Acadie: Where It All Began
Scallops, tides, and Cajun cousins in Canada
There’s a fine line between a tautly scheduled vacation and one relying totally on serendipity. Too much of the former and there’s little time to appreciate remote vistas. The latter may be spontaneous but invites encounters with sparse hotel accommodations and sold-out attractions.
Exploring Louisiana's Cajun origins in Nova Scotia
Last fall, I struck the perfect balance between Maine and Canada’s Maritime provinces, once known as Acadie, the land from which Louisiana’s Cajun ancestors were expelled beginning in 1755.
Bearing a round-trip pass won at a charity auction, I flew Southwest Airlines to Portland, Maine, arriving at state No. 49 on my accidental bucket list of all 50, an agenda rooted in thirty-five years of business travel. Like George Clooney’s Up in the Air screen character, I am an unrepentant points, miles, and travel perk junkie. But from that fault, I have unforgettable family travel memories: whale watching with Jean-Michel Cousteau in Hawaii, maple-sugaring in Connecticut, riding shotgun in the Disney World monorail cockpit, and flying over our Texas home in the Goodyear blimp, to recount a few.
For two days, I enjoyed end-of-summer beaches and start-of-fall foliage in Maine. On the way to the shore were three lazy Sunday morning finds. First, Len Libby Candies (419 US 1, Scarborough, ME) which boasts the world’s only life-size chocolate moose, which though interesting, was upstaged by the storied Bangor Caramels. Soft and chewy, they’re pralines of the Northeast with a beignet-like dusting of powdered sugar for good measure.
Next, an even sweeter stop for this guy with a vintage Ford convertible back home: Motorland (2564 Portland Rd., Arundel, ME), not a museum, but a classic restoration business with dozens to look at (but not touch) from Edsels to T-Birds to Rambler station wagons. The final discovery was the Seashore Trolley Museum (195 Log Cabin Rd., Kennebunkport, ME), a real-life Shining Time Station with trolley rides, uniformed conductors, Gilded Age parlor cars, and a city transit graveyard where I stepped into a twentieth-century New Orleans bus frozen in time, painted in unmistakable NOPSI bile-green.
On the third day, I boarded The Cat, a sleek water-jet-powered ferry, for the five-and-a-half hour trip to Nova Scotia across the Atlantic’s Gulf of Maine.
Tip: Once aboard and immediately upon leaving your vehicle below, head upstairs and forward to the panoramic observation lounge to nab a window-side cocktail table in the bar and restaurant. You’ll enjoy a view of the harbor, lighthouse point, and open ocean before sundown. Explore other parts of the boat later
Ferry amenities include two other snackbars, a gift shop with Nova Scotian goods, and an attended tourist information office that provides a brief tour of the craft (unfortunately, no visits to the wheelhouse or engine room). Movies can be viewed in the theater lounge with recliners similar to domestic first-class airline seats. I stepped outside to the aft deck and the roar of the propulsion jets, a reminder I was on the open ocean. It felt like the ride on a Morgan City crewboat to an offshore platform, but to the fourth power.
The Cat arrives well after nightfall, so I found my Yarmouth motel immediately upon clearing customs.
Tip: In 2019 the Cat will sail from Bar Harbor, ME (not Portland), to Yarmouth, N.S., from June 21 until October 15. An alternative before then is traditional ferry service via the Fundy Rose between Saint John, N.B., and Digby, N.S.
At morning I followed routes along the Bay of Fundy and the land of the Acadians on the northwestern coast of Nova Scotia, opposite the capital city Halifax.
Along the way, I encountered picturesque small towns and crossroads—some on the water, others just inland—bearing names that made me wonder if I had a Louisiana map instead: Comeauville, Church Point, Grosses Coques, Gaspereau, Boudreau. French names share the routes with English, similar to Acadiana, flanked on one side by Texas and the Louisiana “English Parishes” on the other. Of course, I was in “New Scotland.”
I became misty-eyed reading the list of those expelled by the English—surnames shared by hundreds of my childhood schoolmates and lifelong friends. I left with a new appreciation of how the Cajun French in Louisiana have retained their joie de vivre.
I had one full day to explore from morning at Yarmouth to Maitland and Truro at sundown. My goal was to see the evening Fundy tide roll in, so I tracked northeasterly, alternating between the coastal Route 1 Evangeline Trail and Route 101, the Harvest Highway running through the fertile Annapolis Valley. What I enjoyed on my way was pure lagniappe.
First stop: Church Point, named for an imposing Catholic church, Église Sainte-Marie. Built from 1903 to 1905 in partial response to Acadians returning from Massachusetts exile, the church is one of the tallest and largest wooden structures in North America. Exhibiting French and Romanesque Revival style, with a steeple rising 184 feet, it is breathtaking and enigmatic at once—like a bayou-side chapel on a cathedral scale. Visitors are welcome. A donation box and restrooms (if you ask) are just inside.
[Read this: Nouveau-Acadian Architecture]
Next: The Maritime Provinces are naturally famous for lobster. But in the town of Digby, suggested by the ferry tourism agent, you order scallops if nothing else. Too early for lunch, I found the dockside Fundy Restaurant (34 Water St., Digby) open and serving breakfast bacon-wrapped scallops. With a side of eggs, toast and hash browns, I designed my own petit déjeuner with a view overlooking a curious scene: fishing and sailing boats at low tide resting in the muck.
Tip: Scallop outlets abound near Digby, from sit down restaurants to walk-up windows. If you are early and it’s high season (April to September), Fundy Restaurant is the only waterside place serving breakfast scallops.
My third stop, suggested by the ferry guide, was Grand-Pré, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the settlement from which the French were driven out. Months earlier, on a meandering drive from Covington to Houston, I chanced upon the Evangeline statue where she waited for her rendezvous with Gabriel under the famous oak in St. Martinville. In Canada, here she was again in statue form before her fateful forced departure and again posed beside a beautiful church.
The expansive Grand-Pré visitors’ center includes interpretive displays of the life, wildlife, and topography of Acadie. One exhibit demonstrates the ingenious dyke systems built to reclaim swamp (marais) from the Atlantic for farmland. Fresh water flowed out to sea across the fields, but crop-damaging sea water was held back at high tide, all below sea level, as in certain parts of Louisiana.
A dramatic documentary is shown in a small theater built as a rustic barn. Headphones provide English or French soundtracks. Afterwards, the lights come up and family names of those exiled are projected on walls left and right. With nary a drop of French blood in my veins, I became misty-eyed reading the list of those expelled by the English—surnames shared by hundreds of my childhood schoolmates and lifelong friends. I left with a new appreciation of how the Cajun French in Louisiana have retained their joie de vivre.
Tip: If you mention to a helpful Grand-Pré docent that you are from Louisiana, better check the complimentary road map you are given. The fellow assumed I was a francophone. Miles later I discovered my map was in French. I managed.
Some ancestral information is available at Grand Pré, but for a deep-dive, consider a day-long visit to the Nova Scotia Archives (6016 University Ave., Halifax., N.S). Or do research in advance at archives.novascotia.ca.
Ever since watching a junior high science film about the Bay of Fundy, I’ve wanted to see the famous tides. With a timetable in hand, I continued eastward to tidal bore viewing areas. I’d already seen the boats resting in the low tide muck far below docks at breakfast. I arrived in time for dramatic high tide at two key viewing spots consecutively: Maitland and Truro. Think of the upper Bay of Fundy as a near empty Atchafalaya-sized bathtub, filling up in an hour. At sundown as the Truro bore flow ended, I nabbed a motel room nearby.
Returning to Maine via New Brunswick the next morning, I detoured to Prince Edward Island, land of Anne of Green Gables, for a lobster roll lunch on a pier. (Lobster Barn, 19 Main St., Victoria, P.E.I.) Crossing the eight-mile-long Confederation Bridge (two hundred feet high at peak) to the island was exhilarating and ethereal at once. I was driving across the Atlantic Ocean in a rainstorm! Close enough: It was the Northumberland Strait. Though a third of the length of the Lake Pontchartain Causeway, the Confederation Bridge traffic lanes are eight times higher than the famous Louisiana bridge.
Tip: Crossing to Prince Edward Island is free, but the return toll is about $35.00 USD. Credit cards are accepted.
Through New Brunswick, following the less-traveled coastal route to Maine, I crossed the border at Calais (pronounced “Callous” by Mainers). Immersed in forests of the Pine Tree State, I drove through Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, skirted Bar Harbor then headed directly to Bangor, the capital city Augusta, and finally a motel near the Portland airport. The next morning, while waiting in a row of comfy rocking chairs at the gate, a fellow traveler asked me where I was headed.
“Right now—Baltimore,” I replied, “But sooner or later, Alaska.”
Gotta check off that final box.
Getting there: All four major U.S. carriers serve Portland International Jetport. Air Canada, Delta and United serve Halifax. Most car rental agencies allow travel to/from Canada, though certain expensive models are excluded. Verify your insurance or credit card rental waivers for coverages in foreign countries.
Staying there: I mixed it up—two chain locations in Nova Scotia for expediency, but a vintage seaside inn near Kennebunkport, Maine for a true “Summer of ‘42” vibe. Vacancies were aplenty off-season. Advance reservations suggested for spring and summer, especially weekends.