Canada Part 2

On leaving the province of Quebec, headed back out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then down to Nova Scotia for two stops in that province in the Maritimes.

Sydney

Sydney is described in Wikipedia as a former city and urban community on the east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. This came as a surprise to me as we had just visited. While it was quiet last Sunday it would be an unkindness to say it no longer existed.

Reading on it transpired that the city of Sydney had been dissolved on 1 August 1995, when it was amalgamated into the regional municipality. The city (up to 1995) has a long history and was a major industrial centre of coal and steel and also a major jumping-off point for Atlantic convoys in both world wars. The coal and steel industries are now gone and what is left is a picturesque harbour town relying on call centres and tourism.

The long history also includes many ethnic groups each with their tales of calamity and persecution. Starting with the Mi'kmaq first nations of the area through French, Scottish, Irish and English settlers who each thought the cool summers and stormy winters were an improvement on their previous lot. Today immigration continues with many from the subcontinent finding their way here (dominating the taxi industry) and more recently Eastern Europeans including refugees from the war in Ukraine.

Anyway, we arrived in the world's second-best Sydney Harbour on a Sunday and the town was closed except for those establishments keen to benefit from 2000 tourists for the day.

For this port, we opted for a short walking tour of the town visiting a cider maker and two pubs. Piney was in his element.

Island People Cider
Our first stop was where we received a history lesson involving some Scottish Gaelic words of introduction before trying 3 local ciders:-
Good Company (the original blend)
Lemon Squeezie
Rebel Rose (pink and a bit floral)

Daniels Alehouse
From here we moved onto a more Scottish-themed drinking establishment where Piney was once again in his element perusing the many beers on tap. Kathy selected a draught cider which we had just tested at the manufacturers and I had a Tangerine, Mango Wheat Beer.

We were regaled (tortured) with a live rendition of some local folk ballads which did not improve the beer in my opinion.

On then to an Irish-themed pub.

The Old Triangle Irish Alehouse
Here tasking glasses were set up with four types of beer, a pale ale, a stout (Serial Killer) a locally brewed IPA and a larger (Dirty Blonde)

Inexplicably two ladies on the table next to us did not drink beer and we already had four sets of drinks for the three people on our table so Piney was in heaven. Kathy liked the Serail Killer while I preferred the Dirty Blond. We finished up by sharing a lobster roll and fries (the blackboard special at 23 Canadian dollars. The third person at our table at the pub was the bridge instructor from the ship who seemed to loosen up and enjoy himself as the beer lake was consumed.

We emerged from the pub to get a taxi ordered for us only to see the Ship's Captain almost burst from the pub, say hello on his way past and stride down the road and around the corner back towards the ship. Once he had disappeared around the corner four other crew members stumbled out of the door, looked around and asked if we had seen the Captain as they were supposed to be looking after him. We pointed them in the right direction and jumped into our cab to the Mayfair Shopping Mall.

After some shopping which included snacks and chocolate (expensive and poor selection on the ship) and a Canda Themened shopping bag we hailed another taxi and headed back to the ship for sailaway and drinks.

Halifax

We then continued south to Halifax, which is a city of around 400,000 people and a major centre of government and industry in the area. Having the world's second-largest year-round natural harbour (no award for guessing the world champion harbour) there is a lot of Navel and other military activity and infrastructure. There seemed to be a lot of interesting places to visit along the waterfront and in the town but for this port, we headed out in a small bus to cross the Island to the Annapolis Valley to visit a winery and view something of the super high tides in the area. If you google the Bay of Fundy you will get exact figures of how much the tide swings and the reasons for the big difference. As it turned out we did not get close enough to view the tides in real-time except at the first lookout where we stopped and our guide mentioned to look for some different coloured areas near the shore which would be exposed at low tide. Pretty much as we watched the areas continued to change colour becoming less sea and more mud flats over the 15 minutes we parked at the lookout. From a number of the vantage points, we could see flattened grass and areas which are flooded at high tide and later in the afternoon more and more mud flats were exposed as the tide retreated.

The Annapolis Valley itself is a little more sheltered from the sea storms and has a microclimate which makes it the food-producing area of Nova Scotia. In recent years there has been some success in producing wine using blends of traditional wine grapes and some hybrid varieties more suited to the cold climate. Our mission was to test these new wines.

We stopped for wine tasting and lunch at Luckett Vineyards

It has all the tasting rooms, shops and restaurants with views associated with a modern vineyard in the Hunter Valley or Margaret River. Created by a man well-known in the area for marketing and self-promotion the wines were good and the experience was enjoyed by the whole group. A feature of the marketing is a UK red telephone box set up in the Vinyard and connected so that it can be used to phone anywhere in North America. One of our group tried to call a US number but had to leave a message. They then answered a call which came in as we were standing in the vineyard.

After Lunch, we headed to Wolfville. A town of around 5,000 people it is home to a small university and the centre of the wine and food growing area. The shops and buildings were tourist cute but there was not a lot to see. Once again we visited a Tim Hortons in an attempt to understand Canadians. Apart from the Cheese shop, there was also an interesting Comic Book shop which ticked all of the boxes for an episode of a show on compulsive hoarding with comics, books, records, CDs and action figures stacked floor to ceiling and almost blocking most doorways. I have not included the photo of the Fire Department which seemed to be of interest to some of the single ladies in the tour group.

This tour was customised a bit and took the driver to places he would not normally go in search of lookouts to see the tides. At one stage we drove down a country road only to discover we had left the beaten path and it was not certain that the natives were friendly.

We turned around and found civilisation again.

Our last stop before looking once again at the tides and heading back to the ship was at The Tangled Garden a fairyland-style herb garden where they make and sell all sorts of products made from the herbs and plants they grow. We tried some liquors and syrups suitable for mixing with Gin or pouring on Icecream and some jams and chutneys for adding flavours to almost anything.

Our five ports in Eastern Canada had some things in common including Tim Hortons coffee shops and an immigrant tradition. In other ways, they were different from what we had previously experienced in Vancouver and even from each other in landscape, culture and even language. We did greatly enjoy our time in Canada and now head off to the east coast of the US and New York City.