Baie St Marie

We drove the coast of Clare on the Baie St Marie. August is peak whale watching season in Nova Scotia and I want to take all the opportunities I can get to see one. Technically we are in a bay within a much bigger bay (Fundy) but finback and minke whales are known to come inland when the krill and squid getting is good this time of year.

We didn't see any whales but it was a lovely day anyway. One thing about bike trips is it's hard to carry anything heavy home, so we spent some time beachcombing for garden decor. I thought maybe since we're going to have so much coastal time we should just try to pick one rock for each spot so we don't end up with a trunk full of rocks. Based on our first day of rock hounding, we're going to end up with a trunk full of rocks, each special in its own way.

We also stopped at what looked like a little kids seaside seashell stand, but it was a lobster fisherman's with a real weird accent, so now we have some shells competing for trunk space too.

Finally, we went to Le Petit Bois (The Little Woods), a small but magical piece of land maintained by the local university. It includes several ecosystems, including marshland, coast, and intertidal zone, but the Acadian forest, a melange of boreal and deciduous, was the most charming. The chickadees and chipmunks are used to getting fed by the college students and they're VERY friendly. We saw bluejays and goldfinches and crows and locals use the forest as a kind of art gallery and memorial by painting birdhouses and rocks and putting pictures of people that they loved who have died. I teared up at the community display of grief and love, one which exists year round in a beautiful and quiet place.Read more