East Coast

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In early July we explored a bit the East Coast of Canada. Kate and her ARF colleagues (Bob, Brian and Louis) had an EAP conference in St. John's Newfoundland. I was invited to come along, carry the luggage and join in the fun. On this adventure we were in St John's, St Pierre and Miquelon (France), Cape Breton, Halifax and Peggy's Cove. That's Peggy's Cove in the picture at left.

We arrived to find St John's much cooler than we had expected — we had left sunny and warm to find it about 9C, overcast, raining, windy and people were in their parkas! But the weather did turn around to 20C and more. I recall sunny days where we visited Quidi Vidi Harbor and hiked over Signal Hill to come down into the Battery. While we were hiking Signal Hill the boys in our gang went out to sea with a small fishing boat — they got to talking with the fishers and were invited along for the ride. There was a conference day where we visited Cape Spear, Quidi Vidi (again), a fishing village south of Cape Spear and back again to Signal Hill. I had time of my own, while Kate was at the conference, to explore the city. 

We stayed in a student residence at Memorial University where the conference was held. There are several pictures where it looks like our room was party central. It was. Some of our group woke us up early one morning — they were going to attend the AA meeting and wanted to know if we had anything left to drink. One of these all night boys was Kate's boss Bob (an Episcopalian minister).

We spent several evenings exploring the bars in town. I recall getting into one bar that had only just reopened at midnight (it had been closed for some serving violation) and staying very late when they were supposed to be closed! Kate danced with Louis and Brian. We went home in relatively decent time, some of our gang staggered home very late. All the worse for wear given our plans for the next day.

After the conference the gang of us hired a taxi to take us to Fortune on the Burin Peninsula where we took a ferry out to St Pierre and Miquelon. It was a long hung over drive across the Avalon Peninsula to the north west (past places like Come by Chance) and then down the Burin Peninsula to the South and west. Google maps has it as a 4 hour drive. It seemed like a very long drive over mostly scruffy land.

The ferry to St Pierre and Miquelon (we were in the largest town at St Pierre) takes an hour and a half but at the end of the ride you're in France! Fortunately Louis, who was born and raised in Montreal, had a good command of the language. In spite of this being a struggling fishing village one still dined late and formal. And our hotel seemed to have old European plumbing — we couldn't have more than one shower going at a time between our two rooms. The water flow was a meagre trickle. The three men (Bob, Louis and Brian) shared a room next door to ours.

So we had a day in France and then flew back to Canada on a small turbo prop plane arriving at the Sydney Airport on Cape Breton Island. There we rented a car and headed off for what should have been a 4-5 hour drive to Halifax where we were expected that evening at a dinner party hosted by some friends from the Nova Scotia equivalent of ARF. We loaded up with a case of beer for the car ride and each of us got a bottle of wine to take to the party .... when we arrived at the party we were late and only one bottle of wine remained.

That evening, at some fancy hotel in downtown Halifax, Brian and Louis had had enough of Bob so he stayed in our room. Late in the evening, I must admit alcohol was involved, we three scaled the fence to go for a swim in the hotel pool. A very tolerant security guard came around and sent us home to bed. They could have kicked us out! Lee, the secretary who had booked us into the hotel, had us listed as Reverend Brooks, Doctor Graham and Professor Quinton — only one of those titles was accurate. Kate did finish her PhD. some years later, I never finished mine.

The last morning Bob and Reg went to Peggy's Cove, which is only a short distance to the south. It's a pretty spot with a lighthouse and sheltered bay. Reg discovered that there were all these wild mussels in the bay and tried one ... raw .... Later that morning he was sick as a dog and we almost missed our plane back to Toronto.

Looking back I'd say "We were kinda crazy then".

— Slides from 1981 scanned in April of 2023, these notes prepared from hazy memories of the adventures.