New Brunswick

July 28, weather continues to be really hot and mostly sunny

Pulled out of the Camping Guilmette campsite in the morning and headed Northeast along the St. Lawrence on the Trans Canada highway. Our destination was Pokemouche, NB and quite a distance to travel. The route started as a twinned highway and became two-way before NB. We are quite spoiled in Alberta with our highways, even though they aren't all great. We've been astonished how horrible parts of the Trans Canada highway are. I often think, gee, tourists from other countries must be astonished how bad it is also....but I digress.
We crossed into NB and had picked our route based on Google Maps. Seems it has never traveled these roads. The highway between St. Leonard and Bathurst was narrow, windy and ROUGH! It's a very good thing we had an early start that morning because you wouldn't want to get caught short on it. Before and then after the town of St. Quentin there is no cell service. The shoulders are almost nonexistent also. You really get that out in the wilderness feeling along that road. Not much traffic, for obvious reasons, aside from the occasional logging truck barreling towards you.
We fuelled up in Bathurst and, gah, used the Nav to get to our campsite. It took and hour to go 56kms on the little windy road it took us on, again...sigh.
Camping Pokemouche is situated on the Pokemouche River. The whole Acadian Peninsula is really marshy with lots of rivers and low lying wetlands. It's really interesting as the saltwater and freshwater marshes attract all sorts of birds and wildlife.
We set up camp. Another campground with not a lot of trees but a nice amount of room between campsites.
We spent the next few days exploring the area, driving up to the tip of Acadia on Miscou Island and also visiting the Acadian Heritage Museum.
The Museum is similar to the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Centre in Alberta where many old historic homes and buildings were brought to an area and recreate what it was like to live in those days. Every building had people dressed in period clothing and were in character. I really wish my French was better.. Even though all the people working at the museum were bilingual it was clear French was preferred. I got the feeling the Acadians were still pretty pissed at the English (for good reason). 🥺
We visited Caraquet, the Capital of Acadia, which is a lovely town. There were good shops including a really good poissonerie that happened to have an ice cream shop and a little restaurant attached. We enjoyed all three.
The weather continued to be very hot with high humidity. We are very glad our trailer has a/c!
August 2
Our next destination was Shediac, NB. It was coming up to the August long weekend and we were fortunate to find a campground with vacancy. Ocean Surf Campground is the largest campground we've ever seen. Packed in like sardines in the older part that is mostly seasonal residents. We had one night in the non-serviced sites, which actually was really nice, and two nights over in with the seasonal. A bit tight but with all services. It was closer to the entrance so an easy walk to Parlee Beach Provincial Park, a really nice beach.
Shediac is a tourist destination in the summer and extremely busy. The town has many festivals and goings on and is close to many recreational areas. The people were still mostly bilingual but we didn't get the same feeling there as on the Acadian Peninsula.
We visited the Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park while in the area. Very interesting how the tides in the Bay of Fundy wear away the banks. It was really busy the day we were there and one of the workers told me they were expecting record numbers on the holiday Monday.
Stopped in at the Shellac Legion for a cold one and returned to watch the football game later that evening. What a difference from afternoon to evening there. Went from regular Legion sort of gathering to a rocking' pool bar. We didn't stay past the first half.
There are many lovely places to see in this province.We will visit New Brunswick again on our way home. 😊

The start of the Appalachian mountains in Quebec

A large church, et al

Farmland along the St. Lawrence

Pretty farmland

We found this sign humorous....

The "highway" between St. Leonard and Bathurst 😲

Wilderness in the middle of New Brunswick 

Our campsite in Pokemouche (John had just washed the truck and trailer, he's a worker)!

A really big storm rolled in.

Gorgeous sunset across the Pokemouche river. Pokemouche is Mi'kmaq for bird sanctuary.

Marsh-a, marsh-a, marsh-a

Some dry docked fishing boats in Caraquet, NB

An original Acadian house at the Acadian Historical Village

A clay oven 

Dried, salted cod

Where the cod was smoked 

An Acadian fisherman making net

How they pressed the fish into barrels for shipping

An Acadian woman with a fancy new stove

The root cellar. Many early settlers across Canada had these.

A barn

A loom. There were Acadian women cleaning wool in this house. What a huge amount of work from start to finish!

Every house had this "teepee" of sticks drying for kindling

The women in this house were making these lovely straw hats

Part of the flour mill

The buildings near the lighthouse on Miscou Island, NB

The Miscou Island Lighthouse 

People clamming while the tide is out near Caraquet

A large fleet of dry docked fishing boats near the fish processing plant in Caraquet, NB

The wonderful bog walk

Looking out over the endless bog

Pitcher plant flowers

Pitcher plants

A Yellow Pond Lil

Bog orchids

We saw Fireweed all across Canada

A bog pond

The lovely boardwalk over the bog

So many herons in the marshes!

Where are we?

We crossed several of these high bridges on our trip

Up the bridge

Sand dunes on Miscou Island

Peat being taken from the land in New Brunswick. It takes about 100 years to make 5cm of peat.

The giant lobster in Shediac, NB

A little lighthouse at Parlee Beach Provincial Park, NB

Parlee Beach, the flag at half mast because the Lieutenant Governor of NB had just died.

Parlee Beach PP

One of the hiking trails at the park

Mud flats at the Bay of Fundy

Some interesting fungus

The rock formations called "Flower Pots"

Slowly being eroded by the tides