Saturday, June 24, 2017
Early drive to Village Historique Acadien Village whichis a reconstructed Acadian Village with original buildings relocated to this site from their original location. It was a very interesting day as the buildings were set up in sequence with that started with those from the earliest period to the most recent. In almost every building there were people dressed in authentic period costumes doing the same tasks with the same tools and equipment that was used in that time period. You would enter the building and there would be a fire in the hearth and coffee or some food cooking. 
At a couple of places the people were sitting at a table eating a meal that had been cooked in the hearth or on a wood stove.
The day was cloudy with intermittent rain. The dirt roads within in the village were muddy and our shoes were soaked by the time we were finished. June Yvonne relates the story regarding our reservations at the Hôtel Château Albert. There was a snafu with the hotel being overbooked and even though we had a confirmation for the room they relocated us to the Motel 8 in Caraquet. A much much better and more comfortable deal that what we would have had at the Hôtel Château Albert.
We were greeted in the main lobby of the entrance to the park by their silly mascot and the very embarrassed Assistant Manager of the Village. She made all the arrangements for use to transfer to the Motel 8. We said no problem and did our best to make her feel better about the situation. I gave her our vacation business card with our address and told her if she is every in Phoenix to look us up. She said that was very sweet and said so I can stay with you while I’m there? I said no – we would get her a room at the local Motel 8. We all laughed.
As we walked through the village it was incredible to see how they used every possible part of the land to survive. We look and think boy they had it rough but when you think about it what they were doing when they were doing it was the most modern way of doing things. They had nothing better to compare it to.
This Dutch Oven is a good example – they would put the biscuits or bread in it and set it in a raised trivet and set it on some coals then using a small shovel or scoop would cover the top with coals and it would be like and oven. Notice the lip around the edge of the lid so it would hold the coals.
As we walked through the village and met many of the actors we found out that they are all Acadians trying to preserve their heritage. The little girl you see in the pictures below works in the village whenever she can – sweeping – bringing in firewood – cleaning – however we found out that her grandmother works at another exhibit making bread while her mother works at another exhibit telling the story of the man who owned the flour mill – it is truly a family affair. The tinsmith made me a whistle and the blacksmith made me a nail.
As the day ended the clouds started to clear up and the sun came out and the rest of the day was beautiful and it ended with a dramatic sunset. We had a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant, spend some time walking on the dock the returned to the hotel for a nice warm shower and a good night sleep. PRC
For the first day of our trip we had reservations for the Acadian Village (Village Historique Acadien) and for the Chateau Albert on the grounds. We were already on our way when “Judy” Assistant Manager of the Facility called us. She said the chateau was going to be very crowded that night with families with children and wanted to know if we wanted to change our reservations for the next night. We told her it would be OK as we like children. She said OK, then called again a little while later. This time she said it would be rainy today. We assured her that this would be OK as we had rain coats. It was obvious by this time that she had probably overbooked and wanted us to change our reservations.
We probably would have but we already had reservations at an Airbnb the following night. Sure enough she called again and confessed to mistakenly overbooking. She was miserably embarrassed and offered to book another “beautiful hotel with spectacular views of the sunset.” We graciously accepted and are we glad we did.
The original Hotel Chateau Albert was built in 1907. Most of the rooms include a shower and toilet except for two. Our room was one of these. The bathroom was down the hall. We had to deal with this situation many times on the Camino but truthfully I was not looking forward to it this time. As one of the employees was giving us a tour of the Chateau we told him that we almost were going to stay there that night. 
He had heard about the situation. He said that if we had shown up and hadn’t heard about the overbooking he would have shot himself. In any case he received permission to show us the room we might have had. It was a very small room with a small bed and of course with the bathroom down the hall. After a long, rainy and humid day this would not have been ideal.
We spent the day touring the Village. No paved roads as that would not have been historically accurate. Each site portrayed a village and person who lived during a particular time period from 1773 to 1944. This included a one room schoolhouse (1869), blacksmith’s shop (1874), printer’s shop (1880) and a tavern (1880) where no women or natives were allowed. There were many more sites as you can see by the pics.
Judy booked us into a suite at Super 8 Motel in Caraquet. It definitely was more comfortable as I wanted a shower after a muddy and mosquito bitten day. After dinner we retired without doing the blog. (We were on vacation from our vacation after all.) The hotel was on the wharf. As you can see by the pics, the views were spectacular. There was a restaurant within walking distance where I had an excellent bowl of French Onion Soup. I guess they don’t call it French Onion Soup in Quebec as that would be redundant …. JY
Sunday, June 25, 2017
This is the third time we have stayed in an Airbnb. The first time was in Bilbao after the Camino, then a Yurt in New Mexico and now in the Acadian Peninsula. You never quite know what you are in for when you stay at one of these which is part of the adventure. The hostess had recently purchased this house and was still in the process of renovating it. It was so charming and cozy I hardly wanted to leave.
Our hostess couldn’t have been nicer. She apparently lived in a “camper” down the road in the winter. She decided to rent her house during the summer. The bedroom had an old fashioned, really high double bed. I practically had to take a running leap to reach the top.
We enjoyed the amenities of the lodging we had away from our trailer especially regular size showers and bigger rooms.
However, we missed the bed in our travel trailer. It is much bigger and more comfortable than the one in the motel or the Airbnb. We will sleep good tonight.
We had access to VCR in our cozy little house which we were excited about as we have not seen TV since we started this trip. The hostess (Louise) had one of our favorite foreign films, “The Intouchables.” We saw this French film originally at the Camelview Theater with English subtitles. I absolutely recommend it. However the one Louise had was the French film, but with French titles which didn’t do us much good. She also had a few movies in English thank goodness.
Speaking of French, I read that the province of New Brunswick is officially bilingual. 33 % of the New Brunswick population is French speaking. It seems that we speak to most of these folks. The signs in this province are now have the English words before the French whereas in Quebec it was the opposite. Many people speak at least some English even if their first language is French.
We had a good vacation from our vacation. We will remain in Dalhousie, New Brunswick a few more days. We leave Thursday for New Glasgow Highlands in the province of Prince Edward Island. The next few weeks we will mostly be in Nova Scotia. Then we will take an 8 hours ferry to the western shore of Newfoundland. A week later we will take a 16 hour return ferry from the eastern shore of the province back to Nova Scotia. JY
Monday, June 26, 2017
So, we are returning from our 3-day vacation from our vacation. We keep seeing cars pulled over on the side of the highway. Peter finally stops to see what‘s going on. All these people are picking wild strawberries. Of course we had to pick the berries also. I’m not crazy about strawberries, but these are really sweet and so little.
You can see we had a salad with wild strawberries with our dinner.
AND, then we stopped off for lobster. This coming Saturday is the end of lobster season. It begins again at the beginning of August. We bought an already cooked lobster (2.5 lbs) to split, a lot less trouble of course. My lobster skills are improving.
While at the Airbnb Peter got a chance to do a little fishing – he wasn’t doing any catching. JY
Canadian Maritime Provinces 