Quebec City

Aah the delights of wandering an old city in late autumn as golden leaves are falling and the outdoor ice rink opens for the season.  In the season’s transition, some hang onto summer, issuing a protest by going out in 40F weather in sandals, shorts, and T-shirts and willing themselves not to shiver while others eagerly don their serious and fashionable winter blacks and proudly strut rue St. Jean.  

The Quebec Hostel is in the city’s old town, an area of narrow streets pushing up unrelenting steep hills.  It is among many other old buildings occupied by  small and excellent restaurants, cafés, pubs, and shops.

In this city of half a million, the vieux-port Quebec is small and tight enough so we could walk from the Gare du Palais train station to the hostel.  We were warned it was all uphill.  Except for a block or so after leaving the station and those few steps crossing rue St. Jean, it was.  Uphill.  

Quebec City was founded in 1608 by the French navigator and explorer Samuel de Champlain near the site of a small Iroquois village.  The city’s name draws from an Algonquin word, Kebec--“Where the River Narrows.”  Celebrating its 400th anniversary in July 2008, Quebec looks every bit the part of a 17th century financial, military, and cultural center.  

The old wall, built prior to 1694, has three historic gates.  Of these, Porte St. Jean and Porte St. Louis were destroyed and rebuilt in 1791, and twice since.  Old Quebec was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.  Numerous buildings exist in the vieux-port whose origins reach to the 17th and 18th centuries.  

The Quebec volkswalk took us past much of the history, including The Plains of Abraham battle site, the Citadel (17th century), Notre Dame Cathedral (from 1647), The Château Frontenac (1893), and many less-noted but historically important buildings.  Notre Dame Cathedral was twice destroyed by fire, first during the siege of Quebec (1759) and again in 1922. 

Throughout the old town, horse-drawn tourist carts and wagons clatter down cobblestone streets with costumed drivers interpreting local history.  

What makes Quebec different is, of course, the French language and influence.  We were told by several French travelers that Quebec French differs from French French in many ways including accents, rhythms, and words, but it is the same language.  

Whatever the differences, French is a wonderfully conversational language.  Yes, I eavesdropped on people to see if I could pick up a word.  After all, I thought, with three years of college French 101 and a bunch of workshops, something should have stuck.  And while I picked out a few--very few--words, what I became aware of was the beauty, pleasantness, and comfort of those conversations, even that of the man yelling at the taxi driver.  

My first attempt at French was in the Gare du Palais, the Quebec VIA Rail station.  After dedicated rehearsal, I walked to the coffee shop counter and said, “Je voudrais un croissant petite dejeuner.”  And the guy said, “We’re out of that.”  I was so pleased.  He had to have understood me to say they were out of that! “N’est pas?”  

The second significant influence from the French is food.  The Ottawa Marché By Ward market is populated by French farmers crossing the bridge from Gatineau with a great variety of vegetables, meats, cheeses, and baked goods.  French Patés from Montreal are found all over the region.  

From the boardwalk at the Chateau Frontenac, we looked down on three cruise ships.  Pat talked with a woman whose goal was to eat at a McDonald’s at each cruise stop.  And then there’s the “Martha, what is this town?”

We have been told a few stories of the rude French.  Upon questioning, we find the stories’ origins often quite old.  There is a formal coolness to the French style which is put off by our feigned personable friendliness.  In reality, any of us are rude at times, a few make a practice of it.  Others may have turned rudeness into an art form or a burlesque.  An elderly lady told me that she has once or twice been insulted with such charm, eloquence, and grace that she remembers it proudly.

Halifax

Wednesday, 10 October, 14;15 (Atlantic Daylight Time), Aboard The Ocean, VIA Rail Train 15, Halifax to Quebec.

We pulled out of the Halifax Station at 12:15.  We are scheduled to arrive at Charny, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, at 05:45 where we board a shuttle to take us across to the Quebec City train station.  From the Gare du Palais, we have a short walk to the hostel and, after Montreal, our second chance to redeem our attempts to say something useful in French.

We woke to rain this morning.  Since our flight landed last Thursday afternoon, clouds and possible rain were in most of the weather forecasts and either failed to materialize or it sprinkled when it didn’t matter (to us).  We did the volkswalk, walked the harbor front, and wandered the streets safely and dryly.  Several days were windy and cool.  It’s October.

Halifax was our longest stop, built into the schedule as a way of banking some time should any of the difficult and tedious connections in Atlantic Canada go wrong  and because Halifax seemed interesting.  Another day was added for the Thanksgiving holiday on Monday and the fact that The Ocean does not run north on Tuesdays.  We appreciated and used our time well.

Most of the Canadian hostels are well-sited.  The Halifax Heritage House Hostel is about three blocks from the VIA Rail and Acadian Bus station, a similar distance from the Seaport Farmers Market, and, for a bonus, the cruise terminal with often three ships daily and 3-5,000 people wandering around saying, “Martha, what is this town?”

Three blocks from us, Laura’s Cafe served a good, inexpensive breakfast and offered a sizable Russian menu.  For lunch yesterday we shared a large bowl of Borscht and a plate of Perogies, both foods our ancestors borrowed from the Russian people during their hundred year stay.  Perogies were renamed Kaseknoepfla (cheese buttons) but the similarity is there.

I’ve known borscht as an end of the season what’s-left-in-the-garden soup, based on beef broth and an assortment of late season vegetables such as beets (the basis of Russian Borscht), cabbage, turnips, onion, carrots, potatoes, and all those strange little things still growing in a corner of the garden.  It, like anything else, is best served with sour cream.  There are borscht recipes and there are borscht purists.  Neither should be taken seriously.

All that being said, Laura’s Borscht was a delicate soup of finely sliced beets, onions, carrots, and potatoes--and a joy to eat.  Laura’s background was southern Russian, near Georgia.  We talked about the differences of traditional Russian to the Georgian-influenced food.  As is common, more spices and heat are present in the southern versions.  

Beyond eating together, Pat, being more artistic, visited shops, art galleries, and the Nova Scotia gallery of art, making friends with artists she had never known.

I spent an afternoon at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, fascinated with Halifax’s recovery role in the days following the 14 April, 1912 Titanic disaster and, five years later, the lesser known but devastating Halifax Explosion.  The latter, the result of a collision between the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship loaded with munitions and fuel, and the the Norwegian SS Imo, killed several thousand people and leveled a large section of Halifax. It is considered the largest human caused explosion ever until atomic bombs began dropping.

We attended Sunday service at St. Paul’s Anglican (1750), the oldest Anglican church in Canada still in use.  St. Paul’s has in its cemetery victims of the Titanic sinking, as do several other local churches.  The original cemetery, located a short distance from St. Paul’s on Barrington St., holds many of the area’s pioneers and shapers of Halifax and Nova Scotia.

In spite of all the exceptional eating opportunities of the neighborhood, we ate most of our meals in, preparing locally grown and mostly organic food from the Seaport Farmers Market in the hostel kitchen.  

Most hostels have large kitchens with multiple appliances and counters for people to prepare meals.  A simple meal is often a gathering point for stories, travel tips, plans, and local lore.  It was at the Charlottetown Backpacker’s Hostel, for example, that we first learned of the Water Prince restaurant. 

Staying at the Halifax Hostel were three young Germans from Saxony (Leipzig-Dresden area), in Canada working and traveling under a special cooperative program agreement (in which the US does not participate).  All three left while we were in Halifax:  Two young men to work on an organic farm an hour from Halifax and Z-, on her way to western Canada, hoping to work in a hostel.  She is halfway through her year while the guys arrived only three weeks earlier.

Finally--not because I am out of Halifax stories but, as my uncle used to say, “This has got to stop!”--one of the delightful and meaningful things done by the hostel staff on Monday evening was to prepare and serve a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving meal (eerily similar to a US Thanksgiving meal, except for the absence of the candied yams and mini-marshmallows and the fact that it arrives almost two months earlier) for all of us staying at the hostel.  It was good food and a delightful evening.

Evening is coming on and the cloud-gray sky is losing its light.  We are in central New Brunswick traveling through a forested and fairly flat area.  We see more autumn color in the leaves here.  Several beautiful rural and small town scenes of golds and reds rushed by before we could get out the camera.  We are surrounded by beauty.

A Conversation Fragment, Food, and Attempted Murder

The Fragment:  As we traveled through Atlantic Canada visiting museums and reading histories, we learned of entire areas settled and populated by people “expelled” from the fledgling United States because they opposed the war of independence and wished to remain loyal to the crown.  For example, many who moved into Prince Edward Island and the city of Charlottetown were former colonists.

Earlier in the 1700s, during the fight for dominance of the region, French and English loyalists were expelled, depending who had grasped power and had gathered enough strength to do so.  

George Island in Halifax Harbor was in essence a penal colony, housing thousands of Acadians (French) who were rounded up and held prior to their expulsion.  I said to a young outdoor store owner in North Sydney that it sounds as if the U.S. expulsion of loyalists made Canada possible.  He countered by asking, “What would Americans do without Cajun culture and food?  They’d be drab as the Brits!  If our guys hadn’t kicked out the Acadians, you’d have no Jambalaya!”

We were joking, but when we consider the history of ethnic, religious, and political cleansing that has gone on, probably forever, and continues to go on, we begin to see how serious and deadly a problem this is.  Considering the past century alone, the numbers killed, eliminated, executed, and “disappeared” in a forced attempt at unanimity of thought, race, or culture total in the multiple millions.  

Food:  The Water Prince is an enchanting title for a magical character.  Our experience with the Water Prince was based in the fact that near the cruise ship piers in Charlottetown are two streets: Prince and Water.  In fact, nearly every city in Atlantic Canada has both a Prince street (a very natural name given their relationship to the monarchy) and a Water street (duh, like they got a lot of water).  

A seafood restaurant had the simple good sense to use their location and call themselves Water Prince.  But they didn’t stop there, they went on to develop an eatery that produced really good food.  

Our meal was, as we sometimes do, a shared one.  I ordered a seafood chowder, a meal I love.  Pat dislikes chowder.  That was my contribution.  The seafood plate she ordered consisted of half a lobster, a large pile of mussels, and scallops.  With a side of cole slaw, this was a fitting meal for a Water Prince.  

It went like this: I would offer Pat chowder and she would refuse, “You know I don’t like chowder.”  Then she would shove a wee scrap of lobster my way along with another scallop and a handful of yawning black mussels.  And so, after a while, there remained an empty chowder bowl, enough vacant mussel shells to make several musical instruments and a necklace, meatless lobster reside broken into minute pieces, a wine glass lying on its side, a cole slaw stain on the place mat, and a bill larger than we typically incur but neither out of reach nor unreasonable.  

We conversed with the eaters on either side of us (a couple from suburban Vancouver, BC and another from Michigan).  Not enough for Pat but sufficient for a week of my social needs.  Leaving the restaurant, we slowly walked the narrow streets among picturesque houses under a beautiful starlit sky.  I think we even held hands.

It was a sensuous, idyllic night.  Until we met the skunk.  We passed an alley just as a handsome black and white creature that didn’t say “Meow” darted out from under a bush, stopped in surprise, and turned and ran up the alley with her tail raised high.  We tiptoed off the other direction, angling away to make the line of fire more difficult.  Really, we and the skunk had a shared goal of simply getting away from each other.  None of us was looking for trouble.  

Attempted Murder:  The CBC online headline dated 5 October, read, “Police were asked to warn husband of 'Internet Black Widow': Melissa Weeks now behind bars charged with attempted murder.”  The immediate stage for all this had been a North Sydney, Nova Scotia B&B.  Our B&B!  I wrote about the Chambers and the wonderful breakfast earlier in my North Sydney post.

Melissa and her new husband, Fred, shared a room next to ours.   We knew things were amiss with the Weeks couple when she came to breakfast alone and spoke of her husband having “an episode” and not feeling well.  An ambulance was called and the EMT team took Mr. Weeks to the hospital.  The CBC story reported, “Two days after that, police charged Melissa Weeks with attempting to murder her husband and with ‘administering a noxious thing.’”

The story continued “...the woman had served her time for killing a previous husband and defrauding a boyfriend she met online... She was prone to whirlwind romances that ended with her partner’s serious illness or death.”

Cheryl Chambers of Chambers B&B is mentioned in the story.  She is a wonderful host, a collector of antiques with a definite artistic bent, and undoubtedly terribly bothered and embarrassed by all this.  We both feel for her.  Neither of us would be tacky enough to suggest she might use the publicity and stage Murder Mystery Weekends at the B&B.  

St. John’s, Newfoundland

Simply said, we loved St. John’s.  That may be because it plays hard to get (to) and, after getting there, we had no choice.  Otherwise, we’d have been idiots for spending all that time, money, and sitting pain for the potentials of a mediocre affair.  But I think it’s more.

The center of the city is filled with wooden houses somewhat resembling styles of northern Europe.  Many date from the 1800s, most of them colorfully and often brightly painted, all huddled together against the cold and icy winter winds.  

The center of the city is built on hills and ridges that rapidly drop down to the harbor.  Like Juneau, where everything is also either up or down, walking to the corner store is a workout. 

The skyline is dominated by the provincial museum and galleries known as “The Rooms” and standing close by are the twin spires of the Basilica of St. Mary.  In the Presentation Convent house beside the Basilica, we viewed The Veiled Virgin, a marble sculpture by the Italian Giovanni Strazza (1818-1875).  From there, we walked to the Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist for a half hour organ concert by the cathedral organist.

We wandered George Street and its concentration of now mostly empty, post-tourist season pubs to sit at Kelly’s with locals and three tourists from Alberta and listen to a variety of Irish, Newfoundland, and old rock songs by a  gifted local guitarist and singer. 

What closed the deal for us was the hike up to Signal Hill from which we peered down on the beautiful harbor with its narrow inlet and the sea beyond.  From the Cahill Point Lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor to the towering Rooms and Basilica, the setting is pure beauty.  Even as we stood in drizzle that periodically turned to outright rain, the beauty never went away.

We found those who live there frequently willing to take the time to give advice and direction as we walked (our volkswalk directions were a bit dated and behind on road and building construction, missing street signs, and changed traffic flows).  At one point we found ourselves in a conversation with a pedestrian and a man in a pick up three cars back about how best to find Job street.  

We asked locals with accents about theirs, hoping for the origins of the Newfoundland accent and phrases.  Given the many who settled here, Irish shows up frequently and probably is part of the Newfoundland brogue.  But as a  waiter in a pub told us, “That’s just Irish.”  She also told us that, being from Labrador, she hasn’t a clue about some of the local language.  So we found ourselves eavesdropping on conversations, particularly those we couldn’t understand.

As one born to the North Dakota prairies, I early developed an appreciation for weather that is less than idyllic.  The good people of St. John’s live through winters of heavy snows that usually melt quickly, ice that doesn’t, and wind.  

St. John’s is surrounded by a sparsely populated island of trees, rocks, moose, lakes, and bears. Hop the St. Lawrence and head over to Labrador, and it doesn’t really get that much easier.

One Way to get to Somewhere Really Hard to Get to:

We departed the Charlottetown, PEI bus station at 07:45 and arrived at Chambers B&B in North Sydney, NS, at 22:00.  This included a five hour lay-over at Truro which had a German bakery and the Split Crow pub.  Both helped.

Since our Newfoundland ferry didn’t leave until 23:40, we had all day Friday to visit North Sydney, something that could have been done in fifteen minutes but was much more interesting over eight hours.  We boarded the ferry and sat in our reserved seats that out-first-classed the seats in a Dreamliner, spending the time until and beyond the sailing hour trying to adjust them for maximum comfort.

The night, spent some in sleep and the rest in listening to a moose-hunting family snoring in dissonant rhythms, ended with the lights going up and the loudspeaker informing us the Captain plans to dock at 06:35 at Port-aux-Basques.

We wait.  Finally the call comes for the walk ons to proceed to the 5th floor shuttle loading area for transport to the terminal.  Jumping from the shuttle, we go where the lady with the brown shoes points and there, waiting impatiently, are our bags.  We grab them and rush out to the big brown bus with the moose-damaged door.  The driver throws them into the under-the-bus bin and we board.  At 08:00 (NDT), we pull out of the security area on our way to St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland-Labrador.  

In spite of our many years of accumulating information, most of which became extinct just prior to our learning it, we did not know about NDT--Newfoundland Daylight Time.  For its own reasons, Newfoundland sets its clocks a half hour earlier than those in neighboring Atlantic time.  It sees Christmas, New Years, and your birthday a half hour before anyone else.  So while you are thinking, “I wish, oh I wish it was Christmas,” It is.  St. John’s has a half hour of celebration all to itself. 

Fourteen hours and 845 km later, we are at HI-City Hostel, St. John.  It could have been earlier, but the driver (who had been driving the evening before when the moose rammed the door), kept jumping out with a roll of duct tape and a variety of objects with which he could pound whenever we hit a scheduled smoke break to either 1) tape into place the parts that were falling off or 2) apparently being a believer in redemptive violence, beat the bent door into submission.  And we know how well that worked for the moose.

It’s easy.  Invariably, someone asks, “Couldn’t you have flown?”

Fair enough question.  We prefer land mass transit for ecological reasons and because I get very anxious at take off.  Realizing our schedule was falling apart and our sitting parts were nearing the point of no return, we purchased tickets to fly St. John’s to Halifax.

We hired a taxi to the airport at 10:00 on Thursday morning, 4 October.  The wind was powerful, hovering near a sustained speed of 30 mph with gusts beyond.  The airport lies on a relatively flat plain away from the uneven terrain of St. John’s and the harbor so the winds are more constant but also more predictable.  

Flight schedules were starting to stack up with some arrivals circling, waiting for a break in heavy rain and turbulence, while on the ground, a flight was canceled due to an unavailable repair part.  Unease was building as we hurried down the ramp and dropped into our seats in the crowded, sold-out airplane.

The pilot launched our 737 across the runway and into the air so quickly my take-off anxiety attack remained standing at the gate with a “But wait...” look on its face and we were well on the way to Halifax before the wind even had a chance to mess with us.

The air distance from St. John’s to Halifax is roughly the same as the bus distance from Port-aux-Basques to St. John’s--500+ miles.  We traded a day’s scenery for a 1.4 hour flight, landing in warm, partly-cloudy weather.

I finish writing this in Rm 303-A at the Heritage House HI-Halifax, a private room with a shared bath eight paces away.  The night is quiet and we are almost two hours into Friday and at the start of our third week of travel by train, bus, ferry, airplane, and, of course, foot.

North Sydney, 29 September

Marine Atlantic Waiting Room, North Sydney

Nearing 19:00 and evening is spreading.  It will soon be dark.  We arrived here about 22:30 yesterday after leaving Charlottetown at 07:45.  Traveling by Acadian Coach, we jumped from our bus to another at Amherst and stopped for a five hour layover at Truro before the long ride here.

Truro was, of course, all new--a place we have never visited.  Seeking advice from the Acadian station manager, we walked northwest down the hill toward (he said) downtown.  A few blocks later, a fast-walking lady carrying a large framed piece of abstract art at the community college told us of a German bakery downtown.  

We walked on, turning right at the third block and, sure enough, a few minutes later Pat exclaimed, “The bakery!”  The interior was a plain large room with the usual things of a bakery cafe.  We ordered, shared, and enjoyed a schnitzel topped with a fried egg.  A few steps farther and we were at the Split Crow Pub where Pat ordered a glass of raspberry ale made in Moncton, and I a lager from Halifax.  

Returning to the station, we sat, read, wrote, and napped a while longer and, at 17:15, boarded our nearly sold out bus, snarling at lone people in their seats pretending to be asleep or, in one case, telling prospective seat partners the seat was saved for a lady.  She lied.  I was waved into a back seat by a man who had successfully fended off a 350 pounder and a crazy lady.  He was the perfect seat partner, thinner than I and as delighted with silence.  The only thing he ever said was, “Good luck, pal,” as he got off an hour later which was when Pat’s elderly seat partner also left and we were reunited near the front of the bus.  

Our coach continued to empty itself as we traveled and night firmly established its dominance.  The last five of us got off at the ferry terminal here at North Sydney.  

Along our lonely road, the moon, a day short of full, provided enough light in which to see the magnificent scenery we were missing.

A short taxi ride took us to Chambers Bed and Breakfast.  A note taped to the door gave instructions to our room, #2, at the head of the stairs.  

Like many B&Bs, ours was a room full of art, a full size bed, antique furniture, and a flowered spread.  And a delightfully comfortable, warm bed it was.  Hostel beds are typically made for tough and resilient young people.  Our bodies had been suffering since Montreal. Longer if one adds the night we spent in coach en route to Montreal.

The breakfast began with a flavorful, strong coffee whose mere aroma cured any residual ennui.  A side board contained plates of mini-muffins laced with broccoli, date bars, apple strudel, coffee cake, oat-bran muffins, and cherry tarts, all calling seductively.  An adjoining room held a toaster and a basket of breads and bagels near a plate of pancakes with Cheryl’s home-made maple syrup, along with (on another table) an array of boxed cereals.  A bowl of mixed fruit and a pitcher of yoghurt awaited us on the table among the splendid rose-patterned antique English dishes and bowls.  As we finished our first go at the pastries, fruit, and cereal, a dish of scrambled eggs with cheese, chives, parsley, and (it tasted to me) a wee bit of horseradish arrived to crown the meal.

We ate, joined by an young Englishman with a modified mohawk, here to study the fine art of drilling for oil.  Cheryl and her mother wandered in and out, checking, refilling, and being charmingly pleasant.  

To provide the proper context for this feast, remember that a hostel breakfast, if one is provided at all, typically is much like a hostel bed: Barely adequate with a severe lack of aesthetic qualities.

The ferry waiting room here has a variety of people, but the majority seem to be hunters wearing camouflage on their way to big game hunting in Newfoundland-Labrador.  Were Somali pirates to somehow have infiltrated beyond the St. Lawrence, I think I would feel quite safe in an attack.  We have more fire-power on this ferry than they (or I) would ever imagine.

We left the B&B and walked the few blocks downtown to the ferry terminal.  After shifting items between our daypacks and packs, we checked the luggage and set out to wander North Sydney.  

We said to a low 40s couple who owned an outdoor store, “You have fewer pubs and breweries per capita than anywhere we’ve ever been in Canada except Athabasca.”  They agreed and we posited there is a relationship between that ratio and the happiness and friendliness of a community.  If we are right, St. John’s should be a right amiable place.

We ate lunch seated on a park bench by a duck pond:  A heavy rye bread from the Charlottetown farmers’ market and smoked kielbasa and bulk cheddar cheese from the local meat market we passed down the block.

A stop at the library, a thinly veiled visit to use their washroom, led to various conversations, and more in the connected museum next door.

Supper was at Rollie’s on the water.  We shared a plate of haddock fish and chips while sipping away at Keith’s beers from Halifax.  The plate and glasses empty, we left by the back door to visit a nearby playground at an old dock area.  I hoped to get some good ferry and town views.  Instead, a young man on the beach showed a bag of colored, sand-tumbled glass pieces he was collecting from the beach.  Pat needed some of her own.

And that is it; a day in North Sydney.  We are an hour from boarding, three from sailing.  Ten from arriving at Port-aux-Basques, and twelve from boarding the bus for the 900 km ride to St. John’s.  And, to be desperately depressing, twenty-six hours from arriving at the City Hostel in St. John’s, NL.  God have mercy.

All Souls' Evening Prayer, Charlottetown, PEI

All Souls’ Chapel, Charlottetown

We entered the large St. Paul’s Anglican Church near the downtown through a wide-open door, a common practice of Charlottetown’s churches.  St. Paul’s is a large church with a plain cavernous sanctuary.  The exterior is made largely of the distinctive red local sandstone. The sanctuary is rather inornate except for attractive stained glass windows and plates and plaques commemorating famous unknown local people.  Off to the side, a discretely hidden drum set signaled the parish’s foray into contemporary worship.  A volunteer docent at the church  drew circles and arrows on our Charlottetown map to show the way to St. Peter’s Cathedral, Anglican. 

The downtown of Charlottetown is ringed with various mostly neo-gothic churches, made of the same local sandstone, the prominent red rock of the island.  Grind it up over several eons and you get a deep red soil.  The ground rock, by the way, is used to dye locally sold souvenir t-shirts. 

St. Peter’s, on the west side of the downtown, is also of a simple design, nothing at all like the splendid neo-gothic Christ Church Cathedral at Fredericton with end on end art and a spire that could have inspired “Why the Chimes Rang.”

We were at the door of the cathedral sanctuary trying to reconcile the two different times listed for Evening Prayer when I saw him approach.

He was a huge man, 6’3”or so with hands the size of tennis racquets.  Leaning heavily on a steel cane, he shuffled slowly up the walk in scuffed black oxfords, carrying a well-worn black leather brief case.  Black walking shorts left his pale calfs exposed. 

Gasping a greeting to us, he added simply, “I’m Allan.” 

Looking us over, he asked, “Are you here for Evening Prayer?” I nodded and he waved the briefcase.  “I’ll meet you in the chapel.”

We walked alongside the church toward the red stone All Souls’ Chapel,  Looking more ancient than its 130 years, the chapel’s red wooden door was surrounded by large sandstone blocks that built up to a steeply slanted slate roof.  We entered and were greeted by a man in the back pew.  

“Where are you from?”  I explained and he replied, “I don’t know about Washington.  I’ve only been to Toronto.”  As Allan entered from a side door, our greeter slipped out.

Now wearing a wrinkled black robe, Allan leaned his cane against the wall, and heavily lowered himself into the ornate wooden chair. 

We read Evening Prayer from the Canadian Book of Common Prayer, a compact book with print small enough to be a problem.

Our prayer leader, the doddering man with a drifting left eye and a body that struggled to move, read prayer in an accented, beautiful and sonorous voice, waiting for us and cuing us into responses we could barely see.

Rising and politely waiting as he struggled to raise his massive body, we sat when he did, or when he said, “You may sit.”

We prayed in words older than the red sandstone blocks, that God would protect us all and especially the Queen and her troops, that he would “holpen” us.

We sat, stood, and knelt in silence as Allan fumbled through thin pages finding the prescribed and appropriate prayer for the day and the spirit.

When we first saw him outside the Cathedral, I thought this man could die right here in front of us and create a lot of property damage when he fell.  But his voice and his familiarity and certainty with the service transcended all those impressions and he became...it was like sitting with one of the ancients who had more to teach us than we could absorb.

The silences, awkward at first, became sacred time and a holy part of greeting and honoring the waning day, and a way of showing reverence to the Creator of Day and Night, Red Stones and faithful Old Men.

He paused a long time and dropped his head, an untrained shock of white hair falling forward over his face.  And then he read the benediction.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore.  Amen.  Evening Prayer was ended.

He followed us to the door and asked about us and our travels.  “I know Oregon,” he said, and, “Newfoundland is such a stark beauty,  I haven’t been there in over fifty years.”

We closed the door to All Souls’ Chapel and heard him turn the latch.  And for a while we could hear him shuffling up the aisle.

Fredericton, New Brunswick

I am writing on an Acadian Coach as we ride between Riviere-du-Loup, on the St. Laurence east of Quebec City, and Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick.  

We departed the Montreal Gare de Autocars at 06:00 on an Orléans Coach.  A slight hint of dawning light was in the eastern sky as we pulled onto the freeway.  We paralleled the St. Laurence, crossed over at Quebec, and changed buses in St. Foy (Quebec).  At Riviere-du-Loup, we changed from the Orléans to this vehicle.  We are now 20-some kilometers from the New Brunswick border where, I assume, everything will magically turn into English.  

We have had numerous stops and slow-downs, detours, and bewildered bus driver moments as a hearty program of road repair and construction rushes to completion before the snow falls.  

This country is beautiful.  The flat lands around Montreal have given way to rolling hills, some high enough to be crowned with a ski area.  Fall is just beginning to tint leaf tips with a deep red.  Villages, each with at least one very tall church spire, nestle in green valleys.  When we pull in to deliver someone, the houses are simple, modest and well-kept.  

All the sitting of our travels has inflamed a nerve from my right buttock, down my leg to my knee and sometimes beyond.  My chiropractor told me the name and how to stretch to ease it.  I stretch, but I have forgotten the name.  It may be resistant because I cannot properly address it.

At the hostel:  

We pulled into Fredericton a few minutes late and called a taxi for the ride to Rosary Hall, now a Canadian Youth Hostel.  According to the manager, about eighty people stay in the connected house and three story brick hall which once housed a Catholic women’s order.  A large number of foreign students live at the hall while attending UNB, St. Thomas, or one of the smaller trade schools.

Our room consists of a twin bed and a bunk bed set, a sink, and a wardrobe.  The room is very warm and humid, although the rest of the hall doesn’t seem to be.  We are close to the exit door, the kitchen, and two washrooms.

The Fredericton capital volkswalk was a large loop utilizing trails along the St. John River.  We registered at the Crowne Plaza Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, probably the spiffiest hotel in town and right next to the provincial art museum.  Behind the hotel, we entered the trail which took us along the river to a former railroad bridge converted to a pedestrian crossing.  We paused with some others about 3/4ths of the way over to watch two shore fishermen land what looked like a 12 pound salmon.  

Following the trail north along the river, we stopped for a Tim Horton coffee before crossing back over the river, walking across the bridge on a protected pedestrian path next to busy vehicle lanes.  At its west end, the traffic ramps went to the right, left, and straight ahead.  To get to the ‘straight ahead,’ a walkway crossed under the bridge and connected with another safe walkway.

Fredericton did another piece of walking infrastructure engineering by building a steel elevated walkway over a busy road, utilizing the end piling of a previous automobile bridge.  

We were equally impressed  by the Saturday farmers’ market.  Housed in and around a market building about five blocks from our hostel, the Fredericton Market is considered among the top ten Canadian markets which puts it into a level with Granville Market in Vancouver and our recently visited Marché Jean-Talon in Montreal.  

Nothing was left out.  A variety of crafts, meats (fresh and processed), dairy (milk, cheese, and an excellent yogurt), breads and pastas, vegetables and fruit, all local or nearby regional were available.  A delicious array of prepared foods were offered both inside and outside the market building. 

One of the things making the market more than a market was the variety of languages I heard spoken.  A French speaking man had a case of patés and sausages.  A German bakery did what German bakeries do.  Eastern European and Slavic languages existed side-by-side with the Queen’s English, Asian, and southeast Asian. All this happening in a settlement of 56,000, only slightly larger than our combined towns of Kelso and Longview.

Fredericton supplied the first of our remaining seven Canadian provincial capitals.  Time to move on to Prince Edward Island and its capital, Charlottetown.