8/30 - Quebec Day Trip

Yesterday we spent the day driving over to and up and down the lower St Lawrence River valley in Quebec.  Being the northern end of the Appalachians it is beautiful land, of course, but the addition of the river is really something.  The river is amazing……absolutely HUGE!  We drove over and back on the Transcanada Highway which is a lot like an interstate in places but just two lanes in others.  The highest speed limit is 100 km (62 mph) which seems very low considering the road.  Not many people were paying attention to it anyway.

View of Lake Temiscouata from the Transcanada Highway.

Transcanada Hwy and Lake Temiscouata, not far from New Brunswick border.

Warning signs for moose everywhere, even one with flashing yellow lights warning of increased risk of moose for the next 10 km.  I couldn’t grab the camera fast enough to get a picture of it.  We’ve seen moose warning signs everywhere we’ve been up north but have yet to see a moose.  I suppose that’s a good thing since they can do very serious damage to a vehicle (not to mention what the vehicle does to the moose).  Someone we met up here who had been a policeman for 14 years said he had worked numerous moose-caused accidents and they’re all very serious.  He said we’d probably be okay if we hit one with the dually because of the height.  A moose’s legs are very long so when a car hits it the moose flips up over the hood and through the windshield.  Everyone loses.

I didn’t get good clear pictures of the Saint Lawrence, both because of the haze and because the river is so wide.  

Huge boulders left by receding glaciers.  This is at almost low tide.  The rocky island in the background is bare granite which looked so white as we were coming down the hill towards the river it actually looked like snow.  Gave Jim quite a scare. :D

This gives a better idea of how wide the river is and the width of the area affected by the tides.  When we stopped here on our way back a few hours later the water was almost covering the grassy area in front of these bushes.

Taken from almost the same spot as the picture above this after the tide had been coming in several hours later.  This is about at the point the St. Lawrence starts looking more like the ocean than a river.

On the scenic highway near Kamouraska.  There are low mountains just to the east with wide, flat farmland stretching to the river, maybe a couple of miles across.  The glaciers have left odd little hills or mountains along the way, some looking like large haystacks.  

Going into Kamouraska which is perched on a ridge between the farmland and the river.  It’s a popular vacation spot with lots of lovely little shops and hotels, much more picturesque than the other little towns we drove through.  

One of the interesting buildings in Kamouraska.  Every building on the left side of the road is river-front property with a wonderful view.  

Lots of interesting roofs here.  Don’t know if it’s just a French style or if it has something to do with helping snow slide off. 

One of the things we have been so impressed with, both in Canada and in northern Maine, is how neat and clean everything is.  There is NO trash on any roadsides…..not a single piece of paper…..and 99% of the houses and properties are very well cared for.  We can’t get over how the yards look in the Madawaska area where we’ve been driving to and from the campground every day…….especially the acres of manicured lawns.  Everyone’s lawn looks like it’s just been cut and we never see anyone out on a lawnmower. 

We were going to check some of the cemeteries in the little towns along the river hoping to find some of my ancestors.  On the way to Kamouraska we passed something intriguing so went back to check it out.  It turned out to be a small park and chapel commemorating the first site of civic and religious life in Kamouraska and the Bas (lower) Saint-Lawrence area.  A monument lists 220 last names of the known 1425 graves whose markers disappeared long ago.  There were several individual monuments to pioneers erected by descendants including ones for my 6^th and 7^th great-grandparents.  I didn’t know about this historic site so we were very fortunate to stumble over it.  

Berceau de (Cradle of) Kamouraska marking the site of at least 1425 graves of the early pioneers.

Jean-Baptiste Dionne and Madeleine Michaud  - 6^th great-grandparents.

Jean-Baptiste Labourliere dit Laplante and Catherine Francoise Martin – 7^th great-grandparents.  His name is a mouthful.

We then went to the cemetery in Riviere-Ouelle and found a group of monuments to the pioneers of that area.  All the graves in the time period I was looking for are so old their markers are gone, but there are new monuments for some which have been put up by descendants.

Jeanne Savonnet was one of my 8^th great-grandmothers. She was widowed and remarried twice.  Two of her husbands were my 8^th great-grandfathers (Soucy and Bérubé).  

Mathurin Dubé and Marie Campion - 8^th great-grandparents.

Robert Levesque and Jeanne Chevalier – 7^th great-grandparents.

This has all been quite an experience, finding ancestors who were on this continent back to at least the mid 1600’s.  Until I got into genealogy I had no idea how far back this went.  From the genealogy work done by a distant relative, my father knew the first LaTendresse arrived from France in 1757 but he had no idea about the 100+ years before that.  I wish he could have seen all this.

Today we went to the library in Madawaska where I was successful in gathering more information, especially from the very helpful head librarian.  I had read many of his posts on the Acadian Heritage Facebook site but had no idea he was the librarian here.  That was another serendipitous meeting.  

8/26 to 8/29 -St. Agatha, Maine

Wednesday’s 260 mile drive from Bar Harbor to St Agatha was another stressful one.  It was beautiful the whole way, but after we got off I-95 (which was great - very smooth with no traffic) the road got rough and curvy.  It was another “let’s make the cats sick” drive like the one in Minnesota.  Even Lovie got sick except she kindly waited until we got her out of the truck.  Then, to add icing to the cake, we set up in a cloudburst and got thoroughly drenched.  We’ve been incredibly lucky in not getting wet in all our many set-ups and break-downs so I guess we were due. 

Taken from the Mount Katahdin overlook on I-95.  This mountain is where the Appalachian Trail ends or starts, depending on which way you’re going.  Unfortunately it was totally hidden by clouds, but it was still a beautiful view.  I’ve seen pictures of it and it’s not that impressive coming from the Great Smokies.

We’re now in the middle of our week in St Agatha.  It’s a tiny place about 12 miles from the town of Madawaska and the border crossing into Edmunston, NB.  This is part of the Upper St John Valley, created by the St John River which is the border between Maine and New Brunswick down to Hamlin, ME, where the border drops south in a straight line for a while before continuing higgledy piggledy to the coast.  This whole area is gorgeous.  It’s part of the northern Appalachians, a lot like home except the mountains are lower.  St Agatha is sort of on the edge of the mountains as the terrain becomes more hilly than mountainous here.  The campground overlooks Long Lake which reminds us of the lakes in western NC and SC but without red clay mud and fluctuating water levels.  The black soil up here can make almost as big a mess (as attested to by the condition of the truck and RV after Wednesday’s rainy drive) but somehow it doesn’t have the same effect as red clay.

The area is very lightly populated so there’s no traffic and no feeling of being overrun by people as we’ve had in many of the places we’ve been.  It’s a predominantly French-speaking area but so far we haven’t run into anyone who couldn’t speak English. 

These were all taken Thursday evening from our campground.  It was impossible to choose just one.  The view is of Long Lake.

Moonrise over Long Lake.

We spent Thursday going over to St-Basile which was the little town many of my ancestors lived in.  It’s now part of Edmunston which is a town of about 16,000 people.  I don’t know if cities do annexations in NB, but it’s probably much like Asheville taking over Arden and Skyland……we still call them by their original names but they’re really part of Asheville now.  They have a very good library with a lot of local history where I gathered a lot of information.  The only problem is that it’s all in French.  My ability to read French is extremely limited, especially without a dictionary handy, but I was able to get the gist of things.  The library we visited today (Saturday) in Madawaska has much more information in English so I’ll be going back there for as much time as possible.

The object of going to St-Basile, apart from just seeing what it looks like, was to visit the cemetery and the library.  The cemetery is well-organized but we couldn’t find the 100+ year-old graves we were looking for.  I suspect the markers for the missing ones have disintegrated to the point of being unreadable or maybe even disappearing.  The very oldest graves have been put in a row marked with new crosses with name plaques attached.  I’m sure they weren’t originally lined up like granny’s onions so must have been moved.  They were undoubtedly falling apart with the names no longer legible.  It’s unfortunate all the oldest ones couldn’t have been marked in the same way.  We went over to the church office across the road but no one was there.  If we go by again and see a car there we’ll stop to see if their cemetery records are available.

The St-Basile cemetery.  Berceau du Madawaska = Cradle of Madawaska.

Chapel of the Pioneers 1786 – at the bottom of the slope between the cemetery and the St John River.

Plaque on the side of the chapel.  In Honor of the Pioneers of Madawaska.  First families arrived in 1785.  The Cyrs listed were five of nine brothers.  I am a direct descendent of Jacques Cyr, Firmin Cyr, Alexandre Ayotte, and Michel Mercure.  Five are not direct ancestors but brothers and a brother-in-law of the four.  

The Alexis Cyr House, dating to the early 1800’s.  Moved to this location in 1981 and restored by the Historical Society.  Alexis Cyr was my 4^th great-grandfather.  Imagine going through a lifetime of winters of 20 to 30 degrees below zero in a house like this.  Actually, this could have been better insulated than today’s mobile homes.

Plaque explaining the significance of the Alexis Cyr House.

Madawaska….on both sides of the St John River….is very important to Acadian history.  Its history in a nutshell:  France brought settlers to Acadia starting in the early 1600’s.  France and England were constantly going to war with each other in Europe so Acadia was pulled back and forth depending on which country had won the latest round. By 1710 England had lasting possession of Acadia and changed its name to Nova Scotia. From then on the French settlers were in deep trouble. Britain wanted get rid of them and finally, in 1755, figured out a way to do it. They herded the people of the Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, area onto ships and spread them down the Atlantic seaboard (to colonies that didn’t want them) and Haiti and across to English prisons and destitution in France.  They had done nothing wrong, had agreed to sign the demanded oaths of allegiance to England, but England wanted their farms for the English and to be rid of “the French problem”.  The deportation, called “le Grand Derangement” or the Great Exile, resulted in 10,000 to 12,000 Acadian deaths and the deliberate and, in many cases permanent, separation of all the families.  In the 20^th century this genocide was finally acknowledged and apologized for by the British government. The Acadians who finally ended up in Louisiana are today’s Cajuns, a contraction of the name “Acadian”.  (All Cajuns are descendants of the French but not all are Acadian descendants.)

Not all Acadians were caught and exiled but they all lost their lands and possessions in Acadia.  Some went to the eastern area of Quebec, others escaped the English by going to French-controlled areas which are now in New Brunswick.  The ones who settled in New Brunswick got hammered by the British yet again after the American Revolution when land was wanted for the Loyalists who left the U.S.  Instead of finding unoccupied places for the Loyalists, many were given the farms the Acadians had been working years to develop.  Once again the Acadians were thrown out with no place to go.  They petitioned the government to grant them land in Madawaska, 140 miles up the St John River.  Permission was finally granted and the group listed on the plaque set off immediately.  One of the Acadian leaders who was instrumental in the drive to secure a new settlement was the father of the five Cyr brothers on the plaque (and four other sons who went soon after).  Jean Baptiste Cyr died in 1785 before he could get to Madawaska but at least he knew his family would get there.  He was born the year England took over Acadia (1710) and had spent his entire life trying to live under the rule of a government that wanted him and his people gone.  He was a grandson of the first Cyr who came to Acadia sometime prior to the 1671 census so his family had been there for over 80 years before the Exile.

Even in Madawaska the Acadians were not without trouble from the English.  They were promised title to their land in three years but it took five.  Some of them were so suspicious of English government they were afraid they’d lose all their hard work yet again and left before they got their land titles.  Then there was the 56 year border dispute between Maine and New Brunswick which was finally settled in 1842 by the placement of the international border right down the St John River, effectively dividing one people and culture between two countries.  I gather from talking to locals that the international border didn’t bother anyone until the recent requirement of having a passport to cross the river.  People would still cross the river in boats just like they always had.  Now it’s a lot more of a nuisance. 

Yesterday (Friday) we went down to Van Buren about 35 miles south of St Agatha.  We were looking for the grave stones of some of my relatives.  While we were searching, the church sexton drove up and offered his help with their records.  That was a stroke of good luck as it saved us from going through the whole cemetery.  He said the people we were looking for were buried around the time a nearby local cemetery was dug up and the bodies moved to this one with no records of who was moved.  It’s a small parish which can’t afford to computerize its records so all they’ve got are 3x5 cards filed under the name of the person who purchased the plot.  If the plot was bought by someone with a different last name it would be very hard to find.  The sexton was an interesting person….he was with the U.S. Border Patrol in Texas for a year before deciding that was no place for his family.  Can’t imagine someone from northern Maine being able to tolerate the south Texas climate. 

Van Buren has an historical Acadian village which is made up of original buildings from the area.  They were all dismantled, moved and reconstructed on the site.  They are all full of very interesting information about the people and culture.

In the Acadian Village with the statue of Evangeline.  The heroine of Longfellow’s poem, she’s the symbol of the Acadians.  This is one of only three statues of Evangeline, all modeled on the actress Dolores Del Rio who played the part of Evangeline in the movie decades ago.  The other statues are in St. Martinsville, Louisiana, which we saw last October, and in Grand-Pre, Nova Scotia, where the Exile took place.  Longfellow's poem is fiction but it represents the Acadian exile.

Some of the reconstructed and renovated buildings, all good examples of original Acadian structures.  Steeply pitched roofs help snow slide off.

Today (Saturday) we went 12 miles north to Fort Kent which is a small town but big enough to have its own branch of the University of Maine.  The one site of historical significance is the Block House which was built as a fort to defend the area in the Aroostook War, the “bloodless war” over the border dispute in which no shots were ever fired.  (Aroostook is the name of the county we’re in.  The rest of Maine just calls it “The County.”  It’s the biggest county east of the Mississippi.)  The border dispute lasted for 56 years and became very complicated.  Maine claimed land many miles up into New Brunswick.  Britain claimed land about a third of the way down Maine.  Caught in the middle once again were the Acadians who ended up with their communities split by the border which was finally agreed upon after years of negotiation and mediation by people as diverse as an Indian chief and a European monarch (whose decision was accepted by Britain but rejected by the U.S.).

The Block House in Fort Kent.  If there had been a firefight the occupants would have smoked themselves out or died of smoke inhalation.

Main Street in Fort Kent with the Acadian flag on every third light pole.

8/25 - Acadia National Park, day two

Not much to report today.  We’re so glad we went back up on Cadillac Mountain yesterday afternoon because the clouds settled back down to the ground again today.  We wouldn’t have had a hope of any view if we’d waited.

We went back into the park to see some of the things we’d missed earlier…….the Nature Center, the Wild Gardens of Acadia and the Abbe Museum.  The Nature Center is small but good.  The Wild Gardens are managed by volunteers who do a wonderful job with of maintaining it with native species.  Much of it looked like what we find in our home mountains.  I was amazed to find a bed of hay-scented ferns which spread like wildfire at home.  They either don’t spread that way up here or the gardeners manage to keep them corralled.

Acadia’s Nature Center.  

The icy cold pond which flows out of the Sieur de Monts spring at the Nature Center.  It doesn’t have ice floating in it but it sure looks like it.

The Sieur de Monts spring house, built for George Dorr’s estate in the early 1900’s.  Water is piped from the spring down to the pond.

The effort to create a protected preserve on Mount Desert Island, beginning in 1909, was started and maintained by George Dorr, a wealthy Bostonian conservationist.  He spent his life and his personal wealth in this effort.  Sieur de Monts was one of his properties, part of what he donated to the federal government for the establishment of the park.  It was originally Sieur de Monts National Monument, then Lafayette National Park, then finally renamed Acadia National Park.  It was the first national park in the east and is now over 47,000 acres.  It is sad that Dorr died almost blind and in poverty, living in the caretaker’s cottage of the property that had been his family’s in Bar Harbor.  Dorr and his conservation-minded colleagues were responsible for the preservation of the land which makes up this beautiful park.  Without their efforts it would be covered up by homes and businesses, just like the Bar Harbor area, with no access for those who don’t own land here. 

We lucked into a parking spot at Sand Beach so we were able to get a look at the beach area.  It’s what’s known as a pocket beach which is very rare.  The sand covers a layer of granite cobbles and it can all be washed out to sea in a hurricane or nor’wester.  The clouds were on the ground and misting heavily so we decided not to hang around.  It seems as if our rain jackets are always where we’re not…..in the truck if we’re in the RV, in the RV if we’re in the truck.  We aren’t big on walking in sand under the best of conditions and wet sand is definitely not our thing. 

On the way back to the campground we missed a turn and ended up having to go through Bar Harbor again.  It wasn’t much better than the last time……packed with cars, some of which were parked half way across the lane.  Bet the locals hate the traffic.  Tourists are necessary for the economy but they sure are a nuisance. 

Tomorrow we’re heading up to St Agatha at the northernmost tip of Maine.  From there we’re going to explore the northern end of Aroostook County (Maine), the Edmundston, NB, area and a little bit of Quebec.  The reason for going so far north is that my Acadian grandmother was born in 1873 in St-Basile which has since been absorbed by Edmundston. She was born before the US/Canada border was confirmed so things were rather mixed up, but St-Basile was definitely in New Brunswick rather than Maine because it was on the Canadian side of the St. John River.  Acadia covers Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.  The French there speak a different dialect from the one spoken in Quebec, a dialect more similar to where they came from in France in the 1600’s.  

8/24 - Acadia National Park

Today started out foggy with very poor visibility.  We headed off around the western section of Mount Desert Island and the park and before long we could at least see a mile or so ahead.  The road took us first through Southwest Harbor which is a nice little town…..narrow streets and touristy businesses but not nearly as crowded as Bar Harbor.

Main Street, Southwest Harbor

The wild Rosa rugosa which is everywhere up here and grows very large.  We’ve seen wild roses in other places but nothing as big as these.  The rose hips are huge.  Haven’t seen any damage on the fruit so birds must not like them.  The hips are edible and full of vitamin C.  They aren’t ripe yet so maybe that’s why we haven’t seen anyone picking them.

We stopped at Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse at the end of the peninsula.  I couldn’t get in a better position to take its picture so this will have to do.  It’s the first lighthouse we’ve been to that actually had a Coast Guard family living in it (according to the signs which request that people respect the family’s privacy).  This isn’t common since all the lights are automated now.

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in heavy fog.  The bell buoys were getting a workout.

We drove up the coast looking for a picnic spot.  Finally found an unoccupied table in a lovely quiet wooded area with no one around.  What a nice surprise!

The day had two highlights, the first of which was the Seal Cove Auto Museum which is out in the middle of nowhere……a totally unexpected gem.  It’s the collection of one man (now deceased), mostly cars from 1900 to 1928, but also a few of the other many things he collected.  Most of the cars have been restored and they’re in beautiful condition.  Some are very rare, especially the 1915 F.R.P. which is the only known F.R.P. in the world.

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1915 F.R.P. – named for its designer/builder Finley Robertson Porter.

Some of the cars are bigger than our dually.  They all have interesting histories so it took about two hours to go through the museum since I had to read about every one of them (like I’m going to remember any of it by next week).

The Stanley Steamer Mountain Wagon, a really big vehicle designed to carry passengers from boats and railways to their final destinations like luxury vacation hotels.  Stanley Steamer made a lot of different models and there are several in the museum.  The Steamer was a great vehicle which was very strong and reliable.  It won a lot of races and, in fact, beat the gas autos so badly at Daytona that the other auto companies ganged up on it and got it banned from future Daytona races.  One can only wonder how different things would be if steamers had become the favorites over gas engines.  They use gas to heat water for steam but they don’t cause the pollution problems of internal combustion engines.  They have their own set of problems (like carrying sufficient water for steam) but pollution isn’t one of them.

Jim’s favorite was this 1912 Peugeot-type 150 Boat-tailed skiff, a custom made vehicle with exquisite workmanship.

1911 Pierce Arrow 4 cylinder motorcycle.  In the early days motorcycles were really bicycles with various types of engines attached to them.  As they developed they lost their bicycle look.  This one has a very long wheelbase and must have been a bit challenging to ride.

One last car…….

This 1912 Crane was originally owned by one of the wealthiest women in America, Helen Hartley Jenkins.  It cost $15,000 – almost 42 times the $360 price of a Ford Model T.  It would be about $350,000 today.  Mrs. Jenkins was a noted philanthropist who did much good in her work with charities so it’s surprising she would spend such an outrageous amount for a car.

While we were in the museum the weather cleared and we came out to blue skies and sun.  We decided we’d go back up Cadillac Mountain and see the views we missed on Saturday.  It was well worth the trip and was the second highlight of the day.

Quite the opposite of Saturday’s picture…….blue skies and a great view!

The Porcupine Islands from the summit of Cadillac Mountain.

View to the northwest with shimmering water instead of fog.  This is a very long-distance shot so it’s a bit hazy.

Tomorrow is our last day here.  We’ll go back to the park and try to get the things we missed on Saturday.  There’s still a mass of people here but maybe it won’t be as bad as the weekend was. 

8/21 and 8/22 - Bar Harbor, Maine

The 3+ hour 110 mile drive to Bar Harbor from New Harbor yesterday was another stressful one.  A lot of the roads were really rough (too much for one cat’s stomach) and US 1 through the coastal towns was narrow and full of traffic.  We should have taken another route but only hindsight is 20/20.  Once again not a good place for a big fifth wheel, but Jim managed to get through the congestion without losing his cool (almost) and we arrived in one piece.  We’re in a first-come-first-served campground and were lucky to get a space.  There were only three sites left which were big enough for us.  It’s a nice enough campground but the only ocean view is from quite a distance up at the far end.  We’re fortunate to be able to see the ocean at all because campgrounds aren’t usually on prime real estate.

Squeezing through the town of Rockland, ME, on US 1.

Unusual bridge over the Penobscot Narrows.  One lane on each side of the supporting structure.

Today dawned foggy and cloudy……again.  We started out at the Acadia National Park Visitor Center which was mobbed with people.  A Saturday at the end of summer……go figure.  Our schedule put us here over the weekend so we just have to deal with the crowds and hope Monday and Tuesday will be a little less busy.  And, boy, are there crowds……maybe not as much as you’d find in July or in better weather, but an awful lot of people and vehicles.  We thought there would be fewer cars because of the free shuttles around the park but not so.  Every parking lot was jammed, cars were parked down the sides of the road….some out in the road.  At a couple of places we wanted to see we couldn’t find a parking place anywhere so had to skip them.  We’ll try again later if we have time.  There are fantastic views everywhere and lots of trails for those who are able to hike.   

We drove up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, the highest mountain on the east coast at 1530 feet.  Its top was in the clouds so there was no view of anything. 

Jim with a diagram of what we’d be able to see if the mountain weren’t under a cloud bank.

Halfway down the mountain was a pull-off where we were lucky to get a space.  Cars were parked out in the road for about 100 feet…..a two-lane road with a curve and these cars were taking up half of one lane leaving no way for traffic to pass without going halfway across the oncoming lane which had no shoulder so there was no way two cars could pass one another.  We didn’t hear any crashes so guess everyone either squeezed through or backed up.  

View of Bar Harbor and Frenchman Bay from Cadillac Mountain.  The long island on the left is Bar Island which connects to Bar Harbor by a sand bar which is walkable for about 90 minutes either side of low tide.  The ones to the right of it are the Porcupine Islands – Sheep Porcupine, Burnt Porcupine, Long Porcupine and Bald Porcupine which is out of the picture to the right.  Bar Island was once called Bar Porcupine.  I haven’t found any information on the naming of these islands but perhaps someone thought they looked like a row of porcupines in the water.  Their forms, shaped by glaciers during the last ice age, are actually called sheepbacks or whalebacks.  The name of Frenchman Bay is thought to have come from French gunboats hiding behind the islands to attack British ships during the French and Indian War.  Rum Key which is at the far right (out of the picture) was used by rumrunners during Prohibition on their illegal liquor forays to and from Canada.

We stopped to see the Thunder Hole although it wasn’t at the right point in the tide.  Conditions have to be just right for it to really explode and the best chance would have been several hours later in the day.   

People waiting to hear the thunder.

This is all we got but it showed us how the blow-back works.  We could hear the thunder although it was nowhere near what happens under better conditions.

This is what happens when everything is just right.  Unsuspecting people have been washed out to sea.  Water is driven into the trough which has been created by eons of water wearing away the rock.  It forces air back in the hole which causes the water to burst out with explosive force and thundering noise.  See the picture inset to the left which shows the hole dug out by the water.

Right now it doesn’t look like the weather is going to break during the remaining three days we’re here, but we’re going to get our chores done tomorrow (laundry and groceries) so we’ll have the next two days open in case the sun comes out.  Good weather or bad, we’ll do more of what we did today……drive around Mt Desert Island and the park and see as much as possible.