Meat Cove

Off the Cabot Trail, Nova Scotia

Meat Cove is on the northern tip of the Cape Breton Island/Peninsula. It has a population of about 100 and is the most northern community in Nova Scotia.



This is probably about as far north as we get on this trip which began, as always, on April 1st. It's the turning point, tipping point...the end of the line. Mrs. Phred and I drove yesterday from our campground in Cheticamp, up into the Cape Breton Highlands National Park of Canada and took a short hike. We decided to disconnect the Toyota for the drive here today because of the steep upgrades and downgrades. The RV could handle most of the 18 degree downgrades in 1st gear without hitting the brakes unless there was a hairpin turn.

Meat Cove is accessed by a long dirt road with spectacular views of the rugged coastline. We saw a few whales off the road. The place got its name from fishermen who landed to hunt moose and replenish their larders. An alternative story is that fishermen could smell meat cooking as they rounded the cape.

We have a kayak trip lined up in the morning and whale watching on a Zodiac in the afternoon.



The campground (Hideaway in South Harbor)is very nice, with good Wi-Fi, electric, water and sewer. They sell lobster and oysters in the campground office and have a book exchange. We didn't like the Cheticamp campground so much. It seemed overcrowded and cramped. Many Canadian campgrounds are mostly full of local residents who park their trailers for the summer season (like we do in the winter in Sarasota).


Hideaway is the only campground on the tip of the peninsula that can accommodate large RVs, but they have everything here including tent camping and it's nicely wooded and uncrowded.

I listened to a Canadian Official on the radio today who said that Canada makes more of its GDP from tourism than the next three sources combined (fishing, agriculture and oil). They're putting 1/2 billion into upgrading the ferry service from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.

John Cabot possibly landed near Meat Cove on June 24, 1497. Cabot's birthplace and name are both controversial, he was most probably born in Italy. In Italy he is known today as Giovanni Caboto, in Spain as Juan Caboto and in England as John Cabot. Only one set of documents has been found bearing his signature. These are Venetian testamentary documents of 1484, on which he signed himself as "Zuan Chabotto", Zuan being a form of John typical to Venice. Apparently he got a commission from the City of Bristol and sailed to either Maine, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland in 1497. I was disappointed to learn that Cabot was not English. Apparently Phred Firecloud is the only great American Navigator and Billy Bligh is the only Englishman (other than Cook) worthy of the Navigator greatness appellation.

We're heading next to North Sydney where Mrs. Phred has lined up five days worth of activities. The ferry routes to Newfoundland (five or fifteen hours) depart from there. We're currently undecided about riding these further northeast.

We've had a few more electrical problems in addition to the broken rear-facing RV video camera. The automatic satellite dish seems to have gone on the fritz and and the taillight signals from the RV to the tow vehicle have stopped working. I have a spare satellite dish that I can aim myself as a workaround, but the problem with the taillights is a blown fuse buried somewhere deep within the bowels of the RV. We'll restrict our night driving until we can find a repair place.

Rafting the Shubenacadie River Tidal Bore

Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia

Tidal bores occur in areas of the world where tides are unusually large and are funneled down into a narrow bay or river. For example, the Qiantang River, which flows into the East China Sea, produces the bore shown below on the Vernal and Autumnal equinox. It can produce a huge wave front from the ocean which flows upriver at an average speed of 40 kilometers per hour and with crests reaching up to nine meters at its banks,

Cook.s Inlet in Alaska also produces impressive tidal bores. Here's a picture of one from Turnagain, about halfway up the long inlet.

The height of the tidal bore depends on the height of the tide, which depends on the phase of the moon. We draw a very unimpressive tide, but we take what we can get.

We approach the Zodiac down a long, very slippery mud bank. My dive booties are not ideal for traversing slippery mud. I end up on my butt twice, covered with mud. Take the boots they offer if you try this yourself.

Jeff drives us to a sandbar. The river is flowing out strongly at 4:10 PM. Suddenly, a small wave front approaches the sandbar and within a minute the bar disappears as the river rises.

The incoming tide creates standing waves about five feet high and five feet apart on sandbars. Jeff drives the Zodiac though the waves. The Zodiac swamps and fills with water repeatedly. Everyone is drenched by the waves breaking over the bow. We have a "man" overboard. We stop and pull her out. When the tides are really strong the standing waves reach a height of 15 feet.

Eventually, we return to base to get more gas. I store my camera to keep it dry. We go mud sliding for awhile down a slippery mud bank and then hit more big standing waves. It begins to rain. I'm impressed with the ability of the Zodiac to fill completely with water and accelerate and drain itself.

We return eventually for hamburgers, hot dogs and hot chocolate provided by the tour operator. It was a good time.

Blueberries and The Bay of Fundy

Grand Pre, Nova Scotia

When we arrive in Windsor. our friends, Gordie and Cappa. have arranged campsites in Windsor and Grand Pre for our weekend visit. The Windsor campsite is interesting. It's the town fairgrounds with a water slide, Go-kart track, a field full of antique autos and the Antique engine and tractor association.

This is the most fruit Mrs. Phred has picked since she went to Israel to work on a kibbutz and pick apples.

Gordie and Cappa feed us some great dinners (steak one night and cedar planked salmon another day)and Gordie invites us for his "Sunday breakfast feast. The picture below is from a famous "look-off" on the Bay of Fundy that they took us to look at..

They have a very busy weekend with a committed garage sale to raise money to maintain the local tennis courts. We play a couple of sets of doubles. Gordie has become very proficient and Cappa makes some great returns at the net. We go to a big U-pick blueberry farm. It only takes about an hour to pick gallons of huge blueberries. They run us out to the fields in a bus.

We tour about and meet this fisherman who runs a snowplow in the winter. His boat is sitting in the mud waiting for the tide to come back in.

In the morning, we'll be rafting on a tidal bore that generates fifteen foot waves when the big fifty foot tide rips back though a narrow river to a huge lake.

This picture is called a rose between two thorns.

and a thorn between two roses...

This guy is doing some serious flower farming.

We haven't seen apple trees for many years.

The tide is out.

Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg

Near Halifax, Nova Scotia

The Wi-Fi has been hard to find the last few days. These pictures are from the historic village of Lunenburg, on the coast, near Halifax.

Lunenburg was established in 1759 as a fishing village. The houses are old and architecturally interesting, at least to us. We like old wood frame houses with lots of exterior detail. We spend an hour tromping around, snapping Pix.

The town plan was made back in England with no regard for geographic contours. We see a long RV get hung up on a steep grade. The local policewoman tells us it happens 3 or 4 times a year when people fail to regard the "no RVs" signs. They get a big wrecker and hoist the RV chassis off the street.

The Marine Historic Museum in Lunenburg is worth several hours. They run a series of nearly continuous videos, build dories, describe the history of the fisheries and have a memorial room for the 700 fishermen that have died here of the last 100 years. The cod jig above used a long time ago when the cod were plentiful and weighed 40 or 50 pounds each.

They used to fish with a single hand line from a dory. Then they started running trap lines out about a mile with a baited hook every six feet. Finally they built big boats powered by diesels with wide nets that scooped everything off the bottom.

We stop at a fish market to buy cod on the way out of Lunenburg and get the rant we have heard 20 times in the Maritimes. The damned seals eat all the cod and the Europeans who have banned seal products are all fools. I'm not so sure that the seals are completely to blame for the collapsed cod fisheries. I don't express my doubts. Instead, we buy scallops and smoked mackerel. We make a nice dip from the mackerel with cream cheese and squeezed lemon juice.

Peggy's Cove is about an hour away. There are lots of tourists here in this little picturesque fishing village. There are two big buses full of Japanese tourists. The buses are covered with Japanese symbols. There are also several hundred cars like ours looking for a parking space.

Peggy's cove is very pretty. We snap a few Pix and head on back to the RV.

Our friends, Gordie and Cappa, have reserved space for us in RV parks near Windsor about 60 miles away. We hope to play some tennis with them and catch up on their lives up here in Nova Scotia.

Don’t Eat the Peanut Butter

Halifax, Nova Scotia

We leave the vehicles on the lower deck of the big ferry from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia. When we start the engine, five hours later, the mouse has ripped apart a big box of Kleenex. One of the traps, baited with peanut butter, has been eaten clean. The other one has a dead mouse. I toss the sad little body at 2:30 AM in the Sobey’s parking lot North Sidney where we spend the night after getting off the ferry at 2 AM.

It’s surprising that little one mouse could have created such anxiety and havoc with ruined clothing, drawers full of mouse poop and scurrying noises in the A/C vents all night. However, the peanut butter-baited traps are untouched today and we hear no more noises in the attic.

We visit the British Citadel in Halifax. They are busy doing close order drill in quilts. A soldier named Lambert gets yelled at a lot. It reminds me a little of my own experience as an enlisted man before I became an officer. Sometimes the drill instructor made me hold my right arm up while we did drill. “Dougherty, you say you want to be an officer? You wouldn’t make a good pimple on an Airman’s Ass!”, he shouts at me.

I ask a very stupid question of a man in a quilt with a bagpipe. “Are you an actor?”. Actually, I’d like to think it was not all that stupid. The British are notable tradition lovers.

After the Citadel we go to the Marine Museum. Many of the Titanic bodies ended up here in Halifax. I see a headline that tells about a “weird load” of Titanic bodies pulling into port. It reminds me of my favorite bumper sticker. “Caution! Weird Load!”

They had a another tremendous disaster here in 1917. A French munitions ship collided with another ship after a horn blowing argument over right of way. The ship began to burn and all the French crew rowed away in panic, leaving the ship to burn. The ship exploded, creating the biggest man-made blast to date. 2,000 citizens were killed outright and thousands were injured. Many were blinded by flying glass while looking at the burning ship.

Today we head down to Peggy's Cove and on to see Lunenburg.

The Caravan

North Sydney, Nova Scotia

The problem with the automatic satellite dish turned out to be a weak signal from the satellite. We're too far north and east to pick up a reliable broadcast even though my calculations show that the satellite is above the visible horizon.
It's raining again this morning. We'll spend the day reading, defrosting the refrigerator, food shopping and planning our trip to Newfoundland.


We've been here three nights. Yesterday we went to see The Coal Miner's Museum. We got a tour underground with Sheldon, an old coal miner who told us about rats, cave-ins, explosions and fires. The whole tour was with a four foot roof. The Coal Company didn't pay to remove enough rock from the mine to make the miners life comfortable. They only wanted the coal seam between the rock layers.

In the morning, I finally located some pipe tobacco in North Sydney. It was $22 an ounce. My last purchase in Maine was $12 for 16 ounces. I looked up the law on tobacco sales here and there are some odd provisions. They have to keep tobacco in a closed closet and they can only show you the quantity and product that you intend to purchase.
We bought our ferry tickets to Newfoundland. There was a five day wait here before we could get on a ferry next Tuesday.

This campground is only three miles from the ferry terminal so we see the caravans coming and going as we wait our turn.
"Caravan" has a limited meaning here. We use it to refer to a voluntary collection of motor homes, 5th wheels or trailers that have agreed to travel together.
Last night about 40 antique autos got off the ferry from Newfoundland and pulled in for the night.
We talked to some of them. As might be expected, broken pistons and failed oil pumps dominated their thoughts.

Most of the people in this caravan were Canadians.

The Puffin Express

North Sydney, Nova Scotia


Captain Mike is a tall thin older guy with a white, scraggly beard. He’s wearing an officer’s uniform with the one stripe of an Ensign on his uniform. Somehow he manages to look faintly disreputable with part of his shirt untucked from his pants.

I’m surprised when he clips on a speaker headset and keeps up an interesting monologue for nearly three hours. It’s about 40 minutes over to the bird islands. The bald eagles are here in numbers. They like to eat gull chicks for breakfast. Mike has a theory about why the the eagles are here earlier this year. It has to do with a poor lobster catch and less food for the gulls to eat as the fishermen change bait in the traps less frequently. We watch some gulls dive bombing an eagle. Mike says the gulls are hungry and less interested in protecting the chicks...maybe so.

Mike starts off with an interesting explanation of the tidal currents that rip though the narrow opening we are navigating between the Atlantic Ocean and the huge saltwater lake, the Bras D’Orr, one of the largest in the world. Sometimes one shore is flowing out, the other in and the middle is ripping trying to fill or empty a big lake though a small channel.

We see a lot of puffins, razorbills (kind of like puffins), great and double crested cormorants, seagulls and seals. There are also black guillemot, great black-backed gulls, herring gulls and kittiwakes.

Captain Mike keeps up an interesting line of patter, explaining about the regions “ferryman” pirates, which makes the place sound a lot like it used to be Somalia.

He has strong opinions about the seagulls, who are exploding in population due to their tendency to eat anything including landfill material. He explains that the gulls eat rodents, which answers one of my big questions. That is... why the bird islands around this area don’t have rats to prey on the bird nests like the islands up in the Aleutian chain.

The puffins dig small nest holes in the rocks over many generations by sharpening their beaks. It reminds me of the legendary small bird that sharpens its beak on a mountain once every 1,000 years and eventually wears the mountain away.
Captain Mike says the seal population has exploded since man killed off the orcas and now the seals are underweight due to over population and over fishing. Mike expounds on the lobster over fishing in the area. There are lobster traps everywhere and the catch is dropping 20% a year. Each of the 300 local lobster fishermen is entitled to 275 traps. They have to come out every day to change the bait in the traps. He says they get 70% of their catch in the first two weeks of the six week season.

Anyway, it’s all very interesting local color and I snap a lot of bird Pix. The puffins are fairly nervous because of the bald eagles and spend most of their time out in the water. They have little wings like penguins so they can fly though the water, but they have to flap pretty hard up in the air and take off into the winds. On this trip, the juice is definitely worth the squeeze.