Sept 25

It’s surprising what you learn when you travel.   Resilience, flexibility, tolerance, amongst other vital qualities.  The early explorers and settlers are never far from my mind on this trip, and these are the characteristics that determined their ability to wrestle a life out of this hard land.  Living so close to the land and sea, with little insulation, has given me a new respect for the hardy folk who came before.  They had much less – no camper, propane, money, 12 volt batteries, refrigeration.  When it was dark and cold, imagine their fears, and their nightmares.  How hard would it have been to face winter’s onset with little in the larder and less in the fields?

Today we visited Port Royal, Samuel de Champlain’s earliest settlement in the New World, where French fur traders formed the first social club in the New World in 1604, The Order of Good Cheer.  A tiny, wooden square of buildings on the edge of the wilderness, the far boundary of the known universe.  They must have laid in a good supply of rum to keep the winter nights at bay. 

We on the other hand have sustained our spirits with excellent local wine, and stocked our larder with the riches of the fields – intoxicatingly fragrant strawberries, oozingly pungent cheeses, beer, bread, potatoes, corn, and lobsters.  Now on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, we’re clearly back in civilization as we had passed two coffee roasters before 11 am and tasted half a dozen lovely wines by noon today! 

Camping has become a delight with all the summer crowds dispersed and the weather still sunny and warm.  We took some local advice and found a treasure at the end of a dirt road on the south shore, below Lunenberg.  Not the Spanish gold of Oak Island, but a deserted rocky headland with a local restaurant, local music, and great peach pie!  Simply sublime to wander through the dark to find Steve Chapin playing Cole Porter next to our campsite. 

Tonight we are alone perched on a grassy slope above the Bay of Fundy watching the tide mount the precipitous rocks below at a relentless pace.  At the boat basin down the road the fish boats are sitting just like in photos – on the bottom!  In this Photo Shop age, who really expects to see such a cliché?    But here, with 35 foot tides twice daily, life has its ups and downs. 

The days are noticeably shorter, the nights are cold, and winter can’t be far off, but for now we will enjoy each day as it comes.  This timeless travel is deeply satisfying, and the troubles of the real world seem like a distant universe.