Beaches of New Brunswick - Adventures North of Maine

We had our hearts set on buzzing through New Brunswick in order to visit Cape Brenton when we heard about the killer hybrid coyotes.  “Yeah, the coyotes mated with wolves and their offspring are as smart as coyotes and as big as wolves.  They killed someone a few months ago and attacked a girl a few tents over from where we were camping.”  A couple people confirmed this surprising story and we reevaluated our travel plans.  It is hard to take something like that lightly and we decided ultimately not to go to Nova Scotia and instead spend more time in New Brunswick. 

New Brunswick- the way you wish Maine was.  That is not the official slogan of New Brunswick, but it could be.  Acadia National Park and Orchard Beach are stunning.  But also crowded and overloaded with t-shirt stores, “authentic” clam chowder shops, and parking issues.  Contrast that with New Brunswick which has tourists, but just not as many.  The surrounding towns have smaller, more intimate restaurants and there are many road side stands selling fresh scallops, mussels, and lobster.  It is harder to find a tacky souvenir, but much easier to have a genuine experience. 

Fundy National Park, where we started our revised trip, features the largest tides in the world.  You are never more aware of the tide schedule than when hiking on the sea floor.  At least that is what I thought in between exploring tide pools for star fish.  Later I saw the wide beach swallowed by the bay in a space of a few hours.  In addition to a bay that should not be swum in, Bay of Fundy also boasts several lakes with swimming beaches and canoe rentals.  Unlike the U.S. national parks, the Canadian national parks tend to have small mom and pop concessionaires.  This lends itself to more colorful shop keepers such as the canoe rental person and her large friendly dog that enjoyed swimming in the lake.  Fundy N.P. also has a wonderful, salt water pool that seems to blend right into the bay.

Even more rustic and laid back is Kouchibouguac National Park.  We stumbled into the park near twilight.  Although busy, we still had several camp sites to choose from (earlier in the trip we raced to a campground in Acadia and grabbed the last campsite- this was before noon).  The park rests on the shores of the decidedly warmer and calmer Northumberland Straights.  In addition to a wonderful guarded swimming beach, Kouchibouguac also has extensive salt marshes.  Whereas I enjoyed jumping into the large waves, our eight year old daughter spent most of the day digging in the marsh for crabs and star fish.  Joining her were several children, mostly French speaking, who dug into the sand in order to devise extensive holding pens for their new pets.  Impressive also is the surrounding area which consists of small, French influenced fishing villages.  This area does not get many U.S. visitors.  This point was driven home by the extreme interest many showed to our truck and its’ Illinois plates.  Even the fox who hung out by the snack shop near the campground took notice of us.  However interested they were in us, they did not question why one would drive so far to get to their spot in the world.  Some things are understood.

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