Sep 26 2005 10:25 AM
Far Away (Like a Radio)
This is no “Mr. Met Does Binghamton” -- just some some places we went and things we saw and heard in Nova Scotia.
We had initially planned to ferry from Bar Harbor Maine to Yarmouth, N.S. via The Cat but our schedule got fubared and on the fly we drove all the way to New Brunswick to catch a different ferry that took us across the Bay of Fundy from St. John, New Brunswick to Digby, Nova Scotia. This turned out to be a really fortunate accident.
Sunset aboard the ferry. Not pictured: exhilerating fresh air, strong winds and temps in the mid-60s.
Digby is a popular summer tourist area in N.S., with lots to do on the water. We arrived just offseason so while the town itself was slow, it was also laid back and uncrowded. On the advice of some guys we met on the boat, we set out early to explore the Digby Neck peninsula and ferry again to Long Island, one of the many islands along the coast.
Early morning fog at a Long Island fishing town. Digby is famous for its scallops and lobster.
We hiked to a weird natural attraction known as “balancing rock.” This is a huge rock that apparently fell off the oceanside cliff, landed on another rock and despite an apparently precarious position has stayed there for years amid storms and constant winds and whatever else.
We signed up to go whale watching from one of those Jaques Cousteau-style Zodiac boats (basically an inflatable speedboat). Before we went they made you wear the life-preserver jumpsuit that inspired the Mets’ 2003 spring training jerseys.
Captian Tom didn’t waste our time with safety instructions. Idling in the bay, he spot some spouting water, say “11 o’clock! Hang on!” and gun the thing out there:
We saw lots of whales and seals, some very close, and took lots of pictures. Many appear just as mlarge black blobs on the surface of the water, so the trick was trying to get one as he made a descent back underwater. This was the best we got, the endangered Right Whale diving:
Up the coast some from Digby, we set up an oceanside camp and stayed for a couple of days. The tent needed xtra tying down, as we were between a mountain and the sea and winds were awesome. We also survived the one and only rainstorm of the week in here one night.
Ever since we’d hit New Brunswick we’d been hearing a catchy blues-rock song on local radio called “Far Away Like A Radio” -- so often we’d know it by heart by the time we got home. The chorus went:
All broke down
Coming in low
Far away like a radio
red lights flash
static and snow
far away like a radio
It wasn’t long before this became the theme song of the trip, appropriate as I tried (with varying success) to tune in Met games. I did catch the last 2 innings of the game won by a Cairo single off Paul Quantrill. Easier to hear Sox games from Maine. I learned last night that “Far Away Like A Radio” was a new single by a Canadian artist I’d never heard of before (natch) called Colin James -- I’d heard that radio stations in Canada are required to play a certain % of Canadian artists and that in part would explain the heavy rotation. The song is not available yet on iTunes -- but you can stream it at colinjames.com
We also played a lot of travel Scrabble. This game ended in my favor on the marriage-rattling final-play bingo, BUNGLERS:
Not far from our camp was historic Annapolis Royal. Here they re-created a French-built fortress/village looted and destroyed by Americans in the 1700s. Acadian settlements here were also overtaken by the English and deported to places like the Appalacians and Lousiana:
We did more hiking and saw this waterfall
Due to the positioning of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick landmasses, tides in this part of the Fundy Bay are the highest anywhere on Earth, so much so that they generate electric power by harnessesing the 50-foot highs.
Eventually we packed up and made our way east to Halifax. We hadn’t realized it, but we arrived in Halifax for the first time on the same night as Pearl Jam (show was sold out, kids at the bars later said it was good). In addition to being a large seaport, Halifax is also a college town with lots of funky bars. That didn’t stop us from immediately falling into a tourist trap when we signed up for a “tour” of the Alexander Keith’s brewery only to get lame, Disneyfied local actors playing 1863 characters in a transparent attempt to distract you from realizing this wasn’t a working brewery at all -- just the site of one -- and that the beer you’re drinking isn’t all that great either. These tactics were beneath Budweiser, and if I hadn’t felt bad for the actors -- who outnumbered our tour group 5-to-4 -- I’d have walked out because my hair hurt watching it all and I needed a beer. Boo, Alexander Keith’s. So we drank local beers Propeller and Garrison instead.
In local museums we learned how half of Halifax was horifically leveled in 1917 in an explosion claiming more lives that the Chicago Fire and the San Fransisco Earthquake combined (and then some) when a ship carrying tons of explosives crashed and caught fire in the harbor. Halifax has been strategic port (mainly for the Brit Empire) for hundreds of years, defended heavily by an hilltop citadel 5 blocks long and deep overlooking the entire city which was cool to tour but not much to photograph. Here’s a bit of downtown Halifax from its South Street Seaport-ish waterfront on a windy grey morning:
We eventually had to make it back to U.S. via Yarmouth and en route we tuned into a public radio station playing the tail end of a “50 most essential Canadian pop songs of the last 100 years” countdown. As explained by the DJ, this was a Cranepoolian ranking project where they engaged critics and geeks to debate for months as to what was eligible then took votes. We only heard the top 7, but I had zero guesses as to what they would be; only the vaguest familiarity with Nos. 6 and 1; and had never heard No. 4.:
7. Joni Mitchell: “Both Sides Now”
6. Gordon Lightfoot: “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”
5. The Guess Who: “American Woman”
4. Stan Rogers “Northwest Passage”
3. Neil Young: “Heart of Gold”
2. Barenaked Ladies: “If I had a Million $$”
1. Ian & Sylvia: “Four Strong Winds”
The singers of No. 1 were of course the duo parodied by Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara in A Mighty Wind -- overall, a whale of a time and lots Fundy too.