On Tuesday, August 30, we left our campground near Quebec City and drove across the St. Lawrence River east and south into New Brunswick. Crossing the border into the Maritime Provinces we left the land of “French only” and into the Atlantic time zone, an hour ahead of Washington, D.C., time.
Our first stop was the city of Grand Falls, where we stayed one night at one of the nicest camping spots we’ve had in all our RV travels. Our door opened to a view of the Grand Falls gorge, a U-shaped bend in the Saint John River with 200-foot-high rock cliffs on either side. The next morning, before we hitched up, Elizabeth and I hiked along the gorge to view the 75-foot water falls at the heart of the town.
On Wednesday we drove four hours through heavy rain to Moncton, N.B. Along the way we spotted five moose by a small river in the woods not far from the road. Moncton is a mid-sized city with a Costco and two Walmarts. It describes itself as the hub of the Maritimes.
On Thursday, under gloriously blue skies, we explored the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy about an hour south. At high tide the rocks appear to be small islands with trees, but at low tide they are high stone towers on narrow bases surrounded by the sandy sea floor and clumps of seaweed. The difference there between high and low tide is an amazing 46 feet. (Here’s a batch of photos I posted on FB.)
On Friday, while Elizabeth kept busy at the RV, I drove to another spot on the bay called the Joggins Fossil Cliffs just across the provincial line in Nova Scotia. The tides aren’t as high here, a mere 35 feet or so, but the cliffs have yielded a cache of fossils from the Carboniferous Period that geologists date to 310-325 million years ago. Walking along the beach our guide Jordan pointed out fossilized plant stems and a tree trunk. This is the age that coal formed, and we could see an exposed black seam of it on the beach. The guide said they had found fossilized bones from an early reptile that proceeded the dinosaurs by a hundred million years or so. The visitor center there had clear, colorful, and informative exhibits on the fossils found there as well as general earth history.
On Saturday, we hitched up the RV and drove into Nova Scotia and out to our campsite on Cape Breton Island near the small but significant town of Baddeck. (I’ll post about Baddeck further down the road since we’ll be back there later on our trip.) On Monday we loaded the RV onto a huge ferry at the dock in North Sydney for the seven-hour ride to Newfoundland. On Tuesday we drove to our current campsite near Gros Morne National Park.
****
We’ve now been traveling through Canada for two weeks. We can’t say enough good about our experience so far. The people are friendly, the roads and services completely modern, and public places clean and attractive. Canada has its own franchises—Tim Horton’s coffee shops are ubiquitous—as well as American favorites. A&W Root Beer joints are far more common north of the border than in the USA—a cultural phenomenon that perhaps one of my Canadian friends could explain!
A recent article I read said that visits by Americans to Canada are still down 45 percent compared to pre-Covid levels. The biggest complaint is the need to register on the “ArriveCan” app and to provide proof of vaccination. Neither was a barrier for us. We’ve been vaccinated, and I found downloading and entering our info on the app to be no challenge, even though I’m a typical Baby Boomer when it comes to online tech. We spent less than an hour in line to pass through border control when we crossed the bridge with our truck and RV from upstate New York.
The Canadians dollar is currently worth about 77 US cents at the current exchange rate. As tourists, we appreciate the relatively strong US dollar, although everyday items in Canada seem to cost about what they do in the US even after converting. Gas in Canada costs around $1.60 (CA) per liter, which converts to just under $5 (US) per gallon. Canadians use a $1 dollar coin, not paper notes, which we find convenient, especially when using the campground laundromats. As everyone knows, the Canadians affectionally call their dollar coin a loony, after the bird engraved on it. That led to this email exchange between Elizabeth and the campground manager in Moncton after we asked about the laundry facilities:
Hi Elizabeth,
Yes we have a laundry room that is open 24/7. It takes 2 loonies to wash and 2 loonies to dry. We can make change if you need it.
Nancy Ryder
Stonehurst Campground
Thanks Nancy. Does that mean I’ll have to get my husband to come along to make us 2 loonies doing the laundry!!!! Ha ha
See you soon.
Daniel Griswold's Blog 