another hour to our camping destination and just when you think you couldn't find a place prettier than the place you stayed last night, you do. The kids spent all day on the beach at our campsite at Port Au Choix (middle picture). The beach was beautiful and the sun was shining and we had another great dinner together. Port au Choix is known as the "Capital of the shrimp fisheries" in Western Newfoundland. Hmmmm-who knew?

Leslie and Anna-May took off to the Paleo-Eskimo and Archaic Indian National Historic site here. The last picture is of the short walk around the area that archaeologists found 18 sea-side home sites that are thousands of years old. If you look very carefully, you can see Labrador in the distance.

After dinner some kids went to the beach and others played dress up. The adults had some beverages and listened to some music for a short while before the brood came back. We showed some video of our time in San Diego at Sea World and the wildlife park. Just to let them know what they are in for. This was one of those days you never want to end but like all days, they do.

Tomorrow we are off to the Viking settlement for the day and whatever picturesque settings we will find along the way.

Canadiana: The first patent processed in Canada by the Canadian gov't was issued to G. Riley on July 6th, 1842. The patent was for an improved method of brewing beer and malt liquors. Thank you Mr. Riley

The Yukon has the largest consumption ratio of beer than anywhere else in Canada. 144.2 litres per person. BC is last but consumes 2and a half times more wine than any other place in Canada.

Gros Morne National Park is pretty spectacular(and we have only seen a little bit) As you can see we finally caught up with the Taekema family and Yvonne is in her glory, 4 kids. We have only been here a day and a half and we are all getting along well. Today we went to the Discovery Center and the kids made some crafts and we all got educated on how Newfoundland came to be. We went for a walk to the lookout above the Centre and on the way back stopped at Brook Falls for a look. We ended up the day taking a walk along the beach at Lobster Cove Head and touring the old lighthouse.

We took Matthew, Yvonne and Jenna with us on the way out and Rachel and Catherine with us on the way back. Everybody had a little change of scenery. We had a good dinner and everyone is going to bed a little earlier tonite as we stayed up late last night getting reaquainted. The kids are good together and they are even going to wash our truck to get the pictures they drew on it off. It's a rule. Tomorrow we will visit the Visitor Centre and a maybe take a few short walks in other areas of the park. Monday both family's are off on the Viking Trail to see the 1000 year old Viking settlement in St. Anthony.

Canadiana: Newfoundland did not get electric power here until 1966.

The unofficial anthem of PEI is Bud the Spud. Written by whom. Hint. He has written a lot of good old songs about Canada.

Newfoundland, Whew. Yesterday we left PEI and today we are just outside Port a Basque, NFLd. It has been a long haul as we wanted to get to NFLD before it gets to cold. We got into Nova Scotia and were greeted by the pipes and we drove over to Sydney on Cape Breton Island. 8 hr travel day. We don't do many of those. Tomorrow we will be in Gros Morne National Park, finally catching up to the family we met in North Dakota. We will probably head up to the 1000 yr old Viking settlement they found in St. Anthony's. We are now 4 and a half hours ahead of BC time.

After being on an Atlantic ferry I have a new appreciation for the great job BC Ferries does. Ferry to NFLD, $ 265.00. Food expensive and worse than BC Ferries if you can believe that. Ferry old and stinks. Keep up the good work BC. The live entertainment was a nice distraction though. There were a a lot of sea sick people on this ferry. Pretty calm day too. Sure would have been ugly if it had been a bad day.

We are looking forward to spending the next 2 or more weeks here and I think it is going to be really neat. Sure is purdy.

Canadiana:One third of all Canadians rely on the Great Lakes for their water.

MacIntosh apples, or Mac's, make up close to 50% of of Canada's apple crop. They are the only apple grown in every one of the 5 apple growing disticts.

Greenwich National Park was the destination today and we finally got onto the east end of the island. The weather was spectacular after yesterdays downpour. Yvonne finally got to play in the surf as she always stayed away because it was so loud. That is good because she will be in some big surf in Florida this winter. Greenwich is a beach with some great sand dunes. There is a good interpretive centre and the staff make sure people do not climb onto the dunes. The changing area and washrooms were all powered by solar and the water was heated the same way.

The water was 20dC in the ocean today and made for a good day in the water. Sadly this is our last day on PEI and we have had such a great time here . The people have been fantastic, music is great and no one can say people in PEI do not show outsiders a good time. As sad as it is going to be to leave we are looking forward to getting to Newfoundland.

The next posting will be from somewhere in NFLD. Jim

C anadiana: The Air Canada Hangar At Pearson International, Is eqivalent in height to a 7 storey building.

The strongest Northern Lights are eqivalent to the brightness of the moon.

Confederation Hall in Province House National Historic Site of Canada (pictured top), is the "Birthplace of Confederation", and housed a very exciting surprise for us. They had the second floor open for viewing and is the second oldest active provincial legislature. They also had a small display that had a fantastic oil painting of the grand ball held at Confederation, as well as photos of the men who worked to make our country what it is today.

The big surprise came when Jim heard his name called. He turned around to find our friends, Mark and Anne-Marie Davison there. They live in Burnaby and Mark used to serve on the IBEW Union Board with Jim and both worked at Hydro. Very exciting to see people from home, so like little limpets, we clung on for the rest of the day.

Anne-Marie knew of a concert going on just around the corner at the Confederation Centre of Arts, so we all went to that together. It turned out to be the last performance of the Confederation Youth Performers. They come from all across Canada to study and perform together. It was absolutely amazing, and free admission. They depicted the origins and development of Canada through dance, song, and costumes. It was breathtaking. The picture above was the finale with the Acadian costumes.

Then, we all went down to Peake's Wharf and enjoyed lunch, a bit of shopping, and more music.

Jim joined Mark and Anne-Marie for a fabulous lobster feed in New Glasgow as well as a musical performance by the Skys in New London. It was a great show of celtic dance and gospel music. Jim enjoyed himself (especially being out of the house past 8 PM).

Canadiana:

* 79% of Canadians are urban dwellers.

* Toronto's CN Tower is the tallest free-standing structure in the world. One of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, it stands over 553 metres tall.

* Fan Tan Alley in Victoria, BC, only 1.2 metres wide, is the narrowest street in the world.

The day started out once again at Avonlea. Yvonne and Anne as you can see have developed a bond. We have to pull Yvonne away from Anne as she has other kids to talk to and Yvonne takes up a lot of Anne's time. Les and Yvonne went and played dressup for awhile and I had coffee with Mirella and Racheal. Yvonne and I played crocono with Anne & Diana on one of their breaks. Yvonne had a few more pony rides and we went down to the shindig to sing some island songs. At noon we left so we could see a little more of the island.

We went into PEI National Park and took in some of the great coastal views. The afternoon was spent on Rustico Beach, beach combing for rocks and sea shells. The water here is a lot warmer than the Pacific Ocean. Later we came home and had a swim in the pool to round out the day. Tomorrow we are off to Summerside PEI to see what adventures may lie on that side of the island.

Avonlea is the most fabulous spot we've seen in Canada. This attraction is a full reconstruction of the Anne of Green Gables story. We got there about 10AM, so we missed the first hour and took about half an hour to get into the groove. They have different events going on every 15 minutes and if you just follow each event, you are entertained solidly from 9 AM until 5 PM. They alternate farm-type exhibits, with Anne skits and musical experiences. We started with oyster shucking that was followed by dressing up in clothes - as seen with Yvonne dressed as Anne. Then, there was a shindig with a fantastic east-coast band - guitar, bass, accordion and snare with voice. They had small skits all day that played out the more famous scenes of the original story. All the cast on site today were fantastic. They played in role all day. Anne spent lots of time talking to Yvonne who really enjoyed discussing the seriousness of anger at Gilbert for calling her "carrots". We got to participate in square dancing and they also had wagon rides and pony rides, so we had a very full day. This was just the best place we've seen that gets the kids involved at the same time as giving the adults a great time and also gives you a taste of PEI culture and history.

The best part is for the price of one day, we get to go back tomorrow and kids younger than 6 are free.

Windy and wet at the National Green Gables Historic site, was the order of the day. It is amazing a series of books by LM Montgomery could create an industry so large. There is the Nat. Historic Site, Avonlea village, and hundreds of rv sites , motels and cottages to house all the visitors. Today ten tour bus loads of tourists visited the Nat. Historic site. As well there were other smaller buses, rv's, and cars. Get there before lunch is the best thing. Tomorrow we will be at Avonlea early. Yvonne will like the live shows and the dressup.

And the winner is (so far) PEI. The best welcome centre amd provincial info centre belongs to the province of PEI. Quebec held that distinction prior to today. We came over the Confederation Bridge and even though it was a bit touristy, the info centre had highland dancing and Acadian music. One of the highland dancers asked Yvonne to come dance with her, but Yvonne was too shy.

PEI is solid farm land which makes it very beautiful. Many of the homes are very spectacular, especially since they are surrounded by green, fertile land. Our campsite is lovely. We are on the north coast of PEI, just 15 minutes from the tourist area of Cavendish. It is very quiet and lots of room between sites. We took a little drive this evening to see the Cavendish area and now realize we have TONS to do while we're here. We are booked here for 6 nights - tonight is one.

So, we plan to see Avonlea tomorrow - which is a tourist version of Anne of Green Gables' village. Then, we will spend a day at the beach at the National Park, then there is the Green Gables National Historic site which is Anne's actual house preserved. There are tons of activities like Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Waxworld, Sandspit (a carnival style attraction), a Water park and various restaurants, gift stores and different areas of the National Park that can be visited. Six days will not be long enough, but we'll do our best.

We also have to fit in Summerside and Charlottetown. We might be o n PEI a little longer than we planned.

Canadiana: The first sunrise to hit the North American continent is in Newfoundland.

The bridge with the longest unterrupted span in the world is the Confederation Bridge in PEI opened in 1997.

Jenna and Yvonne at Kouchibouguac National Park in NB. Ron, Shauna, Les and myself left Shediac this AM for a day trip to the National Park. The day started off nice and sunny but by 1pm it was clouding over and we got caught in the rain getting back to our truck.

We had a hour or so on the beach though, playing in the sand and surf. We got back to the canteen area and they had hot showers so we got warm had something to eat and got to shower off the sandy parts. We then headed for home and stopped for some fresh lobster for a potluck dinner. The girls have had a ball as I think they both needed a kid fix and the adults got a little time away from the kids. Off to PEI tomorrow. We are really looking forward to our time on PEI.

Canadiana: The Hartland Bridge NB, is the longest covered bridge in the world, built in 1901. It also has a plaque that pays tribute to William Orser the first white settler to homestead in NB.

Quebec City is the only existing walled city in North America and was the first city on this continent to be placed on Unesco's World Heritage List.

Hopewell Rocks / Flowerpots

We managed to absolutely luck out today. We were travelling from Alma to Shediac and hit the Hopewell Rocks right at low tide and not only low tide, but the lowest tide of the entire summer. The Hopewell Rocks are also called flowerpots because they have the trees growing on top of them. When the tide comes in, the water goes right up to that indented spot - can you see how high that is compared to the little people walking? We've been very lucky to get a great experience of the Bay of Fundy's tides.

We managed to get to Shediac just in time for the afternoon rain storm to hit. We haven't seen any of the town yet, but hope to get to the beach tomorrow.

Canadiana: Quebec is not a a french word> It is an Indian word meaning " Where the river narrows".

New Brunswick is the only true bilingual province in the Dominion Of Canada.

Christopher Lee Mandziuk

Tina gave birth to a baby boy on August 8th. He wasn't due until the third week of September, so it's a bit of a surprise. Mommy and baby are in great shape, though. We have now bumped Mom and Dad up to 6 grand-kids. Congratulations Tina!!!!

Alma, New Brunswick (Bay of Fundy National Park)

We are in the tiny fishing village of Alma. They boast the highest tides in the world - average 40 feet. When we got here, it looked like the tide was down a bit and according to the charts, we were about 2 hours past high tide (top picture). We went playing in the surf and thought maybe the tide would go down a few feet. Then we realized as we were playing that it was receding about 1 foot per 5 minutes or so. We started to think that maybe this tide goes out quite a ways since we were about 5 hours away from low tide.

We stopped at a new fish store (they just opened up this weekend) and bought ourselves the lobster pictured above. It was only $19.20 for the entire thing. Yvonne absolutely loved it and we decided to buy another tomorrow. There's no better deal than a $100 meal for $20. Lobster season here in the Bay of Fundy was closed July 31st but opens again Oct 15. So what they do to supply in the meantime, is they have a huge tank area where they keep the lobster alive until they are ready to be bought, they cook them daily and put them out for sale.

Then, after dinner, we rode our bikes back down to the same beach and found it quite transformed. The water was WAY out, you could walk for at least a km on the sand and rocky ocean floor. Now, the boats at the dock were sitting out on mud (second picture). This really showed us the full potential of these tides. We are really lucky to have hit it close to a full moon since the tides are even more drastic at that time.

Canadiana: Facts about Canada that I am just learning and thought I would pass them on to you. We are an amazing people and country. Jim

Did you know that. Canada has the longest National Hwy in the world. 7821km from Victoria to St. John's NF. I know I am almost all the way across.

>Vancouver has the 2nd biggest in city park( Stanely Park) in the world. Paris, France has the biggest.

Saint John, New Brunswick

We arrived here in Saint John yesterday. We are at a campground that is right in the city, but up on a hill in Rockwell Park. It's a great spot with fabulous views of the Bay of Fundy. Yesterday, we drove out to the Reversing Falls and managed to hit low tide. This is a very interesting phenomenon. During low tide, the Saint John River flows down, into the Bay of Fundy, there is a small "falls", or rather a pretty rough section of rapids. Then, at high tide (the tides are a total of 28 feet), the Bay of Fundy rises so high that it forces the River to flow backwards.
Today, we took a bus tour and got to see the "Falls" at high tide. Unfortunately, you just can't capture it on the camera, but the above picture was from low tide. Our bus tour took us to all four corners of the City including the Reversing Falls and the Market. Yvonne charmed the bus driver and managed a poster out of him at the end.
There was a huge Carnival cruise ship in port today, so our tour was pretty busy with New Yorkers visiting the city. The house above has a roofline that looks like a witch with a raven on her shoulder from the side. It also happens to have a broom manufacturing facility kitty-corner, and a funeral home across the street. SPOOKY.
Yvonne met a lovely little girl named Jenna yesterday. They made instant friends and ended up playing all this morning before they left for Shediac and we went on our tour. We have made a reservation to join them in Shediac for a couple days this weekend so the girls can play again. WHEW - it's such a nice time for us adults to have someone else to answer all the "why's?"
Tomorrow we depart for Fundy National Park for a couple days. We are boosting up the pace so we can get to Newfoundland before the weather starts getting too cool.
We've already noticed the change in people here. They are extremely friendly and full of helpful suggestions. They live up to the Atlantic Provinces' reputation.

Maureen! The City of Stately Elms. Here we are in Fredricton at the end of the long weekend and nothing is open. We had a long travel day and lost another hour so we are having some down time and laundry day. Yvonne and Les went golfing this morning and then we went into Fredricton and lo and behold they have Canadian Forces Day. Yvonne got to sit in a Military Police cruiser and got the siren going. We got to see all types of military vehicles, tanks and soldiers of course.

Fredricton is a very nice clean city on the St. John River. There are a lot of old stately houses here and a lot of history. Lots of British Miliary History from the 1700 and 1800's. We walked around downtown and took some photos of the changing of the guard . Nobody lets their guard down here.

Tomorrow we are off to St. John in the morning and then we are going to take the Fundy Coastal drive to Fundy National Park and then up to Kouchibouguac National Park.

Riviere du Loup is the start of the sea portion of the St. Lawrence River. The ferry across takes just over an hour, so it has significantly widened. There are whale watching excursions from here, but we chose to ride our bikes to the ferry dock and try out the binoculars. I thought I had seen some Belugas surfacing, but I'm really not sure if it was just seagulls. We had a nice couple hours sitting on the beach and listening to the waves. It reminded us of Point Roberts and home. Yvonne played around on the rocks and found herself some seashell treasures. This is our last day in Quebec. We have enjoyed the scenery and the history. A most notable feature of every small town is the tall spires of the Roman Catholic Church. Virtually all residents of Quebec are of RC faith, if of any faith. Yvonne is learning how to take pictures - she took the one of me above while I was sitting on the teeter totter with her. Tomorrow, off we go to New Brunswick.

Valcartier Vacation Village was our destination today. This was a 100% Yvonne day. This is the biggest batch of waterslides in all of Canada. It was a truly amazing place but there were thousands of people there. It took an hour to pay and get a locker. Once everyone spread out throughout the place, it was fine, but we wouldn't want to battle crowds like that every day. We had such a fun time. Our favourite thing was the Amazon ride. It's a big river you ride on inner-tubes. They have tunnels and waterfalls, sound effects and so much cool stuff, it's hard to describe. As documented by the second picture, we got pretty pooped out.

We had such a great day with the bikes today. We took a small ferry from Levis to Quebec City - it's just 10 min. across the river. Then, we biked up into the Old Quebec. This was much more difficult than it looks on a map, since maps are flat paper and topography is not. Quebec rises on cliffs right out of the water which we had to find a way to get up on our bikes. Our butts will be sore tomorrow. We were glad to be forced into the good exercise, though. Once we were up on top, we were able to cover so much land that everyone else way walking. We knew Yvonne would never last walking, but she'll fly around on that bike for hours. We got to see changing of the guards at the Citadel - good thing we went over early since that is the only time of the day they let people in there. It is still an active military site. Then, we went to the Plains of Abraham which is a huge area about as big as Stanley Park. They had a 1 hour bus tour that was hilarious. A French guy was all dressed up in 1700's clothing and he was so funny, the best bus tour I've ever seen. He gave us a tour of the grounds and the history of the battles between French and English that occurred there for control of Quebec. There's also a couple different museums that we browsed through. We got to see parliament buildings and the Old Quebec Port as well as wandered through some old, narrow streets which are basically all boutiques now. Ahhhh, the aroma of forbiden food was just lovely. I would put this city on a list of spots to go as a couple - sans bebe. She is fun and was a great trooper today (we were out of the house 9 hours), but I'd love to come here just us so we could lounge with a glass of wine in a bistro and wander the streets. We'll have to do that one day.
PS: the most beautiful place we've been and we forgot the camera in the truck. DAMN
Jim bought a disposable camera, so we'll have to refresh ourselves on how to get pictures developed.

Yvonne dressed up like a soldier at Fort Levis National Historic Site.

We travelled from Montreal to Quebec City today. Our RV park is just 20 minutes from QC. We scoped out the ferry at Levis so we can take our bikes into Old Quebec tomorrow. It's just a 10 min. ferry and there's lots of parking on this side of the river. Close to the ferry is Fort Levis. Yvonne was pretty thrilled because kids are allowed to dress up like soldiers while they tour. It is the last remaining British fort that defended Quebec City when an American invasion was feared. They never did invade, but this fort was site to various experiments in building technology for the time. It was built in the 1860's. They did the first experiments with using concrete and asphalt that is now pretty commonly used. The view on a nice day must be lovely, but today has low clouds and haze with very high humidity, so we could barely see the city. Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be nicer.