Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip

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🇨🇦 Cape Breton Highlands National Park,…
Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip Traveler
Soggy bottoms
August 19 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 66 °F
The next morning, it was still raining. And now it was really raining, not just misting. Still, we had come all this way and I was looking forward to hiking. Plus, there's really not much else to do in the area.

As soon as we started our 8-mile hike, I remembered that I don't really like hiking. The rain got harder the entire time but honestly, I didn't mind it that much. I had an umbrella and a rain jacket and a sweet vape of completely legal Canada cannabis, so we enjoyed the sound and smell of summer rain and the fact that we had the whole trail entirely to ourselves.

Some parts of it were pretty foggy, which felt magical, though that meant the "lookout" point didn't offer much looking. And at the end, we reached the waterfall, which was beautiful and a good reminder that technically, I could be wetter. We had a really satisfying lunch of Ritz crackers, cheddar cheese, and meat sticks, and started our descent.

Pretty soon, the rain picked up even more and we technically could not have been wetter. My feet were squelching, my backpack was saturated and leaking water onto my butt, and my legs were really tired. We were two soggy marmots when we got back to the car.

As soon as we got back, we took hot showers, started cooking dinner and set up a fire in the wood burning stove in the kitchen shelter. I washed down some ibuprofen with a THC beverage in anticipation of the pain I had invited into my life by hiking 8 miles for the first time in a year. And honestly, that stove and that dinner REALLY hit the spot. We rotisseried ourselves for hours by the stove, letting the heat soothe our aching backs, hips, and feet. After eating our local sundried tomato sausages with tender potatoes, onions, and peppers, we toasted muffins and topped them with generous pats of Nova Scotia sea salt butter. We also finished off our berries with cream, and they were even better than the peaches, so tart and juicy.

The day was full of highs and lows. It felt a lot like a bike trip, to be honest, and I loved that. As they say in Bulgaria, it can't all be yogurt and roses, but it can still be pretty great.Read more
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Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip Traveler
Cape Breton Island
August 18 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 66 °F
We drove across the mainland until we reached Cape Breton Island. We got to take a small ferry which doesn't have a schedule (runs on demand) and is totally funded by the province, which makes things run so smoothly compared to every ferry I've ever been on in the US. It rained most of the drive but as we approached and drove along the coast, it got foggier and foggier until I could barely see the curves in the road ahead of me. For the first time this trip, I was glad I was not riding a bike, since even the drive was pretty stressful.

We finally made it to our campground, grumpy and hungry. It was misting still, and we walked down to the beach to stretch our legs and breathe some delicious ocean air. It was really pretty.

Though the wet weather was a true coastal highlands Vibe, I don't love getting wet and staying like that. Luckily, the park provides cooking shelters and even super nice dishwashing stations so we didn't have to just get wet at camp. Overall, every campground we've been in has been significantly cheaper with nicer amenities than what we're used to in the US. The first place we stayed at even had free hot water, coffee, and a communal fridge with ice packs. These little things make such a big difference when you're camping for a longer stretch.

There were some other folks in the shelter having dinner, from New Zealand and Venezuela. They seemed nice but we ended up in a longer conversation than I wanted - I was ready to have dinner, take a shower and just go to bed. I went to sleep listening to the tiny raindrops on the tent.Read more
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Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip Traveler
Moon cycles
August 17 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 68 °F
The Bay of Fundy has the largest recorded vertical tides in the world. Every six hours, over 100 billion tons of water whoosh in and out of bay, resulting in over 50 feet of change. In some places, you can walk out over 3 miles - as long as you're careful to leave time to come back (or at least bring floaties).

It's recommended that you visit at low tide for peak ocean floor walking, but the way the day worked out we couldn't make it until just after high tide. I was disappointed and to be honest almost didn't go because it was over an hour drive just to get to this park. As expected, when we got there it was just a body of water. Still, it was very pretty and I enjoyed the peaceful breeze and rare lack of mosquitoes. We had it all to ourselves because people leave when the tide is high.

After only half an hour or so, we noticed that there seemed to be one more stair leading down to the ocean floor than we had noticed before. And soon, there were DEFINITELY more stairs. It felt like we were in an adventure movie, with a secret passage appearing before our eyes.

Over the course of a couple hours, what was an island when we arrived was completely accessible by land. There were little hermit crabs in tide pools and the red sandstone made me feel like I was on another planet. It was really beautiful and one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced. The craziest part was that when we left, low tide was still several hours away but the whole area we were in was already empty of water. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip and it was even cooler than I imagined.Read more
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Mi'kma'ki
August 17 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F
We really wanted to hear the Mi'kmaq side of the story after spending so much time learning about the Acadiens so we headed to a local cultural center.

Regarding the peacefulness of the Acadian-Mi'kmaq relationship, both sides agree: they got along. Weird!

However, contact with Europeans wasn't GOOD for the Mi'kmaq. They died in huge numbers due to disease exposure, and access to things like guns and agricultural products caused a major change in a way of life that had sustained First Nations societies for at least 4,000 years in the area (and possibly up to 10,000), derailing the self-sufficiency and sustainability that defined Mi'kmaq culture.

From the exhibit: "When the first Europeans arrived, they were warmly welcomed and encouraged to trade. At the time of contact it was evident that the Mi'kmaq were a people accustomed to peace. Their system of governance and social organization was inclusive of communities and both genders. Europeans often misinterpreted it as disorganised and slow because decisions in Mi'kmaw communities was based on consensus and took longer. This form of government developed out of a desire to share with and respect each other."

Damn, what a concept.

After the Acadiens were deported in the mid-1700s the Mi'kmaq people had to fend for themselves while the British established increasingly resource-extractive colonies and despite "treaties" that supposedly left them with reasonable shares of land, Mi'kma'ki was so overfished and deforested that the old ways of life were no longer possible. The Mi'kmaq suffered starvation, disease, and poverty for generations.

Eventually, "public education" for First Nations people was established....in the form of residential schools, a system which lasted for over 150 years.

In the early 1980s, court cases started setting precedent for First Nations to start having some actual rights and land again, but it's an ongoing process. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.

As I was reading the exhibits, it occured to me that this is the first time I've learned about North American Indigenous history in a museum actually created by the people themselves. It was really great and I hope more are built in the future.Read more
Traveler The best story I learned today was that in a "conflict with a giant beaver," Glooscap threw some rocks at it and those rocks became islands
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Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip Traveler
Wildlife
August 17 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 68 °F
Last night when we were going to sleep we heard what we thought were wolves howling. It was so beautiful but we were a little skeptical. Turns out we are camping next door to a wildlife rescue that has wolves, and they like to howl when the trains go by.

Obviously we had to go, especially after I found out that they also have moose! Andrew and I have traveled thousands of miles in moose country over the years and I've still never seen one.

For $4.75 CAD (like $3.50 USD), we saw a fat black bear, a very active mink, great horned owls, bald eagles, a one-eyed barred owl, arctic foxes, a red fox playing with an apple, porcupines (which it turns out are just Spiky Beavers?), a bobcat, timber wolves, some messed up raccoons, and a lynx..... But the moose? "Oh unfortunately we just lost our moose."

YEAH RIGHT, you can't fool me anymore, Canada. #moosearen'trealRead more
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Fish: its what's for dinner (and lunch)
August 16 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 70 °F
Right before I left on this trip, I finished listening to Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. I was feeling very inspired, especially after stopping at several grocery stores through the day and seeing how much locally sourced produce, fish, and dairy there is here. At camp, I made pan-fried halibut with shitake mushrooms and asparagus, topped with garlic-dill butter, washed it down with local Nova Scotia non-alcoholic cider, and had peaches and cream for dessert. Nova Scotia cream is the most delicious I've ever had, and by some miracle ice cream inflation hasn't hit here so we're taking full advantage.Read more
Traveler Seashells provided by the lobsterman's seaside shell stand
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Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip Traveler
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Baie St Marie
August 16 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 57 °F
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
A spirea perhaps? [Meghan Coil]
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Andrew and Karen's Great Canadian Road Trip Traveler
National Acadian Day
August 15 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 66 °F
In 2017, Andrew and I rode bikes from Montreal to Quebec City, then down to Acadian National Park. During that trip, we learned all about Acadian history, the rich and fascinating story of a resilient and talented people. Then we forgot it all so we're learning it all again on this trip.

The Acadians came from France and settled the land First Nations people call Mi'kma'ki - today known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Maine - in 1605. Despite being settlers, they apparently got along quite nicely with the local Mi'kmaq. I was HIGHLY skeptical of this fact but I spent a good chunk of a car ride trying to find anything contradictory and I couldn't. To my best understanding, the Acadians were technically French (western French marshland folk, specifically) but politically abandoned by their government, which was more interested in colonizing and pillaging further inland, so they just made it work, trading with the Mi'kmaq and farming the local wetlands while the Mi'kmaq primarily fished and hunted. Then Great Britain decided to try to (re)claim the territory as their own and the Mi'kmaq and Acadians fought against the crown together, but eventually lost. During a time called the the Great Upheaval (1755-1864), England forcibly removed over 10,000 Acadians and killed a bunch of them too and, well, made no efforts to get along with the Mi'kmaq. When I was researching this, I found an article using the Acadian-Mi'kmaq relationship as a case study to show that it was possible for settlers and indigenous groups to actually live in harmony, but Great Britain fucked it all up as usual. Thousands and thousands of Acadians were deported all over the world - and many ended up in French-friendly Louisiana, where they once again saw some wetlands and were like, "oh, we can do this," and eventually came to be known as the Cajuns (from Acadiennes).

About 2,600 Acadians managed to stay in the area but overall it's a diasporic culture now. In 2003, the Canadian government officially recognized that the Acadians were treated badly and established National Acadian Day to celebrate and promote Acadian culture. Indigenous People's Day was established in Canada in 1996 and followed by a few statements of regret/apologies.

Anyway, we came to Clare, Nova Scotia for National Acadian Day because in addition to Cajun influence, Acadian music and fiddling was also influenced by Celtic fiddling (more on that later) so going to the oldest continuously running Acadian Day festival in Nova Scotia's only francophone county sounded like a cool thing to do, and here we are. Maybe this time we won't forget everything that I just told you. Here are some pictures of Acadian stuff on National Acadian Day in the land of the Acadians. It was pretty cool.Read more
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A soft landing
August 14 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F
Finally, after 48 hours (including 3 hours of time change - we're in a time zone we literally did not know existed: Atlantic Daylight Time), we made it to our campground just in time for a low tide sunset. It's run by a lovely couple who turned their property into a very small and very nice campground. One of them finds driftwood and turns it into animals to decorate the camp common areas with.

The grass is soft and plush and after some much appreciated showers and the requisite nightly offering to the Canadian mosquitoes, we finally got to sleep in our tent, limbs full extended and all.Read more
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5am, 3pm, 7pm
August 14 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 68 °F
We did not make it to Nova Scotia by the next morning. We spent all night driving across Quebec and all day driving across New Brunswick, both of which are a lot bigger than we thought and maybe that's what the border patrol guy tried to warn us about. There were signs every couple kilometers warning us to scan for moose, but no luck (good or bad).

We did finally, mercifully reach Nova Scotia, our backs and butts' aches and pains rivaling those of an endurance bike trip. But even then, we still had another six hours to go.Read more
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Canada
August 13 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 73 °F
We crossed the Detroit River into Canada at the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Andrew and I marveled at the engineering as we crossed it. "Maybe we CAN have nice things," I thought.

Later I learned that the project was fully funded by the Canadian government, so that explains why it's so nice.

The Canadian border agent asked where we were headed, what our route was, and why, all questions I answered poorly. I was nervous they would confiscate the garden produce we were traveling with but he only inquired about guns, cannabis, and alcohol. Incidentally, I've learned since then that Canada also regulates its energy drinks so Celsius doesn't have as much caffeine here and they don't allow it to be imported, but he also didn't ask about American-grade caffeinated beverages, stored in our cooler with the illegal cucumbers and tomatoes.

When we told him we were driving to Nova Scotia and planning on taking the scenic route, he responded "that's the other side of the country, you know that right?!"

Cheerfully and full of optimism, we said yes! And told him we wanted to bike it but couldn't make it work, which probably didn't make us seem any less crazy. Later we would learn just how Across the Country we were really going, but for now we were happy to be on our way.

Drivers in Ontario are predictably and shockingly Nice, only using the left lane to pass. We also had plenty of beautiful Canadian rest stops with nice picnic areas. At this point we're a little sleep deprived and tired but excited to pass the sub-24 hour mark for the remainder of our trip, thinking we'd be seeing the Nova Scotia Coast the following morning.Read more
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Meteor Shower
August 13 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 68 °F
It turns out that whether by bike or car, Andrew and I have a near-pathological desire to squeeze every bit of fun out of a trip we can. One wild and precious vacation and all.

So instead of getting a good night's sleep and leaving at 4am the next day, an already ambitious plan), I hustled after work to finish packing, load the car, and get the hell out of Chicago so we could experience the Perseids meteor shower on a historic year - when it aligned with a new moon on a dark night!

Even though it was 8:30pm on a Wednesday, we immediately hit Chicago traffic. That's ok, we thought, it's going to be worth it when the sky rains shooting stars. We waved to Sonja at the White Sox game as we passed Comiskey Park and I fell asleep as Andrew crawled to Indiana for cheap gas, one of the state's few redeeming qualities right now. I woke up when the car stopped, in complete darkness.

"Where are we?" I mumbled as I tried to wake up and orient myself.
"A gas station?"

I looked out the window. Pitch black except for some electricians pulling cable across the street with some work lights. Why did THAT have to be my first vacation sight??

As my eyes adjusted, I saw cars and trucks parked haphazardly around, and we were in what looked like a dark abandoned gas station. It was so quiet. I remembered that just 24 hours ago tornados had ripped through the area and left it without power. We drove slowly through the dark and back onto the highway. It was an eerie experience.

We found a Speedway with the lights on down the road and I fell back asleep, hoping to be able to help drive later that night.

When I woke up again, we were, once again, in total darkness. Andrew told me we were in a natural area to see the stars, but the directions hadn't led him to a parking area, just the middle of a road. It was dark and empty, and besides the fact that there was nowhere to pull over it seemed like a great stargazing area. Eventually he pulled into a parking area. We got out and were greeted by the local mosquitoes. We tried to see the sky but there were a lot of trees in the way and the air was thick with fog, which got thicker the longer we waited. It was also past 2am and we were both fighting sleep. We tried walking out to what looked like a clearing but it was dark and hard to see and almost walked straight into the aptly named Mud Lake.

Well, seeing the Perseids was a bust. At least we got a few hours of driving in and didn't have to start in Chicago the next morning. We went to sleep in the humid car with the peaceful thought that we were ahead of "schedule." We probably could have seen the meteors really well in that dark Indiana gas station, but you live you learn.Read more
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Trip start
August 12, 2026