After a great night of sleep in a cozy bed on calm seas, we were up before dawn to watch the sunrise on the ocean, a first for both of us. Too often, we are the only ones out for sunrise, but not today. There were easily half a dozen others already waiting when we arrived on the sun deck. A woman was sitting on one of the steps with her journal and a sketchbook, ready to document her experience sitting here at the back of the ferry, leaving me in admiration that she was taking the time to let the sunrise wash over her for inspiration. Meanwhile, I stood adjacent to her, snapping off photos of the changing light and shifting clouds and wishing I had the presence of mind at that moment to indulge in the same luxury, but I was preoccupied with a raging sense of urgency to return to my writing because I was so far behind with writing about our days here in the Maritimes.

Try as I might, I couldn’t leave the deck as the drama playing out across the sky was too compelling to turn my back on. Plus, we hadn’t seen the sun yet.

With a low band of clouds on the distant horizon, the sun took its sweet time before finally crawling into the sky. Along the way, our eyes could appreciate some terrific god rays way out in the distance, but getting them to show up in the same spectacular fashion in a photo wasn’t working out very well.

While I scrambled back to the lounge for more writing, Caroline took the opportunity to utilize the shower in our cabin and then did me the greatest favor: she packed up our stuff, allowing me to type away until shortly before pulling into North Sydney, Nova Scotia. [People started lining up at the entrances to the car decks early, almost an hour before our actual arrival. We didn’t want to be THOSE people who are not in their car ready to go when everyone is driving off the ferry – Caroline]

Would you believe we are looking over the River Bourgeois at St John the Baptist Church in Cannes? Well, you’d be correct in doubting me, except I never meant to infer a thing about this being Cannes, France, but rather Cannes, Nova Scotia. We’ve been traveling south along the shore of the Bras d’Or Lake, still on Cape Breton Island.

Our stops will be kept to a minimum today as we have more than 300 miles (500km) to cover before reaching Shepody, New Brunswick, on the coast of the Bay of Fundy.

But the stops will not be so infrequent that we will have nothing to remember the day by.

And when we encounter something as enticing as this giant blueberry sign in Antigonish County, well, that must be captured.

Here’s a puzzle: if you are looking for the Whistleberry Market, is it in Alma, Westville, Salt Springs, or Greenhill? That depends on the source, but they all still point to the same store off the Trans Canada Highway in Pictou County, and that’s all that matters. And it does matter because we needed a stop for multiple reasons: the first and the one pictured here was that I wanted more of their beef jerky I’ve been enjoying the last couple of weeks. Secondly, it was lunchtime for us, and I wanted to try the smoked pork chop we had to skip on our first stop at this market on our way to Cape Breton Island. And lastly, Caroline hoped to nab another basket of Damson plums. While waiting for our lunch, Caroline found packets of locally baked oatcakes, and we left with four of those, too.

Forever on the lookout for yarn, Caroline spotted two shops on the map up on a road that would bring us through Tatamagouche, and who doesn’t want to visit a town with that name, so the detour was a certainty. Our timing couldn’t have been worse, though, because both of them, Lismore Sheep Farm in River John and Sisterhood Fibres in the aforementioned Tatamagouche, were only open until 4:00. It would have to be one or the other due to our encroachment on their closing times. Caroline thought the farm was the shop more likely to offer local wool, so Lismore it was. The farm has a large shop with yarns, all kinds of sheep products, and local gifts, and visitors can meet the lambs in the barn, too.

Our kind of debutantes.

You may not be able to see it quite yet, but a pair of socks and a big shawl are in Caroline’s arms. [Wool from the sheep out back, processed by MacAusland’s Mill on Prince Edward Island! – Caroline]

There’s nothing I can tell you about this other than there was something about the aesthetic that spoke to me.

Another defunct segment of the railway that is no longer used by trains, this bridge is crossing the Waughs River. Investigating further, I learned that a three-day-a-week passenger train passes south of here between Quebec and Halifax.

Though it inches closer to sunset, we are on the Sunrise Trail, avoiding the Trans Canada Highway as long as we can.

There’s a reason for all of this brevity and a bit of urgency to reach our next destination; we are in a bit of a race to get back to Maine because, in about 36 hours, Caroline will be boarding a plane for her return to Arizona. If you thought I was referring to the brevity in writing, I can admit that I’m enjoying a moment to say little and move on with this because after penning over 55,000 words for the 765 photos shared for this vacation so far, I’m reaching the point where a break would be appreciated. Along the way, I’m often asked why I feel it’s imperative to push so hard through documenting so much about these adventures, and my answer is always the same, “You can have no idea the role these posts play in maintaining vivid memories that stand out against the background of routines and would otherwise be lost over time.”

After passing through the center of Amherst, we had to turn around for a closer look at these beautiful homes because, by that time, we were enamored by this town’s charm and knew that we should add it to our permanent memory bank.

Across the Maritimes, we’ve seen many memorials for World War I and World War II.

The architecture of Amherst features a lot of heavy buildings that appear to be well-maintained, and then there was the street we drove in on from the northeast with many examples of what Caroline and I would consider to be palatial and pricey homes. With a population of only about 9,500, how it has fought back the decay suffered by so many other small towns is commendable.

While the populist revolution is sounded in nearly every corner of the places we’ve been visiting, Canada appears to be a tolerant nation with many signs and symbols across the Maritimes demonstrating that hospitality. On the other hand, there is no love loss for Justin Trudeau, who appears to be a popular guy to throw disdain upon. Looking into it, it looks like it’s due to the economic issues surrounding the convulsion of society trying to navigate the treacherous waters of modernization, the loss of traditional industries that I suppose many thought would return, such as fishing, forestry, and mining, while the cost of living continues to skyrocket. Like its southern neighbor, Canada has likely allowed too much speculative money from private equity to affect the price of housing. Of course, I’m not an economist, and the nuances of the need to pander to such money sources are beyond my ability to distill the logic of creating such disparities for haves and have-nots, so you can just consider this to be me writing out of my ass. Nice rainbow sidewalk, though.

[John didn’t mention a couple more tidbits: Shortly after we left Amherst, we joined the Trans Canada Highway because it was getting late, and we had over 60 miles left to go to our lodgings in Shepody Bay. Feeling hungry and approaching Moncton, New Brunswick, we decided it would be our best bet for hot food. We thought we’d like lobster rolls one more time, and after going through the options, we settled on Skipper Jack’s Maritime Restaurant. Funny enough, I had looked through the menu of another restaurant recommended as a top choice for lobster rolls and found that theirs came with celery, something we now knew we’d abhor. Skipper Jack’s was incredibly busy on a Friday night but absolutely worth the wait. Our lobster rolls were meaty and delicious, and the waitstaff was courteous and cheery in the face of this deluge of hungry customers. Afterward, we drove the remaining stretch to Shepody Bay in almost complete darkness as soon as we left the major towns. It was hard to make out where we were in relationship to the Bay of Fundy, which we knew had to be close by because the inn had been  advertised as having “Bay View.” – Caroline]