Off the Beaten Path in Maritime Canada

I’ve created this post as a kind of home page to make it easier to navigate all of our posts about the Maritime Canada trip which took place August 1 to 21, 2018. You can just scroll down to see all the posts or click the links below to see the various posts directly. The most recent are at the bottom.

If you click/tap the images they will expand and allow you to click through them on your computer or swipe on your mobile device. On your computer hit <F11> to expand the browser to full screen to see them as big as possible and hit <F11> again to return it back to normal. To exit the images and return to reading hit the “X” if you see it or click / tap outside the images. Sometimes you might see a smaller gallery of pictures and clicking them will scroll through only those pictures. Don’t hit your browser back button to exit pictures or it will take you back too far.

I hope you enjoy reading about our journey. Please feel free to leave questions and comments at the end of a post.

Intro: Maritime Canada Trip – Prologue

Day 1: Maine

Day 2: New Brunswick

Day 3: St. Martins & Bay of Fundy

Day 4: PEI to Nova Scotia

Day 5: Cape Breton & MV Apollo

Day 6: Newfoundland & St. Johns

Day 7: Crossing Newfoundland

Day 8: Along the Newfoundland Northern Peninsula

Day 9: Labrador to Mary’s Harbour

Days 10 to 11: Battle Harbour

Day 12 to 14: Goose Bay and up the Labrador Coast

Days 15 to 17: Nain, South to Goose Bay, and Road to Churchill

Days 18 to 21: Labrador City to St. Lawrence River, and back to Albany

Reflections: Road Trips & the Maritime Canada Trip

Maritime Canada Trip – Reflections

Genesis of the Maritime Canada Trip

The idea for this trip started with Debbie suggesting a trip to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island and really just getting to seeing some of the Canadian Maritime provinces. So I studied maps of the area and got the idea that it should include Newfoundland. I like the idea of getting further off the beaten path or doing something different. Research about Newfoundland led to Labrador and its rugged secluded coasts and vast untouched forests. Battle Harbour, hanging on the end of the continent, seemed like a great place to unwind in comfort and seclusion. Finally, reading about the Northern Ranger trip up the northern Labrador coast seemed like an adventure that suited me. Debbie would like almost anything involving the ocean, so she quickly warmed to the idea. The Trans-Labrador Highway meant the trip could be done as a loop so driving through the wilderness was going to be part of it. Throughout the planning the trip got focused on the more remote parts of the trip.

That was the idea, and now some thoughts of how it played out. The numbers are that we spent 22 days traveling and drove 3763 miles which took 75 hours. Additionally, we traveled 1473 miles by sea over 90 hours of sailing.

Maritime Canada Trip – Day 5 – Cape Breton & MV Atlantic Vision

Sunday – August 5, 2018

Route for August 5, 2018 – The ferry path is kind of wrong.

Drive Through Cape Breton Island

We started our day with a shared breakfast at the guest house. We chatted over coffee with a German couple also on a road trip and a Canadian family who had traveled from Vancouver and Edmonton to see their family member run in the Special Olympics. I enjoy talking with people we encounter on a trip and a shared breakfast table is good way to do it. We had a ferry ride to Newfoundland later in the day so that conversation couldn’t be too long if we wanted to see anything.

We had to head to North Sydney for our ferry and decided to travel along the northern shore of the island and circle around via the Cabot Trail until we got there. Cape Brenton Island gets more rugged and mountainous as you travel eastward. The center part of the northern arm is a national park. The road hugs the coast and is very scenic. Unfortunately we still had the rain on and off that was dogging us.

Along the Cabot Trail - Cape Breton Island — Along the Cabot Trail – Cape Breton Island