One of our bucket list items has been to take the scenic Canadian rail from Vancouver BC to Ontario. We planned and booked this trip last fall but had to cancel that trip due to some of life’s bumps in the road. Jim had a whole driving trip scheduled out on a spreadsheet, starting in Newport Rhode Island we would drive north to Prince Edward Island to visit Sandy’s relatives there and then head west driving all the way to Vancouver. Since we had the trip all planned we decided to do the same trip, just one year later. According to the spreadsheet, Jim will drive 4,500 miles in 80 hours over 18 days of driving. That averages out to 56.25 miles per hour, 250 miles per day and 4.5 hours of driving per day. The question to be asked is why not just fly to Vancouver and take the train back? That is a good question and there are multiple answers. Sandy’s parents are Canadian and she is considering getting her Canadian citizenship. Sandy spent all of her childhood summers on Prince Edward Island and has numerous relatives there that she has not seen in years. We love Quebec City and Montreal. Jim has driven from Sault Ste Marie to Vancouver in the remote past and he just loved the Canadian Rockies, Banff and British Columbia. We also love road trips. So here we go.
Our grandson Jackson, who has so much a piece of Sandy’s heart gave her the best bear hug goodbye as we departed his home.We left Newport Rhode Island on October 17. The bright orange travel bags are making their virgin voyage on this trip. They are replacing our hard to spot on the airport conveyer belt generic black bags..The rental car is a Ford Edge with a Tennessee license plate.We had a one night lay over in Boston and were fortunate to connect with Jim’s cousin Frank Artress from Tanzania who is in the area fund raising for his hospital in Tanzania. We took a lovely walk along the Charles River and spent several hours catching up on each of our lives as it has been almost four years since we have seen each other. Frank and his wife Susan would always stay with us at our home in Beacon Hill when they would come to New England to fund raise for FAME ( Foundation for African Medicine and Education). His hospital is now a renowned Level One Referral Center in the Rift Valley of Tanzania after starting 22 years ago as a mobile clinic working out of the back of a truck. Frank spotted this Red Tail Hawk along the Charles River on our walk. It seemed to be feeding off of something.The morning before our road trip we were able to meet our friend Kathy Lloy Collins for coffee at her house in Reading. She made us the most amazing mango coffee cake which was delicious and we had a great conversation around her dining room table for a few hours. Sandy and Kathy’s relationship started many years ago as nursing colleagues in an ICU but evolved into a very dear friendship that has lasted almost 50 years now.We always try to make the most of our short time home to squeeze in visits with our dear friends that mean so much to us. The night before we left was spent having dinner with Neil and Audrey in their new North End Condo and their daughter Kelly joined us. Sorry we had so much fun that we forgot to take a photo. Here we are leaving Boston after one last medical appointment for Jim. In front of our Boston home, our dear friend Peggy Scott’s residence.Our first day we travelled from Boston to Portland Maine and stayed at the Frances Hotel which is a boutique hotel in a renovated Victorian mansion.After checking in we walked to dinner and enjoyed some of these sights along the way.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the American poet was born in Portland Maine but buried in Mt Auburn cemetery in Cambridge Mass.The ever present protest in almost every city of the world.Street musician and a flat iron building.“Politically Correct” designated public bathrooms in a shipping container.Interesting Sculpture Garden in the city.Beautiful building along the Portland waterfront was the US Customs House.We had dinner at Fore Street recommended by our son-in-law Rob. Jim booked four months in advance and they only had two slots left at that time. They do have a great menu and we really enjoyed it. Would recommend.Great service and ambiance it was named one of the Gourmet magazines top 50 restaurants in the USA back in 2002.The next morning we had a delicious breakfast at Hot Suppa located in an 1860 brick Victorian on Portland’s west end. It is a New Orleans style Eatery known for its homey atmosphere $1 oysters and strong cocktails. Right up our alley!The hostess was very colorfully dressed and had pink tattoos on her hands and arm. She bid us goodbye and thanked us when we left remembering our names. This is the line of people waiting to get in when we left. We waited just under 15 minutes. Highly recommended for breakfast or brunch.
We have been blessed with spectacular weather and foliage on this road trip as you can see in this video Sandy took from the car as we drove.We stop every hour to get out of the car and walk around. One of our first stops out of Portland was at a church and graveyard. Strange that we have always enjoyed visiting graveyards in our travels as you have possibly noticed from our blogs. Maybe we have a need to connect with the dead as someday we are all destined to do or maybe it is our way of confirming that at our age we need to live each day like it is our last.We passed so many simple rural churches which New England has in abundance.We enjoyed our stops at local general stores and always purchased something to support them. Our Rental Ford Edge from Tennessee.Little did we know the trouble that awaited us at Canada’s border inspection.Sandy has memories of her parents being terrified about the border inspection. They would return home to PEI every summer and leave Sandy with relatives, returning late August to take her back home to Medford.It was nice to see this flag and welcome sign to Canada until…We were pulled aside and had to pay duty on our excess alcohol on board. They allow a certain amount duty free and then they charge an import duty, an excise tax duty AND a border levy which is 60% of the price of the bottle. The very young customs agents took a long time figuring our duty which was about $150 Canadian.. Then they decided to search our car.Agents searching our car and “seizing” what they said we had not declared. See the Titos Vodka bottle on the counter😩 that they took from our car and brought in. There was ½ bottle that we had not declared and another bottle that they had mistakenly left off of the initial duty charge. Another 30 minutes of agent muddling and another $150 charge. Such a pleasant welcome to CanadaThe other problem we faced initially before the alcohol transgression was they were not going to let us into Canada because we had no documented proof that we were leaving the country as we had not yet booked our return flight back to the US. We did however have flights booked to Colombia for December 1, 2024 so we pulled that airline confirmation up on our computer to show them and thankfully they accepted that as proof we were not staying in Canada indefinitely.Our next stopover was St John NB at some hotel we can’t remember the name of. Maybe Chateaux something but it did have a pretty church across the street but no graveyard.We were focused the following day on getting to PEI which we had not been to for 11 years.This is the 18 mile long Confederation Bridge which now connects New Brunswick Canada to PEI ( Prince Edward Island ) Canada. It is 8 miles long crossing over ice covered waters and continues to endure as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century.Prince Edward Island is one of the Eastern Canada Maritime provinces and where Sandy’s father was born. It is marked by red sandy beaches, lighthouses and fertile farmland and is renowned for seafood like lobster and mussels. Sandy’s many relatives on the Island are mostly very successful fisherman with their own very valuable fleet of boats.Here they are displaying a tuna that they caught.Charlottetown is the capital of the Island. Sandy’s family lives on the eastern tip of the Island about an hour from this capital. The Island is only 140 miles long and her Jamieson family is prominently known. Her relative Debbie Johnston is the mayor of Three Rivers in PEI. Corn fields of PEI stretch for many miles.The roads are very windy and hilly.The foliage was lovely.We will be staying in this town with Sandy’s cousin Ginny Gormley.Sandy and cousin Ginny who is like her fourth sister. Ginny’s dad Harold was Sandy’s father’s brother and Sandy lived with them when she summered on the Island as a young girl.Ginny organized a Jamieson cousin gathering for Sandy’s homecoming. These are cousins she has not seen in almost 40 years. It really warmed Sandy’s heart to think so many of them made the effort to come.Here are Sandy’s cousins Ginny and Eldon who just celebrated their 80th birthdays. Good genes in the Jamieson family for sure. And it gets even better. Pictured on the left is Sandy’s cousin Eileen age 85 and to the right her sister Jean who will be 89 in December. Their older sisters (not pictured) are Doris 90 and Sister Elizabeth (a catholic nun) 92.After our cousin gathering Ginny took us to St Paul’s Church Hall to a ceilidh performance. Pronounced shaylee.
A ceilidh is a traditional social gathering that originated in Scotland and Ireland. The word comes from the Gaelic word for “gathering” or “party”. Jim took this video of one of the performers singing.The next morning we went with Ginny to breakfast in Montague at the Lady Slipper restaurant and cousin Kevin came in as we were finishing. Kevin is Ginny’s younger brother. Sorry no photos but he is very handsome and an incredibly talented builder.Since Ginny knows we like to walk she took us to the Confederation trail to get us some mileage exercise. This is a beautiful trail that follows what was once a railroad passage.Mussel Shell Sculpture along the trail. PEI mussels are known for their sweet flavor, they are a type of farmed mussels that differ from other mussels in their cultivation as they are farmed from seed to harvest then cultivated.This brick building is the Garden of the Gulf Museum which was originally a post office. It is dedicated to collecting artifacts from the Three River Revival and was PEI’s first museum. We have never visited it.The following are pictures from our short trail walk.Day two of our PEI stay was to visit homesteads and sites that were significant in Sandy’s childhood on the Island. Number One of course was her parent’s home in Sturgeon PEI which they purchased when Sandy was an adult and married.They named their home “The Bayview” as you can see why from this photo.Here we are in front of “The Bayview”.We were told by Ginny that this is the Jamieson Tree but unfortunately she can’t give us the history of why it was titled this.Another photo of The Bayview from the side of the building. It was a three bedroom one bath home which were all on the top floor. The first floor consisted of a large kitchen with a pantry room and a dining room and living room. There was a garage, potting shed and outhouse on the property which consisted of 60 acres of land.This home belonged to Sandy’s paternal grandparents and then passed on to her Dad’s youngest brother Philip. His son Cyril lives there now. Sandy stayed here with her parents when they would come home to visit in the summer. After her parents left, Sandy would stay at the house next to this which belonged to her uncle Harold and aunt Reta who were Ginny’s parents.This homestead belonged to Sandy’s uncle Howard and aunt Gladys. Her cousins Dottie and Ralph inherited their parents home and live there now. Sandy’s dad Richard Jamieson had 7 brothers and two sisters. Five brothers remained on the Island where they raised their families. Her dad and two brothers and two sisters all moved to Boston where her mom and dad met and married.This is Panmure Island Beach which is where all the Jamieson clan would gather on Sundays to go swimming and have cookouts. The ocean was freezing, numbingly cold even on hot days.This is St Paul’s Catholic church where the Jamieson family faithfully attended Mass every Sunday morning. Here Sandy is showing her Dad’s name on a monument outside the church to honor PEI’s residents who were veterans of various wars. Sandy’s Dad was in WWII on a Navy Aircraft Carrier in the Pacific Ocean. There are quite a few of her relatives names on this monument.Every trip to PEI includes a visit to the church graveyard to pay respects to our deceased relatives. Here are Ginny’s parents, Sandy’s uncle Harold and wife Reta.Ginny’s brother Leo who tragically died at the early age of 39 when he choked on a scallop.Ginny’s other brother Hal who sadly died from lung cancer. He was like a brother to Sandy and would call her every Christmas Eve.Uncle Howard and wife Gladys who baked the best cookies.Uncle Philip.Sandy never knew this aunt who was married to her Uncle Philip as she died at the age of 20 giving birth to their only son Cyril. On our last night in PEI we went to play Bingo at Bingoworld with Ginny and her son Stephen. It cost us $100 Canadian dollars to play for 3 hours and we did not win a penny. We did however bring Ginny luck as she won close to $300.Compare Ginnie’s number of cards to ours. She was playing all of those cards and also looking out for our plays.
We got up very early and left PEI with the promise to return again next year. Here is a video showing the spectacular foliage on the Island.Here are some shots of nice churches that we passed leaving PEI.Our last rest stop on PEI, another church and cemetery.
It is always very special for Sandy to return to PEI where all the relatives welcome her home. She has great childhood memories of many summers spent on the island with all of her cousins, aunts and uncles. It is quite poignant returning now with all the aunts and uncles deceased and the cousins getting on in years.
Hello to you both! Glad you had a beautiful trip to PEI. We just missed you. We left PEI on October 5. My name is Heather and I am the daughter of Eileen.
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