Our route took us over some patchy roads and a few steep grades.
As we drove along the River, we saw a few covered bridges. We stopped at the largest.
It was this high… and this wide.
Inside the flooring was very warped. We tried to capture it in a picture, but not sure if you can tell.
As we went thru the town of Saint-Damase, Bill laughed and wanted a picture of the sign. I’m sure he was not pronouncing the word Damase the way they do.
GET IT?
As we drove along Rt. 132, we saw one of our guests drive by. We thought they must be lost because they should not have passed us at this point. We had yet to get back on route. Next thing we knew, another guest drove by. We then thought omg, maybe we missed the turn to the bridge which would take us over to New Brunswick. The log said it was easy to miss… We tried to reach them by radio, but that was a no go. We pulled over at a gas station to figure it out. We were correct in that we had not yet gotten to the turn for the bridge, which meant they missed their turn. They were heading to another bridge farther off route. As we were asking directions to make sure they didn’t have any low bridges to go under on the route they were about to take,(apparently there were a few low bridges on the other side that our log cautioned us on) another one of our guests drove by. We were able to catch them on the radio and waited for them to turn around. We decided that the turn that everyone seemed to be missing for the bridge over to New Brunswick was a good place to stop and have lunch. We caught quite a few of them who were about to miss the turn. The funniest one was when one of our couples was arguing about whether the turn was the correct turn or not and as they went by, they heard a voice over their radio saying very calmly, “You missed your turn.” LOL It was Bill! They went by so fast, Bill didn’t see what number rig it was, so he decided to just let them know they missed the turn. When they heard the voice, they stopped arguing immediately and looked at each other. They thought it was God talking to them!
Once everyone got into the campground at Caraquet, New Brunswick, we celebrated with a BBQ, compliments of one of our guests, who just happens to be a BBQ competitor. How lucky are we?! He did a fabulous job on the pork BBQ and everyone brought sides. If anyone went away hungry from that feast, it was their own fault. Everything was so delicious that they decided to collect recipes and make a booklet.
Our only full day in Caraquet, we visited an Acadian Village. Between 1755 and 1763 an important part of the Acadian population was deported to the English Colonies because they refused to take an unconditional oath of allegiance to the British King.
The Acadians fished in order to make ends meet. Most of the big companies did not pay their
workers in cash. Instead they gave them tokens that could be used only in the company’s stores. The Acadians were at the mercy of these monopolies.
The General Store seemed pretty small from the outside, but they sure had quite an assortment of things to sell inside.
Shore fishing produced clams, mussels, algae, and smelt. Coastal fishing (in vessels for less than 24 hours) produced lobster, scallops, oysters, mackerel, herring, and certain species of groundfish such as cod. Mid-shore fishing (slightly larger vessels out for 3 to 4 days) produced lobster, crab, shrimp, herring and mackerel. Offshore fishing done mainly off the Gulf of St. Lawrence with a base port in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia produced groundfish, shrimp, and scallops.
It took some time for the Acadians to learn that all of these species were edible. For a long time lobster, spring herring, and crab were used only to fertilize gardens! Then it was only the poor who ate them.
Different species of fish required various methods of dressing, but the most widely used were salting, drying, and freezing.
Cod was the most popular fish and could be stored up to one year after salting. Lobster was canned by the pound, half pound, or quarter pound. Fresh fish included salmon and herring was most often salted. Mackerel, haddock, halibut and eel were also caught.
Most of them led a very simple life. We visited a few of the homes.
The nicest home we visited was owned by the magistrate, who had 7 children. Seven children was actually a small family back then. Many of the families had 10 or more.
The blacksmith was busy making square nails.
We watched as he made one nail. We should have timed him. He can’t make too many of those in one day.
The town of course had a one-room school house and a print shop.
It took the printshop a whole week to typeset 4 pages!
I personally liked the old gas station. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always thought the old gas pumps were so cool looking.
Covered bridges are also one of my favorites. This one had an interesting sign. “$20 fine for driving on the bridge faster than a walk.
But the grandest of all was the hotel, which is currently in business and you can actually stay the night.
Inside, we found a barber shop, sitting room, and restaurant.
Day 13, on our way to Prince Edward Island started out on the same foot as day 5 when we had several breakdowns…. We didn’t get 20 miles away from our departure campground when we found one of our guests on the side of the road with a broken diesel fuel pump. THAT’S NOT GOOD. I do have to say that the Canadians are so friendly and helpful. Every one of our break downs found Canadians stopping to see if they could help. Even if we pulled over to the side of the road for lunch, we would find people stopping to see if we needed help.
Luckily our guest who broke down had “Good Sam” road service. They were great. The tow truck was there fairly quickly and towed them to a place who fixed it and they met up with us that evening.
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