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Wednesday 12th October 2011 – I DIDN’T ….

… didn’t do so well this morning.

Put that down to a 05:00 bedtime and you will understand. I’m having major sleep issues right now.

And so with what was left of the morning I spell-checked all of my Canada notes (and that wasn’t a 5-minute job either) and then started on the web pages. There are only about 800 photographs – something of a change from the 2500 of last year. I clearly wasn’t working hard enough

This afternoon I carried on with the wall.

I put another two rows on that corner and infilled with stones and concrete. That should do the trick. Really, the stones are only the cladding and it’s the concrete that will be taking all of the weight of the beam and the roof.

Another two rows on there tomorrow and I’ll be able to put the beam in position. That should be fun on my own seeing as how heavy it weighs. But once it’s there I can build up the rest of the side wall.

I must admit that I’m looking forward to doing that and getting it finished. But I don’t think that that’s going to be any time soon

Tuesday 11th October 2011 – AND JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was up with the cock this morning.

But that’s enough about my disgusting personal habits, an early start meant a good morning on the computer and what with the glorious day that we had (summer is back) I put on line the Radio Anglais
website and also the updated footy website with the matches from the weekend. That’s a huge job finished, and finished quite early too.

I’ve even made a start on the Canada 2011 web pages, and that’s enthusiasm, isn’t it?

>This afternoon I went and attacked the wall. The breeze block that I had put in the other day had set nicely so I scavenged around for some decent square-faced stones from where the wall collapsed in 2002. It took ages but I found some really good ones and I slowly started to rebuild the corner. It’s a case of cementing two large stones carefully in place at the corner, and

then infilling behind them with several layers of stones and liquid lime mortar – building up little by little. Once the infill reaches the height of the corner stones, I can put another layer of corner stones in place and then infill behind them.
rebuilding lean to les guis virlet puy de dome france While it’s all setting and I’m waiting for it to be dry enough I did some more pointing of the wall.

Anyway, I’ve now two rows of corner stones in place above the breeze block and if you think that this is slow progress, then you are right but it needs to be slow and precise.

The large cross beam that you can see will be sitting on that corner and will be taking the weight of the roof, and also the two sides that meet there will be passing their weight onto it as well. There’s not much room for error

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Saturday 24th September 2011 – GOING TO MONTREAL

I was aching a bit when I woke up this morning – and no idea why. I’d had a good sleep for 6 hours or so on here, despite being woken up a couple of times by lorries starting up and heading off.

I stopped for fuel and coffee once I was over the border in Quebec and then headed of directly to Montreal non-stop, making a note of things that I saw so that I could make further enquiries at another time.

I reached Montreal well in advance of myself, having gone on the cruise control all the way. This had had the dramatic effect of dropping the fuel consumption to an astonishing 7.4/100. I’ll certainly try the cruise control again.

Here at Canadian Tires, there were some kids having a charity car wash so while I was in there having a wander around, I let them give the Dodge a really good once-over.

With plenty of time to spare before I need to sort out my accommodation, I went for a drive along the St Lawrence. I have to say goodbye.

Last year when I came down here I drove past the nuclear power station on the outskirts of Sorel-Tracy, but I was on the south bank of the river so I couldn’t take a good photo of it.

There’s a much better view of it from the north bank, but I’m not sure why that’s a good thing. And I’m not sure why it is that it’s a good idea to have a nuclear reactor in a built-up area like this.

I also mentioned a huge refining plant in Sorel Tracy. It’s a Rio Tinto smelting plant for iron and titanium that comes from the company’s own mine right down the Gulf of St Lawrence, and that’s where the ships come from that are unloading here.

It’s a big, noisy smelly place with an impressive flare at night but I suppose there’s no alternative to having it in a place like this where a workforce can be recruited.

Those people over there are mushroom hunters – I know because I asked them. The guy in the red shirt is the mushroom identifier and he’s telling them which they can eat or not, because they are all going to someone’s house afterwards and having a nosh-up of what they have found.

I asked them if they were worried, and the leader of the part said “no”. Apparently, the secret is not to worry and just eat what you have in front of you, and then go to bed without a care.

If you wake up next morning, then they were edible. And if you don’t wake up, you wouldn’t care anyway.

There’s a lot more to my drive than just that, and you can read it all yourselves at your leisure. I’m off to bed and that is that. My last day tomorrow.

Tuesday 20th September 2011 – I WENT FOR A LITTLE …

… drive out today, on the eastern bank of the Saint John River.

First stop though was into Florenceville, and we now have the deeds to our property, a safety-deposit box to keep them in and also a direct debit with the council to pay the property taxes on the property.

From here, I continued my drive upriver.

One thing that I hadn’t noticed before was that there was a dam across the Saint John River here just on the outskirts of Perth Andover.

It’s called the Beechwood Dam and it was the second to be built on the Saint John River system, dating from 1955. Apparently it was shrouded in controversy due to the fact that it interrupted traditional First-Nation water-borne movement patterns up and down the river.

From the other, western side of the river there are some stunning views a couple of miles south of Perth Andover.

Here I am on one of the old sections of the Trans Canada Highway (I think that in places it’s on its fourth reincarnation) and you can see exactly what I mean . And it would have been even nicer had I had the right kind of weather for it.

When I came by Hartland in 2010 I stayed in a motel on the top of the hill north of town, but I forgot to take a photo of it.

One of the things that I wanted to do this year was to put that right, and so I came past here this afternoon with the intention of rectifying matters. My room was one of those on the front row over there just by the telephone box.

From this spot there’s also a good view of the covered bridge down the hill at Hartland. It’s the world’s longest covered bridge apparently, 391 metres long.

These covered bridges are often described as “kissing bridges” because young couples would often go for a ride through them and while the horse concentrated on the road, the couple could occupy themselves with other things, out of the gaze of the public. In this bridge, they would have plenty of time for other things too.

Here’s somewhere else that I wanted to visit. I’d been here once before but I didn’t have too much time for a wander around. Today however, there wasn’t anyone around to ask if I could go for a walk around, and you need to ask for permission to do that sort of thing in North America.

It’s certainly the kind of place that I would like to visit when I’m on holiday. It’s home from home for me.

One more place that I wanted to capture on film was the largest food-processing plant in the World. It’s the McCain potato-processing plant in Florenceville, down there on the banks of the Saint John River.

I’ve been told that one third of all prepared chips sold in the world is a McCain product, so that’s some going. It’s hardly surprising that you can’t move on these roads for potato lorries during October.

So I’m going back to Rachel’s for an early night. I’m going to be busy for the next couple of days.

Tuesday 13th September 2011 – HERE I AM …

… in my overnight parking space just off the motorway and this morning I reckon that I am just about to witness a major accident.

There is a car just driven up the slip road towards the highway on the westbound side and now he’s had a change of mind – he doesn’t want to go down there now and he’s reversing back down the slip road despite other vehicles actually trying to drive up there. And that can only have one outcome.

Yes transfer the New Brunswickers to Tennessee and neither the New Brunswickers nor the Tenesseeans would notice the difference

That wasn’t such a good night that wasn’t because I was being eaten alive by something or other all through the night. Not only that, we had a load of traffic on the motorway although that didn’t disturb me all that much and then we had two diesel trains that went past in the night. Obviously there’s a railway nearby with a few level crossings in close proximity. The truck that was parked in front of me also cleared off too at about 06:00 but of course you have to accept that.

But it was the insects eating me that was the problem. I’m just covered in bite marks. I probably let them in at the swamp at Irving’s. Who was it who said something about Arctic Canada – 9 months of snow and ice and 3 months of mosquitoes?

I went off into Moncton to find some coffee. And I also found the Motor Auction – it’s in Mountain Road opposite no 1758 and takes place on Wednesday at 18:00.

Princess Autos didn’t come up with much of interest except a 760-watt digital sine wave inverter complete with USB port, all for $74 dollars which is less than 50 quid and that is astonishing. Zellers and K-Mart were practically empty – of customers, staff and stock. It doesn’t look to me as if they are long for this world.

So I headed north on Highway 126 and picked up the railway line. And while I was idly passing the time of day hardly concentrating on what was going on, I encountered head-on the VIArail train from Montreal to Halifax. It took me completely by surprise and I didn’t have the camera ready.

12:02 it was, so it looks as if the train sleeps over in Halifax – there won’t be enough time for it to turn round and come back the same day

Onto Highway 116 because, despite whatever The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav wants to tell me, this is the road to Fredericton and that’s where I’m going.

Highway 116 is apparently known locally as Salmon River road, and so I imagine that this river that has been running alongside me for the last 20 minutes or so is actually the Salmon River, although don’t quote me on that.

Whatever it is, it’s quite pretty but there isn’t anywhere to pull up clear of the road to admire the view. My stomach thinks that my throat has been cut right now.

This is a suitable place to stop and make my butty, and I’m glad that I found it. I’m just on the edge of a small town called Ripples and this where I am is the site of one of the 26 Internment Camps in Canada during World War II.

It was originally a work camp for the unemployed during the depression but in 1940 it began to be used to house German and Austrian civilians. Later, Canadian citizens whose affiliations where suspect came here too.

Possibly the most famous, and certainly the most contentious inmate of the camp was Camillien Houde, mayor of Montreal. His “crime” was to call upon all Quebeckers to resist conscription and this was deemed to be sedition.

Although this is controversial, it needs to be looked at in the context of events at the time. There’s no place for looking at history through modern eyes. Leaving aside the question of conscientious objection to war and killing, which is quite another matter, one can understand the lack of willingness for Canadians to involve themselves in the Boer War (an “Imperialist” war against “fellow colonists”° and World War I (a European War involving the UK’s pledge to Belgium), it’s difficult to understand the position about World War II

That really was a World War, with German shells and torpedoes landing on Canadian soil and Canadian civilians being killed while going about their normal business. Everyone was involved in it, whether they wanted to be or not.

Add to that the fact that the Nazis were well-known to infiltrate disaffected minorities and use their disaffection as a way of undermining their national Governments. The Sudeten Germans, Danzigers, the Flemish, the Croats, the inhabitants of the Baltic States.

No-one can find any proof to confirm that Houde had been “got at” by the Nazis, but one can certainly understand, given the tenor of the times, why the British were very suspicious of Houde’s position which reflected that adopted by so many covert pro-Nazi groups in Europe

It’s possible to wander around the camp but although there are little signposts everywhere, there’s very little in the way of remains to see.

There are a few however if you look long and hard. I imagine that this is part of a fire hydrant or some such.

But there’s a delightful story doing the rounds about how well the inmates ate here. Not in terms of the volume of the food, but the fact that a couple of chefs of some of the finest hotels in the Maritime Provinces ended up being interned here.

20minutes down the road from Ripples I come to the Saint John River and there across the river is the city of Fredericton, the provincial capital of New Brunswick.

This is a beautiful small town – I drove through here in 2003 and quite liked the place, so I was determined to come back. But it won’t be today as I have a lot to do.

Firstly I’m off to the Mactaquac Provincial Park about 15kms out of town. That’s a headland where the land has been flooded by the Mactaquac Dam and is now a golf course, forest and primitive camp ground.

There are no rooms anywhere in any motels in the city, and I’ve been told that during the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, the police clamp down on any informal camping in the vicinity of the city.

I suppose that a little bit of luxury won’t do me any harm, and I might even manage a shower. It’s been a while.

Monday 12th September 2011 – THE FUNDY SHORE

After I pleasant day at Colleen’s, I was back on the road once more

But I didn’t get far. It was lunchtime and I found a fish and chip shop.

And this place is noteworthy for two reasons

it sold real chips. Nice proper lumps of potatoes, not these horrible matchstick things
it was the first place that I have ever encountered in North America that had real malt vinegar on offer.

And they were delicious too. And it was really nice sitting outside in the sun.

First stop this afternoon was at Black’s Harbour where the ferry goes over to Grand Manan Island. And look what’s parked up over there. I’m sure that it’s the ferry that was under repair in Pictou last October when we there there.

And as a matter of fact, she is. It appears that there are two ships that ply across the waters, but only one in winter. And last winter she was laid up as her replacement was due in the spring. However the arrival of her replacement was rather late, and then the other one was involved in an accident back in May, so she was pressed back into service.

Her ultimate destination seems to be hauling gravel for a company in Quebec – the usual fate of many old ferries out here.

Whenever you see a road called “lighthouse road”, that’s a cue for a deviation – or, at least, it is in my case.

And I’m glad that I came down this road too because some of the scenery is magnificent. According to the church in the distance, this area here is called Beaver Harbour and if so, that’s an old Quaker settlement where a bunch of United Empire Loyalists came to settle.

And you can see why they came to settle here, cant you?

The road to the lighthouse was all closed off so I couldn’t go down there, but a thing like that isn’t likely to put me off.

Where there’s a will there are relatives, and so here I am round on the next headland down with a telephoto lens.

It’s Drews Head lighthouse, so I’m told, there has been a lighthouse on here since as recently as January 1876 although this is not the original. It was replaced by a skeletal tower-type of construction in the late 1960s and the fibreglass skin that you can see dates from 1984.

What we see right out there is the nuclear power station situated out on Point Lepreau. It’s the only nuclear power station in Atlantic Canada and is something else that was quite controversial in New Brunswick.

After years of debate, the New Brunswick Prime Minister Richard Hatfield announced that it was going to be built, regardless of whatever conclusions an Environmental Assessment committee reached. It was built in the early 1980s and cost three times the estimated amount.

It’s suffered all kinds of problems caused by, amongst other things, poor maintenance and employee sabotage, and there has been a variety of work-related accidents and illnesses. An 18 month overhaul, started in March 2008, took four and a half years to complete.

I went out there for a drive around to see what I could see, but it’s hidden in a forest so you can’t see it from close up.

Instead, I went off to see if I could find the famous waterfall on the Lepreau River.

The river is only about 30 kms long but has quite a descent over that distance, culminating in a drop of about 6 metres over this granite ledge.

Below the falls is the tidal limit of the Bay of Fundy and on the incoming tide you’ll find salt water down there. In fact, you can’t see it in this photo but the tide is coming in as I’m standing here.

When I was here ten years ago, I arrived after dark and left before light so I didn’t take a photo of my motel that night.

So here we are. This is the Island View motel where I stayed, on top of a hill to the south of the city of Saint John. I seem to remember that there wasn’t that much to write about this motel, but I don’t remember criticising the price either so it must have been a reasonable deal.

There’s a convenient hill just a little way around the corner and so I wandered off to see what I could see.

And sure enough, there’s a beautiful view down the river towards the city of Saint John (and you mustn’t forget to always write the name in full – that’s quite important).

You’ll notice all of the modern skyscrapers there. Saint John is the second-largest city in Atlantic Canada (after Halifax) and also one of the wealthiest

I can’t believe that I’ve managed to time my arrival so badly – when the tide is at mid-point.

Over there are the Reversing Falls – at low tide the level of the tide is about 4 metres below the level of the river and at high tide, it’s about 4 metres higher. Consequently, at either high or low tide, you have a spectacular spectacle right underneath the bridge.

I took thousands of photos here at Saint John, and one day I’ll post them all somewhere for you to see.

You’ll remember just now that I posted a photo of the city taken from distance, and showed you the tall modern buildings on the skyline. And so here, right in the centre of the city, we can have a view of them from closer up.

With there being water around, there are bound to be ships. And I’m not disappointed either because this is a huge harbour and there are dozens about.

However, never mind the ship for the moment – take a look beyond it at those shipping containers with the word TROPICAL written on them? They are, would you believe, going to feature in our story in a few days’ time.

But I hope that you aren’t expecting to see anything really historic in the city because, beautiful as it might be from this perspective on the waterfront, there’s very little in the city dating from before 1877

In that year, there was, for the benefit of those of you who know very little about the history of Canada, a devastating fire raged through the city and destroyed 1612 properties and caused $28,000,000 of damages.

Not like the fire that raged through Bentilee in Stoke on Trent, destroying 1612 houses and causing £30 worth of improvements.

Saint John was in the front line during the disputes with the USA. In the early days, the border between Canada and the USA had not been resolved, and the USA was claiming as far up the coast as the mouth of the Saint John River.

Of course, Britain was having none of that and the mouth of the river, especially on the shore, was quite heavily fortified.

This is Fort Howe, built during the War of American Independence following the Siege of Saint John in 1777, the “Howe” being the Commander of the British forces in North America at the time. It has the distinction of being the first site in Canada to be designated a National Historic Park.

Way over there in the distance (thanks to the zoom lens) is the Carleton Martello tower, one of only 9 now remaining in Canada.

This dates back to the War of 1812 and was built to guard the entrance to the harbour. It was in use during World War II as an anti-aircraft gun tower (the Canadian Government had more faith in the Luftwaffe’s technical abilities than the Luftwaffe did) and observation post, and during World War I had been a prison for deserters from the Canadian Army.

I did say that Saint John was one of the wealthiest cities in Atlantic Canada, and you can tell that by looking at some of the buildings around here.

This is the old city market, situated on Charlotte Street. and dates from 1876. It’s the umpteenth Market Hall in the city, and regular readers of this rubbish don’t need to be told what happened to the others.

The building deteriorated considerably after World War II but underwent a major renovation between 1987 and 1990.

Churches are always a good indication of the wealth of any community, and no-one is going to be disappointed by this church. This is the Trinity Anglican Church in Germain Street and was founded by United Empire Loyalists who fled here in 1783.

This imposing pile dates from 1880, and you don’t REALLY need me to tell you what happened to its predecessor, do you?

There’s a beautiful park right in the centre of the city – King’s Square, it’s called. And right in the middle is a bandstand, the King Edward VIII bandstand, dating from 1908.

It’s not very well-known, (so I shall publicise the fact) that I once made a bandstand. That’s right. I set fire to all of their chairs.

I’ll get my coat.

I said that there was plenty of evidence of former wealth in Saint John. And there is also plenty of evidence of current poverty too. This street here would not be out of place in any industrial city in the north of England.

If that’s not all, I stumbled upon a bingo hall which had a game actually in progress. The hall was pretty full too. Just how sad is that? It really did remind me of Stoke on Trent on a bad day.

And some ageing hippy has just come up to me. He was having a good look at my telephoto lens and, pointing to it, said “hi – you must be one of those long-distance photographers”.
“I’m from the UK” I replied. “Is that long enough?”

Bravely battling against the lack of light, I rejoin my vehicle and head out of the town, continuing my journey to the north-east and leaving behind me a load of photographs that I must deal with some time.

Just outside the town is the immense KC Irving oil refinery and LPG processing plant. It really does look like a desperate scar on the landscape, but as long as people want to drive around in cars, what do you expect?

A phrase involving omeletttes and eggs springs to mind.

And now it’s dark, I can’t see what I’m doing, but there’s a truck stop ahead. That’s going to be as good a place as any for me to lay down my weary head.

Saturday 10th September 2011 – I’M OFF ON MY TRAVELS AGAIN

And not before time either because if I stay too long in one place I put down roots and that would never do, would it?

And that’s the view behind me – the plains of New Brunswick with the wind farm at Mars Hill over to the right of the photo. And my little share of Canada is on the very extreme right-hand edge of the photo, on the down slope of the mountain.

How happy am I?

The road beyond Woodstock is fairly uneventful until I turn off onto Highway 630 and then I’m presented with this road. 58 kilometres of it too and isn’t this just like old times on the Trans-Labrador Highway?

It’s so much better going this way than going by the motorway. I’m not in any particular rush and can take my time, and quite right too. But never mind what might be on the other side of the hill – I can’t even tell what might be just around the bend

I arrive at a junction with Highway 4 which is for some reason or other not on the SatNav. The turning to the left is signposted for the USA so I must be very close to the border, so I’m where I want to be;

As for the railway line, this is probably the line that runs from Saint John to Montreal via the USA and was used quite heavily in the winter when Montreal was frozen up in the days before icebreakers and all of the produce was shipped by rail to Saint John.

This is the Bayside wharf and ferry terminal judging by the sign. It’s private property but seeing as it’s open, I go for a wander around but there’s no-one about to ask any questions.

The drive down to the gates is quite secluded and so I’ve pencilled in a little place in the back of my mind in case I can’t find anywhere better to park up for the night. That gap in between those two trailers looks quite inviting

Over there is the Ile de Sainte Croix, Saint Croix Island. It’s significant in that as far as I can tell, it was the first coastal colony of the French, being settled in 1604 (all previous colonies were in the St Lawrence).

Of the 79 colonists, 35 died and so many others were close to death that they all moved away to Port Royal across the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

Ironically, Champlain described an autopsy that had been performed upon one of the deceased, and when a cemetery was discovered here fairly recently, one of the bodies uncovered had suffered the “injuries” in the post-mortem that were so well-described by Champlain.

And modern scientist, on examining the remains, concluded that most, if not all of the deaths, were due to scurvy

Now that I’m within touching distance of St Andrews it won’t do any harm to go for a look around, even if it the sun is setting quite quickly. Still, I can always do my best to take a photo to give you an idea of how it looks.

And I’m pretty disappointed in that there’s a 1920s type of Ford, which is probably an A-type, parked up at the side of the road and it’s too dark to take a photo of it. I hope that it will be there tomorrow.

But wait a minute – whatever is this?

There’s a red light here up in the sky – in the top right-hand corner of the photo is a steady red light (otherwise it would never have come out in the photo) rather than a flashing red light that you might see from an aeroplane.

I thought that it might be a radio mast – a Loran-C or something like that, but I came back here in the morning and there was nothing that could have been my red light. So it’s a mystery.

And in the absence of a better proposition, I’ve gone back to the wharf and that’s where I’ll be staying the night.

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Sunday 4th September 2011 – TRAVELLING TO MY NEW HOME

Here is where I spent last night.

I drove all around the town of Cabano and the local area last night but there wasn’t anywhere convenient to park up, so the back of the car park of the Metro supermarket had to do. I spent most of the night dying for a slash, freezing cold and I was awoken by a text message at 5:09.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

and haven’t I had some good luck here?

I fully believe that if I’m using someone’s facilities, it’s only polite to show my gratitude in a positive way and so with the supermarket being open this morning, I went in to do some shopping.

And just look at this! Real vegan cheese! And here in Quebec too. I consequently stocked up with a good supply of this for the next few weeks. This will go nicely on my salad butties, won’t it?

Cabano is situated at the head of Lake Temiscouata, which is the at the headwaters of the Saint John River system.

Back in the old days this was the site of a portage – people travelling between Lower Canada and Acadia made use of waterways as much as possible but there were places where they needed to leave one waterway and carry their equipment (a portage) overland to the next waterway. Cabano was one such place.

You don’t need any guesses to be able to tell what this might have been at one time. And when you see a street called rue de la Gare– “Station Street”, your suspicions are confirmed.

In the 1980s Canada out-Beechinged Beeching when it came to savaging the railway network and east of the city of Quebec the railway network was all-but wiped out. The line between the St Lawrence and Edmundston, which followed the old routz of the coureurs de bois was one that was obliterated.

To see more of Cabano, because there is plenty to see, you need to go here.

When I came by here the first time that I came to Canada, I saw a sign to a town called, rather enigmatically, St Louis du Ha! Ha! – complete with exclamation marks.

I didn’t have the time to go to check it out, but I took some time out today to go for a look, to make sure that I wasn’t imagining it. And here I am. It certainly exists, and that is confirmed by Canada Post.

Despite the rain, I go for a wander around the town and I’m immediately sidetracked by a load of fire engines.

It turns out that today is the the 39th Annual Tournament of the Fire Brigades of East Quebec, a series of competitions for who has the prettiest fire engine and so on, and I’ve stumbled right into the middle of it.

Whatever next? I’ll probably find a tractor pull or something.

From here, my journey takes me southwards into the hills – or the Appalachian Mountains to be precise – along the Route des Beaux Lieux.

And had it not been for the depressing weather, the lieux would have been exceedingly beaux. As it was, I wasn’t complaining at all. That’s the town of St Eusèbe up there on that crest, and it was every bit as beautiful as it looks from down here.

The Route des Beaux Lieux takes me to some beautiful places such as the town of Packingham just down there.

But you can see that this road has really earned its name. Even in the miserable weather that I was having today, it was all quite pretty around here. In the sunshine (if ever they have sunshine all around here) this must be a beautiful road to drive. I’ve made a mental note to come back here again and see for myself.

I cross over into New Brunswick and head for Lac Baker, which is going to be my lunch stop. Lac Baker is renowned for its municipal beach, which attract visitors from miles around, so they say.

Parked up outside the church, there’s a lovely view over the lake, although there would have been an even better one had the weather been decent enough. And it gives me an opportunity to try out my new vegan cheese, which is delicious. I’ll have some more of this.

The road from Lac baker takes me along the Saint John River to Edmundston and there on the outskirts of the town I finally find part of whatever it is of the New Brunswick rail network that survives.

This line is the main freight line that runs from Moncton up over the mountains to Edmundston and then along the Saint John River and over to Montreal. Much to my surprise, there’s actually a train moving around down there too.

Edmundston is famous for three reasons.

It has the third-largest French-speaking population outside France and Quebec
It has historically adopted a neutral position in all of the arguments that have raged around here – to such an extent that it set itself up at one time as the Republic of Madawaska
You can’t move around here without tripping over a paper mill

There are several paper mills here, one of which straddles the border with the USA and the liquid paper pulp passes over the river to the USA in a pressurised pipeline.

But look at the weather. It’s horrible and I’m not going for a walk around the town today. I’ll come back another time when the sun is shining.

Leaving Edmundston I caught up with my railway train. It’s pulled by three locomotives – two Canadian Nationals and a BC Rail – and there’s a power car in amongst the wagons, but I couldn’t see whose it was.

There’s a variety of rolling stock in there, including a wagon from the Illinois Central. Whatever is that doing in there?

Finally, the weather eases up and as it does so, the light disappears and I’m plunged into darkness. I suppose that you can’t have everything.

As I pull into Perth Andover, my arrival is celebrated by the local inhabitants with a fireworks display.

It’s Labour Day of course and the First Nation Community – Malicete, I think – here has been having a festival. The celebrations have concluded with this firework display and so, like everyone else here, I stop at the side of the road to find a good spec.

And so I arrive at my little piece of Canada. There are neighbours’ cars all over the placeand when the neighbour comes out onto the porch to see who it is who has arrived, I take the bull by the horns and go up to introduce myself.

This takes him completely by surprise.

And it’s pelting down again and we have thunder and lightning. What a way to arrive.

It’s just like my Demon King arrival in Milton Keynes.

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Saturday 3rd September 2011 – CHARLEVOIX

This is my spec from last night – the big Tourist Office on the slope down from Cap Tourmente into the Charlevoix. And it was just like home too with a huge hanging cloud hovering over me.

And while parking up at a place like this might be a good idea in theory, it falls down in reality because there is no coffee machine, and that is unthinkable. What kind of welcome is this for tourists?

By the time that I had driven down the hill, through the town of Baie St Paul and up the hill on the other side, the hanging cloud had gone.

There’s a big parking place just along there with a magnificent view of the bay, the interior and also the town, and anyone standing on this point for more than 30 seconds will immediately understand why it is that the Charlevoix is the most beautiful place in the world.

A beautiful drive along the coast brought me to the town of La Malbaie. I came past here on my first journey to Canada but I was in a little hurry and so never stopped. However, today I took the opportunity to stop and go for a wander around.

It’s a really nice town, quite pretty too, and its claim to fame is that it was here that I handed out my first business card to a potential client.

As the mid morning sun cleared away the fog in the river, the views became spectacular. especially across the St Lawrence River.

And there is the distance is the St Lawrence Ferry that crosses between St Simeon and Riviere du Loup. We sailed on that on my first trip here too, smashing through the ice on the way across. But this year, I have another ferry crossing planned.

And I don’t mean this ferry either.

We’ve been on this ferry quite a few times and we are going on it again. It’s the Saguenay Ferry that crosses the mouth of the Saguenay River on the north bank of the St Lawrence at Tadoussac. It’s a symbolic ferry in that the river formerly marked the unofficial dividing line between “civilisation” and the backwoods.

It’s symbolic for other reasons, because look what else I’ve found here.

This is called a T-Rex and it’s a car, believe it or not, made in Quebec. About 50 of these are produced every year and if I lived here in Canada I would be the first in the queue for one of these. And of course, it would have to be called “The White Swan”, for the most obvious of reasons.

And that’s not all of the excitement either. There was a mobile home and caravan on board the ferry and you will notice the number plates. It’s come all of the way from Munich in Germany.

I went over to interrogate the owners and it appears that they have crossed the Atlantic with a company called Seabridge, the vehicle being shipped by Atlantic Containers in a service that runs from Hamburg and a few other places over to Halifax and Montreal.

I shall have to look into this.

This rusting hulk that has come sailing into Les Escoumins is the boat that is taking me over to Trois Pistoles on the south bank of the St Lawrence.

It’s quite an interesting ferry. Tickets are sold in the petrol station in the town, check-in is done by a man who drives up in a car, uses the inside of his hatchback as a desk, and then drives off again afterwards

As for the ship – well, she’s seen better days, and that’s what makes this crossing really interesting. Anyway, I pick up my oar, I’m chained to my seat and off we go.

Just by way of a change, there were all kinds of exciting people on the ferry and I fell in with this American couple from Massachusetts.

Strawberry Moose won some new admirers of course, because he is such a gregarious moose, and the feeling was mutual.

We had a lengthy chat, during the course of which they mentioned that they just driven the Trans-Labrador Highway. They had done the trip in reverse, so they said, which made me think that they must have had a really good pair of rear-view mirrors, because there was no obvious crick in the guy’s neck.

As the sun goes down on the St Lawrence River, Strawberry Moose surveys the scene.

Trois Pistoles is getting closer and closer and night is drawing in, so I won’t have much chance of finding a home fortonight. What I’ll have to do is to drive over the mountains tonight to the other side of Quebec on the New Brunswick frontier and see what presents itself.

I’m full of optimism, so all is well.

This is just a short account of everything that happened today. I took tons of photos and wrote loads of notes, so if you want to see it all, you need to go to this page and follow the account from there.

Friday 2nd September 2011 – TROIS RIVIERES AND QUEBEC

here’s where I spent the night last night – in a lorry-weighing station about 15 miles south of Trois Rivieres. And had it not been for the workmen going past with strimmers at about 07:30, I would still be asleep there now. I was really comfortable here.

It was crowded with trucks when I arrived last night but apart from the gardeners, it was as deserted as the Mary Celeste.

On my brief passage by here on the motorway on my first journey here, I first saw this bridge – the Pont Laviolette – but couldn’t stop to take a photo.

When I was here in 2010 I tried my best to find a good view of the bridge to photograph it but with not much luck. But this year, on the north bank of the river on the edge of Trois Rivieres there’s a little park here and there’s a place here where there’s a lovely view of the bridge.

First appearances can often be deceptive, and in Trois Rivieres that is certainly the case.

When I came here first, I wasn’t all that impressed but I spent a good couple of hours wandering around the city and that changed my point of view completely. If you would like to go on my little misguided tour of the city, you need to follow this link and you can form your own opinions.

This building is quite worthy of note, because it represents an irony that has gone completely over the heads of everyone around here.

Not too far from here is a chapel and the priest here back in the mid 19th Century wanted to enlarge it. he bought a pile of stone to bring across here when the river was frozen but the river never froze. So when he decided to cancel his plans – and almost immediately, the river froze over.

This was classed as a miracle and the crowds began to flock here, and so they built a bigger church – the irony being totally lost upon them.

How about this for an impressive construction? It’s the Tracel de cap Rouge, a latticework viaduct built at the turn of the 20th Century to carry the railway line over the valley here.

The valley around here is also of interest, for it’s the site of the first French colony in North America, although the colony didn’t last all that long.

After my vicissitudes of last year, we finally made it up to the top of the Plains of Abraham on the outskirts of the city of Quebec.

The battlefield here is ringed with old cannons and field guns from various wars and Strawberry Moose took the opportunity for a photo call with a cannon that had been recovered from the river, presumably from a sunken ship.

It was not much longer after this that I had a couple of encounters with the farces of law and order. Consequently I decided to leave the city and head for the hills. But if you want to see the city of Quebec, you can follow this link.

These are just a few photos and a brief recap of my day’s travels. For a fuller account, and to see more photos, you need to follow this link.

Wednesday 31st August 2011 – HERE I AM…

… standing outside my hotel down on the end of the runway at Paris Charles de Gaulle, waiting for the shuttle bus to take me to the airport.

You can see how close we are to the airport here. Mind you – it’s a good 15 minutes on the bus as the terminal is on the other side of the runway.

The airport was as usual a thoroughly stressful experience and our plane was actually parked away from the airport on the concrete pan. We had to be bussed out there.

And it was like flying Transatlantic Ryanair with Ait Transat. We were crammed in like sardines and we were late taking off – there being a problem with a chemical toilet on board. In fact the most comfortable 5 minutes that I had on the ‘plane was when I had 5 minutes on the Elsan.

We flew over some areas that I recognised, including the Manic 5 dam, and you can see the Trans Labrador Highway quite clearly down below. It was good to be back in familiar territory.

We were again parked up miles from the terminal at Pierre Trudeau Airport and had to be bussed to the terminal. And much to my surprise, the passage through Immigration was painless – I was “interrogated” by a girl who looked as if she was about 12. Shows you how old I am, doesn’t it?

And look at my car! It’s a Dodge Grand Caravan that I’ve chosen especially for this journey, because the seats fold flat into the floor and that makes a nice big space to make up a bed.

I’m staying here for a while and I need to watch my budget, and hiring a vehicle like this is cheaper than staying in motels. I’ve rented a tiny storage unit too, so what I buy can be stored here for use on a subsequent occasion.

I found a Walmart where I found a camping stove and some food supplies. I couldn’t make IKEA though – stuck in road works and rush hour traffic, it was impossible to move. And so I made my way across town to my motel and I’ll go th IKEA tomorrow.

Sunday 28th August 2011 – It was Sunday today

And so following the principle of “on the seventh day”, I had a nice long lie-in and for most of the day I haven’t done a tap.

This morning I’ve managed to finish a book that I’ve been reading and then I went to track down some more stuff that I need to take with me to Canada. I want to have my packing finished by tomorrow afternoon.

This afternoon I transcribed the rest of my notes from Canada 2010. You might remember that the dictaphone that I had broke down in the USA. That one recorded on either 1.2 or 2.4 ips but I have an ancient one here that records on 1.8 ips and so I’ve managed to transcribe the notes from that, even though I do sound rather like Donald Duck on it.

I’ve recorded a few more CDs to take with me – some Help Yourself, some Lindisfarne and finally (because I won’t be doing any more) Live in the City of Light by Simple Minds.

None of these were difficult choices. Help Yourself I first encountered on Man’s “All Good Clean Fun” Tour and Help Yourself’s subsequent classic
Good Clean Fun has passed our way and gone
But we’re glad that we have met someone
With a little bit of funk and soul
Man we’re glad we know you!
And not only that, if you are fed up of lead guitar solos where the guitarist plays a million notes so quickly that you can’t hear what he’s playing, then have a listen to the lead guitar solo on “Reaffirmation”. THAT‘s how you play a guitar solo.

Lindisfarne were of course the first serious group I ever saw live, Christmas 1971 at “Up the Junction” in Crewe. I was 17, my girlfriend at the time was nearly 15 and as it was a private members’ club, we borrowed the membership cards of my sister and her husband to get in. That was the night that the rest of the band left Jacka on the stage to play the harmonica solo in “We Can Swing Together” while they dashed off to the pub across the road. At 10:30 the club locked its doors as it was required to do by law, and when the band came back 2 minutes later they couldn’t get back in. They had to bang on the door for 15 minutes before someone would let them back in and poor Jacka was exhausted – the longest gobiron solo in the history of the planet.

As for Live in the City of Light, I had to go to Germany for a week and my car was in the garage so I was obliged to borrow one of a colleague. I didn’t have half my stuff with me, and the only music in the car was “Live in the City of Light”. If it had been most albums, it would have bored me to tears after a day, but not that. In fact it’s never been off my playlist ever since.

So that’s about 50 albums recorded. No matter what happens, I’m not going to be short of music in Canada.

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Monday 22nd August 2011 – It was 09:30 …

… this morning when I was burned out of bed by the heat. It’s quite astonishing just now, all of this. It was only a week or so ago that I was complaining about the cold weather.

Anyway, I’ve finished the web pages for the Nova Scotia Museum of Industry and they are on line. And well-worth a read too because I managed to blag my way in to see the world’s most controversial railway engine. But that’s all the web site stuff that I’m doing now until I go back next week – is it really only a week away?

The web pages took me nicely to lunch and I actually managed to find a decent tomato in the megacloche. How nice that was as well. Afterwards I was back up the ladder again. It’s now right into the apex of the roof – I can see over the roof line – and sfter today’s exertions there’s not all that much more to do up there. I’m out tomorrow afternoon so I’ll finish it off on Wednesday.

A short while after working in the garden I went for my solar shower. And a max temperature of an astonishing 60.5°:C was recorded. But don’t get carried away by that – I forgot to fill it yesterday and so the temperature sender was reading the air temperature. 41°C was much more like it.

Tonmorrow I have to go to the mairie at Pionsat for some stuff for Radio Anglais. And then, I have to pick up another oil tank. This will be the “before” for the used cooking oil. I’ll also make up the leads for the batteries over in Canada.

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Friday 19th August 2011 – What I would be doing this evening …

… is to post a photo of where I finished on Thursday with the pointing, and I did go out this morning to take a photo. However, despite a thorough search, I can’t remember where I put the camera afterwards. It’s defnitely getting to me, all of this.

So after working on the web site this morning I went out and did some more searching for stuff that I need for Canada. And I’m badgered if I can find my box of battery terminals. I’ve about 50 somewhere but your guess is as good as mine.

What I’m intending to do is to buy a caravan battery over there, but to have two terminals with me, with a solar charge controller, a multi-cigarette-lighter socket, a couple of 12-volt sockets and a 12/120 volt inverter wired up to it so that all I need to do is to slip them onto the battery and wire the solar panel to the charge controller. Then I’ll be all set up for my voyage. But where are these blasted terminals?

This afternoon, down to the bank to transfer some money, warn them about my visit to Canada (I don’t want to have another cash card swallowed up by “unusual spending patterns”) and to obtain a certificate of no claims for my insurance over there in case I decide to buy a car. I also went to the Mairie at Pionsat to get some info for the radio programmes.

I still had time afterwards to go up the wall, and I’ve extended the ladder almost right up the the apex – that’s about 9 metres and of course I’m 2 or so metres off the ground before I start, being on the roof of the lean-to. It’s decidedly shaky and being up there with no hands on the ladder while I chisel out the decaying mortar between the stones – I’m just not looking down.

The good side of today though was that the solar water reached 40.5°C and I had a gorgeous shower. What a way to start the weekend? I might even to to the swimming baths tomorrow.

For a little entertainment this evening, I watched the John Wayne film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It’s said to be one of his classics but it’s not a patch on El Dorado or Rio Bravo, his two best films by a country mile if you ask me.

What is interesting though is that She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is set in Monument Valley in the Utah-Arizona desert and it brought back all kinds of happy memories as keen long-term followers of this rubbish will recall that I visited there in 2002 when I was first off work ill, and I’ve never ever forgotten that journey. Yes, this evening I saw all kinds of sights that I had seen in the flesh, as it were. I’m definitely getting to be all broody about North America, aren’t I?

What is even more interesting is that they had the Cavalry marching out of the camp to the tune of “Garry Owen”, but that was in 1950 and they wouldn’t ever dare do that now. “Garry Owen” was the marching song of the 7th Cavalry, the late and unlamented General Custer’s regiment and ought to really have died with him at Little Big Horn because it played rather a sinister role in the American Ethnic Cleansing of Native Americans.

Back in 1869, Custer and his cavalry were on the trail of a small band of marauding Cheyenne raiders but losing the way in a blizzard they stumbled upon the camp of Black Kettle, a peaceful Cheyenne chief whose camp on the Washita River, well within the confines of the concentr … errr … Reservation. Setting his band up on a bluff overlooking the camp, Custer had them play “Garry Owen” while he and his soldiers raided the village, massacring every man, woman and child they could find, inculding a white woman and child who Black Kettle had liberated from a raiding party a short while earlier.

The atrocities that were committed on the dead and dying by the 7th Cavalry, described in all their gory – “that’s not a spelling mistake” …ed – by Custer in his book My Life on the Plains and also by many other soldiers at the battle and they make horrific reading.

Of course, this film was made 20 years before the release of Soldier Blue – the first film to blow the lid off the myth of the “heroic” US Cavalry and reveal them as the butchers and sadists that they really were. Soldier Blue concerned the earlier dreadful and notorious massacre of peaceful and innocent native Americans at Sand Creek – the event that brought home to the native Americans that whether they surrendered or whether they resisted, they were still going to be massacred (as indeed they were) and so they stood and fought.

Such was the horror of what happened at Sand Creek that an American Investigating Committee said of Colonel Chivington and his soldiers that
“(we) can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the verist savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their in-apprehension and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man. Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities”.

Of course, by the time that the Washita came around, some 5 years later, nothing at all of any criticism was levelled. “Manifest Destiny” was now official Government Policy and extermination of the native Americans was all part of the plan.

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Thursday 18th August 2011 – I thought that I would …

… post a photo of where I finished on Wednesday afternoon so you can see how I’m doing. It is quite high isn’t it?

And this afternoon I’ve gone another metre or so higher. In fact I’m at the stage where I need to stand on a ladder so that I can reach the top half of the ladder to push it higher, unless I can rig up some kind of rope to do that for me. I reckon another week or so with no interruptions and I will have finished this right-hand side of this wall and I can think about mounting the wind turbine.

That will be exciting – especially as we have had wind gusting to 25mph today (and I’m up there on top of that ladder without using any hands as well).

Apart from that, when I knocked off (at 19:10 – I was engrossed) the water in the solar shower was at 38.5°C and so I had a solar shower. And that’s the sum total of my day, apart from working on the web site of course.

But last night I had a kind-of disturbing dream. I dreamt that I was the owner of a large black dog (and I don’t like dogs at all) and I had left it in my car for a whole day while I was in work. The dog hadn’t died in the heat, and it hadn’t fouled the car either and so I took it for a long walk through the outskirts of a town, chatting to a couple of young women, and then I went down along a river where the riverside path became narrower and narrower until I could barely keep my balance as I walked along it.

What was that all about?

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality