New Brunswick, Canada - The Miramichi- Irish Capital of Canada. Kouchoubiguac, Shediac.

Canada's Irish Festival - that's where we were headed. On the Miramachi. New Brunswick.
                            

We propped for a few days and it was fantastic. New Brunswick is another predominantly French area of Canada - the traffic lights were sideways like in Quebec, the language was French first, and you just got the feeling it was French.  We explored further and we realised that the southern part of New Brunswick was more Acadian than Parisien French.
The Irish Festival was for the three days and we sat outside on the banks of the Miramichi and listened to both local and national artists and watched the sun go down. Whilst not at the festival, we explored this historical part of the province.
   

  
  
 
Around Miramachi lies eons of history. The Irish history starts from their arrival at Middle Island. The Scottish history begins near BeauBear Island at Wilson Point and French Cove. And of course, there is always the Canadian/French/English history. Life on the Miramichi appears to be fairly laid back which suited us just fine. The river lifestyle and community spirit led to many chats about Australia [once they realised that was where we were from as most guessed we were Irish, Scot, Welsh or anything but Aussie!] and lengthy cups of teas in shops chatting to the locals. The Napan bakery became our favourite hang out. We also started to notice the change in accent, which was to become a lot more pronounced the further we travelled into the Maritime and Atlantic provinces.

 

 

 
 

A lot of work was being done to clear up after Hurricane Arthur.
Doesn't seem to be much OHS here... we just drove around them
working whilst they swung the arm around. 

We got used to these being the loos at many public places. Different from ours, you can see EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!

                                                                                                                     

We thought we had left the worst of the bugs behind in Ottawa - black flies,  mossies, horse flies, gnats... bugs like we'd never ever experienced before. Alas, they found us on the Miramichi. We upgraded our bug spray in an attempt to combat their incursions. I can't say we won - Adam still has the battle scars. This area was also recovering from Hurricane Arthur and there was still a lot of debris around.

 
 


Kouchibouguac National Park was a great find. Bear, beaches, beauty and bag pipes. We learnt some more about Acadian history from the girl at the desk and some words to learn, which sadly have now escaped me! We wandered around and came across a bear frolicking around. Young bear stopped to let us take his/her photo before scampering into the dense bush. Kouchibouguac felt like it was the end of the earth, the reality was that it was the edge of New Brunswick. The boardwalk across the river and then the beach, complete with life guards, was a treasure.

  

 
 
Preferring to drive on roads other than highways, we drove along the coast as much as possible. The town of Shediac looked a great place to stop and we were right. Loved it. I even ate a lobster roll - the Atlantic provinces are famous for their lobsters and lobster rolls. Perhaps wasted on me as I don't like lobster or anything that smells like Mordialloc Pier, it was good. Shediac is an Acadian area - the Arcadian flag is the French tricolour with a golden star in the corner, and is proudly flown in most Acadian areas.  We drove through New Brunswick with bagpipe music blaring [Adam bought a mini set of bagpipes and the CD was a happy compromise as I can't say has ANY talent ------yet!!!!!!!!!!

The Acadien history is fascinating:  http://www.cbc.ca/acadian/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Acadians.
Well worth finding out more. Our first encounter with their history was further south in New Brunswick and we learnt a lot more as we travelled through the Maritime Provinces. A tragic and enduring history as the people were neither loyal to French nor English-Canadian and settled side by side with the MikMac first nation peoples. However, the French believed them loyal to England and England believed them loyal to France. No wins there.