Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

The day after Grand Pre we drove from Nova Scotia's Bay side to its Atlantic side to see another World Heritage site, the town of Lunenburg. Lunenburg was chosen as an exemplar of British colonial towns and for its well-preserved buildings. I'll let the pix speak mostly for themselves.

The thing that caught our eyes was this beautiful
old Anglican church, St. John's

Many old houses and buildings of note

A little reminiscent of Dublin...

Dollar Store (Loonie=$CA1, Toonie=$CA2)

In a collectible store; we stimulated the local
economy modestly

Art Nouveau bank, early 1900s; not part of the
World Heritage thing, presumably

Nearby city bench

Not sure whether the paint colors match the 18th
century originals...

Harbor view

Interesting place; better without the rain!

Grand Pre

Grand Pre is another Nova Scotia World Heritage Site, in this case celebrating the French Acadian community in Nova Scotia which was driven away following the so-called French and Indian War, which the French lost. Quel dommage. The Acadians, some of them, went south and became the Cajuns of Louisiana. Much was lost in translation. All this is celebrated, however, in Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline, which, as every school boy/girl knows, was written in dactylic hexameter, Homer's meter. At Grand Pre, the Acadians built a dike against the Bay of Fundy and reclaimed considerable farm land, still tilled. For us, it was a somewhat brief visit, since the visitor center had already closed. The hour was late and smoke already was rising from the mountain of doom....

Helpful illustration

Bay of Fundy from Grand Pre plage...low tide

Thus

Reclaimed land

Community church

Of course sea level can vary considerably here; mean sea level?

We proceeded on....

On To Nova Scotia: Joggins Fossil Cliffs

We got into Canada on October 1st, crossing from Calais to St. Stephen without difficulty. The only stop of note on the drive through Maine was at LL Bean. We were no more impressed in 2016 than in 1970. I guess Bean's must be a regional thing. (We've been REI members since 1971.) After doing the wash (no laundromat in Calais!) and getting a sim card in St. Stephen, we then breezed through New Brunswick, having been there several days in 1970, as far as Moncton and the Tidal Bore (or "total bore" as we called it then). We arrived in Amherst, Nova Scotia, at 5:30PM, stopping at the visitor center and then camping au savage in town. Next morning we were up bright and early for a visit to the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, the first of several World Heritage Sites we saw in Nova Scotia.

Joggins Fossil Cliffs visitor center; the cliffs, washed and eroded
by the tides of the Bay of Fundy, expose layers of 310 million year
old Carboniferous flora and fauna; Charles Lyell, the father of
geology, exponent of uniformatarianism, and a major influence on
Darwin, visited in 1842, and pronounced Joggins the finest example
of the fossil record hitherto known; the cliffs figured prominently
in the debate that followed publication of Origin of Species

I saw the Bay of Fundy first in 1970, and from that time have
been fascinated by these big tides, whether at Glacier Bay,
New Zealand, Normandy or Bristol Channel; none is as large
as Fundy; October 1st's high tide was 38+ feet

Looking out toward the Bay

A smidgen of the cliffs; on the Bay

Looking the other way

Tree fossil

We got onto the 11AM tour, which was superb; here the guide
shows a fossil trail plowed by a giant millipede

These puppies were 6 feet long!

Coal; carboniferous, right? Mines in the area followed the
coal veins even under the Bay

Great guide

Another tree bit

Hollowed out by a tree trunk now gone

Another bit of tree trunk

Thus

Smaller fossils in the rock

Standing on the beach, below the cliffs, I kept a close eye on
the advancing tide...

Fossils left behind by previous visitors

In the visitor center, amusing Canadian humor

Carboniferous swamp menu

Coprolitic output

Rushing Through New Hampshire And Maine

Two days after Pittsburgh, we were in the Hamptons (September 27th), on the New Hampshire coast, a place we enjoyed visiting when we lived in Boston in 1970-71. Somewhere further up, in Maine, a look at the Foliage Network convinced us that we needed to get to Nova Scotia in a hurry, saving Maine and the rest of New Hampshire for the flip side of the trip. (We'd visited Maine and New Brunswick in 1970, on our first cross country road trip). But we did stop for a few quick pix on the way.

So how closed up is it on the New Hampshire beaches in October?

Mile upon mile of rocky coast

Famous often-photographed lighthouse probably in Maine whose
name presently eludes me

The Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, we thought

Or maybe it was just another gated community