The Road Goes On…

2019 Eastern Canada

  • Mactaquac, NB to Mt. Carlton Provincial Park, NB

    At the campground we met a couple with a newly acquired Roadtrek who told us about a campground in Mount Carlton Provincial Park. Mount Carlton is part of the Appalachians and is the highest peak in New Brunswick at 820 meters. Although the weather forecast wasn’t that promising we decided take this excursion.

    Along the way we saw signs for the longest covered bridge in the world and had to pay a visit. The Hartland Covered Bridge was built in 1921 and is 390.75 meters (1282 feet) long. There are a number shorter bridges like this in this area and they were covered to prevent the truss joints from rotting.

    The next stop before getting back on the highway was the Covered Bridge Potato Chip factory where we did a self guided tour and saw how kettle chips are produced. We read a lot about potato farming in the area and how this family owned business branched out into making chips. The potatoes come in and are washed, sliced, cooked in oil while being stirred, dried, seasoned and then packaged for sale. We got a small bag of chips at the end of the tour and were able to season these with the 30+ flavours they had.

    We continued towards Mount Carlton, driving through valleys and fields and slowly climbed into forested areas until we reached the park at a height of around 300 meters. We walked to the beautiful lake with a beach and ended the evening with a campfire and marshmallows.

  • Mt. Carlton Provincial Park, NB

    Today was a rainy day but we liked the park so much that we extended our stay for another day and  spent the time reading, napping and going for short walks during the sunny periods between the rain showers.

    The night sky was clear with lots of stars and Ruth got to see her first meteor!

  • Mt. Carlton Provincial Park, NB to Grand Falls, NB

    It was a bit sad to leave Mt. Carlton Provincial Park with its beautiful lake but Grand Falls was waiting. The roads were pretty good and we arrived around lunchtime at the impressive information center. Here we learned of the formation of Appalachians and in particular, the change in flow of the St. John’s River over the last 20,000 years.

    The gorge is quite wide, but the water flow is fairly small because of a nearby hydroelectric plant. The tree line along the gorge shows how high the water gets in the spring.

    We walked a trail along the gorge but skipped the 401 step decent down to the water because of the humidity and chance of rain. The trail had several lookout points including some in the city campground. We looked at this cute campground with mature trees and enquired whether there was still a site available for the evening. Again we were lucky and got the last one with hookup. As we were doing laundry we saw a number of trailers and campers show up looking for space and they were offered overflow spots without services.

  • Grand Falls, NB to Riviere du Loup, QC

    Our campground was not only cute, but had the best, biggest (8’x8’), nicely tiled, individual free shower we’ve had on our trip.

    Our goal was to make it to Quebec today but did want to have a stop in the Edmundston area before leaving New Brunswick. The city of Edmunston has a pretty area around city hall with an amphitheater and even a hotel for insects.

    Many of the stores and restaurants seem to be struggling. The main employer appears to be the large paper mill in the city.

    We visited the former C.P.R. station and learned about the success and decline of the railway lines that came through Edmunston as part of the St. John and North West network.

    In keeping with the rail theme, we visited the Du Reel au Miniature Railroad Interpretation Center. Joel, our guide, walked us through a small museum with artifacts of railway construction, signalling, security and life while asking us what we though certain objects were used for.

    After watching a short video about the owner and his collection we saw the miniature railway layout of part of New Brunswick.

    We skipped the 2km ride on a small train.

    We left the railway system but stayed on the transportation theme and after a long and tedious search because of lack of signs, arrived at the Antique Automobile Museum. We took the guided tour and had an outstanding high school student who shared her knowledge of these old cars and their history in the area.

    Among the artifacts were old licence plates, including old medallions which were originally used to register cars and simply had the registration number. If you had 26, it meant your car was the 26th registered in the province.

    One of the highlights was a 1974 Bricklin which was manufactured in New Brunswick during the short life of the Bricklin company.

    The large collection of antique cars were donated by a businessman who lived in the area. Among them is a 1910 Detroit Electric Car, an ancient ancestor of a Tesla. This car had a range of about 40 miles and was often driven by women because it was easy to drive. An interesting curiosity of this car was that it lacked a steering wheel and had tillers instead to control direction.

    A 1939 Nash Lafayette Sedan featured seats that could be folded into a bed and suicide doors where the rear doors opened into the wind and were thus hard to close.

    We made it to the Quebec border and were soon greeted by a cheese factory where we stocked up on curds. A detour took us to the Alibaba Gelato shop where we had the most expensive ice cream ever. We aren’t sure whether the detour was worth it.

  • Riviere du Loup, QC to Beaumont, QC

    We drove along highway 132 to slowly make our way towards Quebec City, not that we necessarily wanted to reach Quebec City today. We stopped early on to enjoy the view of the St. Lawrence river.

    A little further on, in Saint-Andre. we visited an exquisite leather shop with purses of various leathers and furs, gloves, belts, etc. Right next door we found a photography gallery and met the very talented young photographer. Her photography wasn’t only available as prints and postcards, but also encased in acrylic as pendants and earrings.

    The next town was Kamouraska, a lovely town with Victorian houses and many shops.

    One house had unique figures carved out of the stumps on their front yard.

    We started our shopping at a smoked fish shop where bought some incredible smoked salmon, moved on to the grocery store for fresh local blueberries and a dried pork sausage infused with red wine.

    You would expect to find a chocolate shop in a town like this and we found one. A truffle and ice cream each made us very happy and the ice cream tasted better than the one from Alibaba yesterday, despite it being significantly cheaper.

    We visited several more stores, including one selling beautiful pewter oil lamps made in the Laurentians but we resisted the temptation to buy one. The General Store had freshly baked baguettes which shortly became part of our lunch in conjunction with the smoked salmon and a cheese from yesterday’s cheese factory. Yummy!!!

    On our way we made a detour to a wharf near Pointe-des-Orignaux which took a bit longer due to construction. We talked to a couple from Ottawa and enjoyed a strong wind and dark clouds. The wharf had a ladder leading down to the water and a fascinating composting toilet using wood chips whose product will be used to fertilize the town’s flower beds in two years.

    It began to rain and our focus turned to finding a campground. After passing though several construction sites, we settled on Camping Guilnette near Beaumont. It is a large campground with many seaonal sites with curious trailer additions and a short walkway down to the St. Lawrence river.