Walking near Cardigan Bay, PEI, serenity abounded: No bugs
buzzing about as a cool morning breeze blew across my receding hair line. A cow
mooed. I smelled hay. A paved road, void of any other activity, stretched
before me for about half a kilometer before the asphalt rose to meet the
horizon—and then I heard danger. A humming sound. A vehicle off in the
distance. Moving too slowly to be a combine on a mission
to mince me?
No, just my Walter-Mitty mind conjuring trouble. The car or
truck was probably on a different road.
The humming became louder, but I didn’t panic.
I turned left, on to a PEI red road, as a speedy silver car
emerged from the hilltop. The driver had no intention of slowing down, and I
didn’t establish eye contact for that would have raised suspicion. Instead, I continued
my walk down the sloped road, back to the safe house, as my would-be
adversary searched in vain.
I continued the mission—regular readers know it’s to delve
into Canadian culture to improve Can-Am relations.
After a week-long venture into New Brunswick and then PEI,
my accomplice and I have returned stateside…through Calais, Maine, through the rain
on Route 9 and to the On the Run convenience store in Bangor, where Canadian
spies count their blessings for having avoided the authorities, once again.
Now safe and sound at headquarters, I present these Top
Twelve highlights.
1.
CAN-AM Crossing at Calais/St. Stephen: A fifteen-minute
wait allowed us to listen to National Public Radio’s program called Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. Funny.
2.
Familiar Haunt: Niger Reef Tea House, where the chef
and his crew served so grand a meal (baked haddock with mango chutney for me;
for my wife: steak, grilled on the barbeque five meters from our table on the
deck). My wife described the experience as idyllic and then said, “I don’t want
it to end.”
3.
New Haunt #1, Algonquin Resort, which
some say is inhabited by super natural entities, has re-opened after a much
ballyhooed $38M makeover. The hotel looks and feels stately but not overstated,
but the dislodged spirits, or perhaps only the highly-touted “jilted
bride,” were not altogether happy with the changes. So says one concierge.
Nor were some of the construction workers who had to disrupt them.
4.
New Haunt #2, Katy’s
Cove: No ghosts, so “haunt” in the supernatural sense isn’t what I mean.
But we’ll probably return, even though we’re not swimmers or beach bunnies. As
we stood near the canteen at closing time, we admired the cove feeding into
Passamaquoddy Bay.
5.
Fish and Chips: Rick’s
is renowned and justly so. Less heralded is the Murray
River Corner Café. “Best fish sandwich, evah,”
my wife wrote in the guest book.
6.
Cape
Bear: As tourists and locals flocked to Charlottetown for the
Canada Day fireworks, my wife and I watched the swallows flitting to and fro
near the cliffs. We had this part of the island almost all to ourselves. One
islander, who talked hockey with me before I entered the lighthouse to join my
wife, was welcome company.
7.
Canada’s
Smallest Library: In Cardigan (the town, not the aforesaid bay), an 11 x 11
humble edifice stood on the shores of the Cardigan River. Inside, on the tile
floor, my gaze fixed to the right: five rows of non-fiction. Books included Windows 7 for Dummies, New
England: Land of Scenic Splendor. Between Princess
Margaret and Going
to Extremes, I spied a book whose one-word title in red and gold
letters enticed me. Lanny. Could it
be Lanny
McDonald? The mustached man on the front cover delighted me as I wondered
how much he might reveal about my beloved Colorado
Rockies. I scanned the index to find familiar names like Mike Kitchen. Ah,
but I didn’t have a library card, so my accomplice channeled Jason Bourne and
took pictures of the pages that mentioned Rockies players.
8.
Elmira: Conducting research about trains for the novel
I’m writing, the kind folks at “the End of
the Line,” a PEI
Museum and Heritage Foundation site, didn’t have a business card. So they
gave me a tiny gift box imprinted with their contact information.
9.
Basin Head:
Barefoot on the beach with my wife, I shared my fears and other pent-up feelings
(a spy can cry, by the way). After lunch from Skallywags, I
took stock of my surroundings: To the south, the Atlantic—where the ferry
should be passing any time; to the northeast, windmill tops whirling.
10. East Point
Lighthouse: A pleasant chat with the Visitor Centre workers about their
love of PEI and the music they prefer (see Island Music, below). They said the
ferry to the Magdalen
Islands would be passing by in about fifteen minutes. At the gift shop next
door, I became attached to the map showing the deportation
of French-speaking inhabitants, from Acadie—present-day Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and PEI—to North American British colonies. I love maps, but it was
time to move on.
11. Island Music: Before we left
the gift shop, I listened to the featured music: Fiddlers’
Sons. While in the spy car, we had the radio tuned to CFCY, and I
enjoyed new stuff, like “Invisible” by Hunter Hays. I also sung along with a new-to-me, “It’s Friday,” by Dean Brody.
The lyrics and beat caught my tongue and toes because Great Big Sea contributed a
Celtic cadence to the country tune.
12. Beating the Heat: With the temperature
approaching 30°C
and international anti-spy organizations hunting us, we escaped indoors to see
a movie. The Grand Seduction, a wonderful story about saving a
Newfoundland fishing village, seemed like a confluence of Mad-Eye Moody, Rare Birds
and rural revival efforts featured in Saltscapes. (The pre-movie entertainment: my
wife reading, from her camera, a few pages from the book she would
purchase when we would return home.)
