LOOKING BACK

Lee has uploaded to a PICASA Web Album an edited selection of 180 (!) digital images from our three week journey "onward into the past."

Highlights of the trip include all the information we picked up along the way about Heidi's family history, not only the documentation uncovered but also "the sense of place" developed as a result of visiting so many of the locations that, until now, have existed only as place names.  We also now know her ancestors on the Crosby, the Bent and even the Durkee side were "Planters," a term we'd not known before this trip. 

Nova Scotia itself proved quiet, laid back, friendly and replete with comfortable accommodations and enticing food -- a refuge in many ways from "the cares of the world."   Aside from the tourist crowds at Peggy Cove, the ubiquitous Tim Horton franchises and the retail shopping strip outside Kentville, the entire province seemed remarkably free of the twenty-first-century global commercialism which repeats itself in location after location elsewhere around the world.

The coastal scenery everywhere proved a photographer's dream and soothing to the senses as well -- human interactions with the surrounding environment came across as less exploitative and much more sustainable than usually experienced in other parts of the contemporary world.  The brightly colored fishing boats bobbing in harbor after harbor (or marooned on the tidal plane) and the gaily colored houses dotting the countryside all seemed very much "at home", peaceful and content.

Annapolis Royal and Lunenburg were especially delightful.  The Habitation, the high tech media presentation on the Acadians and the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic proved both informative and entertaining, adding to our appreciation of the area's history and culture.

If the drive weren't so time consuming and far distant, no doubt we'd become regular visitors.  Next time, however, we'll fly to Halifax instead ...

WINDING DOWN AND HEADING HOME

The day, our last on the road before sprinting for home. began with an elegant breakfast coupled with wonderful sunny Autumn views out over the valley -- a great way to begin!

The Columbus Day holiday gave us the opportunity as well to visit with Dianne's daughter Susannah, her husband, Nick, and their kids, Ben and Rowan.  We all went out to an outdoor sculpture exhibit at a local orchard in the morning and then returned for a splendid lunch before the two of us left to begin the last leg of our trip back to Ohio.

 

Our highway travel through out the day took us through some wonderful Fall scenery, especially in western Massachusetts and the Berkshires, flooded with warmth and sunshine.  This made the drive all the more bearable, so we drove on and on until we reached Seneca Falls this evening.  A chicken wing dinner at Abigail's next to our motel satisfied our minimal food cravings in a most satisfying way.

Tomorrow will made the final dash for home (where, we are assured, both Rocco and Gracie are surviving nicely).

Heidi is also working diligently this evening to reestablish phone contact with assorted folks we've not been in contact with for the last several weeks.  It appears we'll be able to hit the ground running once we get back to town!

One more entry to come will summarize the trip and include an illustrated overview -- watch for it in a day or two!

IMAGINE THAT!

This morning, following an early breakfast with Janet and Ken, Heidi and Lee hopped into the Honda and sped off, enroute to Easthampton, Massachusetts, and the home of good friend, Diane Hobbs. 

We made such good time that we were able to work in a forty-five minute return visit with Heidi's Aunt Free in Exeter in the early afternoon.  It was good to share some of our family history discoveries with her.  She was also able to confirm or correct some of our finds -- turns out, for example, that the house in Port Maitland belonged to Abby's grandparents, not Heidi's.

Having arrived in Easthampton in the late afternoon, we walked around the Kendall retirement community in which Diane has taken up residence before settling down to a DELICIOUS salmon dinner.  Good conversation throughout proved an added bonus. 

Because we spent most of the day driving (often through great stretches of Fall color, especially in the area above Bangor in Maine where the seasonal tints are at their peak) Lee didn't take any photographs today.  We promise some will be incorporated in tomorrow's entry ...

PIECES OF THE (FAMILY) PUZZLE

The weather outside has returned to "delightful" with lots of sun and a cloudless sky.  We wandered around the neighborhood this morning, up to a nearby hunting lodge and down to the shore, to soak it all in ...



... but have otherwise spent time pouring over various clippings, slides and photographs related to Heidi and Ken's family.

We've pieced together some interesting insights.  Ken and a friend had traveled to Nova Scotia back in 1976 and had some images of the house in which their grandfather was born, a site -- now vacant -- that we were able to confirm that we, too, had visited this time around.  The key was a nearby church, still standing but boarded up, which Ken had also photographed.  So now we have a "before" and "after" picture of the house and empty lot, verifiable from two sources (including a picture their mother shared with Ken before he set out on his trip thirty-five years ago) that this was, indeed, the "Lake George birthplace".

Even more fascinating was a bound booklet given out at the grandparents' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration (attended by a hundred guests!) and the accompanying newspaper account of the festivities.  Included in the invitation was a poem written by William J. Rutledge -- who, we figured out, had not only presided over the grandparents' marriage in Port Maitland in 1904 but had, we now believe, acted as Georgia Bent's guardian after the early deaths of her parents and had been instrumental, as well, in bringing the two grandparents together.

Also present at the anniversary party was the young wedding flower girl who, the poem revealed, had once observed the couple kissing "which gran'ma said meant wedding nigh."  The pre-existing family lore had always portrayed this second marriage (of a widower left with four young children and an older orphan spinster) as, at least in part, one of convenience.  The flowery anniversary poem disproved this convincingly and left quite the opposite impression.  Both Heidi and Ken do remember the devotion the two showed one another, so this revelation wasn't all that surprising; but it did incorporate the notion of a genuine courtship into the equation.

Several other items, a business card and a wedding announcement, also provided specific addresses that hadn't surfaced before while newspaper articles supplied some interesting details surrounding various birthday and wedding celebrations.

Slowly we're gaining a more well rounded sense of this era of Martin-Bent family history, an enriching and increasingly fascinating encounter with personal history!`

 A SUMPTUOUS DINNER AT CHANDLER RIVER LODGE IN JONESBORO WITH KEN AND JANET MARTIN

A STOP IN ADDISON, MAINE

Up at the crack of dawn, a (really nice) pick-up breakfast left out for us by our Bread and Roses hosts, then off for the quick half hour trek to Digby timed to arrive an hour before the 8:00 a.m. ship's departure for Saint John.  By 11:00 a.m. we're "back in town" and looking for lunch.  Parking downtown Saint John was problematic until rescued by a passer-by providing change for the meter -- and, in the end, lunch at Beatty and the Beastro (!) was not really worth all the effort.

Fortunately the drive through St. Stephen and across the border into Maine and further down the coast was undertaken in the midst of a bright, sunny, if really chilly, day along a beautiful, quite scenic, route.

We arrived at Ken and Janet Martin's house on East Side Road in Addison mid-afternoon and spent much of the rest of the day catching Ken up to date on family history - and looking at some treasures Ken recently uncovered among their mother's effects, including photographs and newspaper clippings, wedding invitations and obituaries.

Good thing we're here until Sunday!

COMPLETING THE CIRCLE

The stormy weather has retreated from the scene but left in its wake the first really cold weather of the season - we even had some snow-like pellets skittering off the windshield this afternoon as we drove along the shore!

Our final full day here in Nova Scotia found us early on packing up and leaving our lodgings in Wolfville, stopping on the outskirts of town to pick up some of the apples for which the region is well known.  A short drive took us to a "look off" giving us a grand view of the entire Minas Bay area and, a bit further along at Scott's Bay, a glimpse of Cape Split (a point of rocky shoreline still a five hour hike away).

We drove back roads through apple orchards to Kentville where we stopped to do a couple of hours genealogical research at the Kentville County Courthouse Museum Archives.  The Bent family who lived in the area was the focus of our inquiries.  We ascertained specificaly lthat both the Bents and the Crosbys were Planters, arriving from Cape Cod to take up residence in the area in 1760.  That qualifies Heidi twice over, allowing her (and her descendants) to become member(s) of the Descendants of the Planters, akin the the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Following a quick lunch, we continued on down the coast, driving through Aylesford (where Heidi's grandmother was born) and, later, heading over to Howard's Wharf to visit the rocky shoreline yet again.  We arrived in Annapolis Royale at the Bread and Roses Bed and Breakfast, from which we began this entire odyssey a little over nine days ago, in the middle of the afternoon.

From here we'll drive the short distance to Digby tomorrow morning to catch the ferry back to Saint John, then on to Ken (Heidi's brother) and Janet Martin's home in Addison, Maine, for a couple of days' visit.  The odyssey continues ...

SO WHAT DOES ONE DO IN THE RAIN AROUND HERE?

Well, Heidi and Lee sat around much of the morning after breakfast in the lovely surroundings of our BnB here in Wolfville, catching up on email and such, before setting out for a country drive.

SITTING IN PARLOR WITH HEIDI.  THE STAIN GLASS WINDOWS ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER

That drive took us first -- quite by accident -- to a fine view of the Acadian dykes built in the seventeenth century by the early French settlers in the area and the resulting farm land salvaged from the sea.

Then we found ourselves at the Grand Pre National Historical Site honoring those same settlers.  Their saga, however, is not a happy one since they were caught up in international disputes between the British and the French (or, rather, since religious loyalties carried more weight back then, between British Protestants and French Catholics) during much of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century.

After 1755, following a British triumph in the ongoing clashes between the two European powers, the British confiscated all Acadian holdings and expelled around 10,000 of them from Nova Scotia altogether for refusing to sign oaths of unqualified allegiance to the English monarch.  Not a pretty story but one conveyed in a VERY sophisticated audio-visual presentation involving high definition video and 3D holograms!

The site also features an archeological dig and a beautiful memorial hall built to resemble an Acadian church and set in the midst of a lush, Victorian style garden (inherited from a private railroad line which built the original in the 1930s).

THE FIELDS, THE MEMORIAL MUSEUM, THE MEMORIAL WINDOW
AND A COMMEMORATIVE PAINTING OF ACADIAN FARM FAMILIES AT WORK

We then drove over hill and dale across the valley, up along a forested ridge and down to Hills Harbor, hoping to feast on what is purportedly the best lobster in Canada while also observing the tidal tides in the Bay of Fundy.  Upon arrival, we found the tide was out, leaving lots of lobster boats stranded upriver in the small harbor; and, unfortunately, the lobster restaurant, closed for the season.

Since the windy, cold, rainy weather we've encountered all day hereabouts appears to be an honest-to-goodness Nor'easter, we won't attempt to return to Hills Harbor this evening to witness the high tide due then -- you'll just have to imagine the tide level rising to the water level apparent on the wooden pilings in the images above...

Instead tonight we'll head out for another tasty seafood dinner, this time at Acton right in Downtown Wolfville.

A CLOUDY DAY ALONG THE SOUTHERN COAST

We escaped the rain until late in the day. The dark gray overcast skies actually enhanced the sense of coastal chill as we drove towards Halifax, stopping first in Chester and then in Peggy's Cove before heading overland to Wolfville where we are stopping at the Victorian Heritage Bed and Breakfast for the next two nights.

HERE'S WHERE WE ENDED UP AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY AT THE HISTORIC VICTORIAN BED AND BREAKFAST IN WOLFVILLE.  THE DOOR TO THE LEFT LEADS TO OUT FIRST FLOOR ROOM.

Chester appears the ideal seaside community, filled with beautiful homes overlooking tranquil bay views in every direction. Sailboats and small boats at anchor offshore add to the serenity of the scene. We drove around town, got out of the car several times to admire the view and lusted after most of the weathered shingle hillside residences we encountered along the shore. Then we got out of town quickly before jealousy and envy could corrupt our sense of well being!

Peggy's Cove was another kettle of fish entirely. For the first time since our arrival in Nova Scotia we were engulfed in a “must see” tourist destination. The tiny village (full time population: 64) has become perhaps the most famous site in the Canadian Maritimes as amply illustrated by the almost constant stream of tour buses pulling into the parking lot disgorging visitors who swarm the rocky coast for the best shot of the iconic lighthouse before returning to their vehicles to be whisked off somewhere else. We joined right in!

The resulting images illustrate the appeal of the place (and demonstrate just how creative one can be in disguising the touristy nature of the entire experience).
 

Among those digital images from Lee's camera today, one stood out as the best he's shot to date.  It's a real winner!

Lunch was a mug of hot chocolate and a (delicious) Cornish pastie devoured while seated on the outside deck of a small coffee shop in Peggy's Cove, so this evening we splurged a bit and had dinner at Le Caveau, an award winning restaurant which is part of a winery in nearby Grand Pre – excellent wine and an excellent meal into the bargain.