On the Other Side

August 11-13

We spent most of Sunday by staying in. I wrote up the highlights of the previous three days. We went out for a quick lunch at Governor’s, which had been recommended to us the other day for breakfast. 

We went back to Governor’s for dinner because everything else in Ellsworth, Maine, was closed on Sunday. 

We started out by going to Ruth & Wimpy’s, which was closed. 

I had misremembered that a right onto Route 1A North back in town would take us to a commercial strip full of eateries.

After a couple of miles of tree-lined curves, we redirected south to the old part of Ellsworth. 

There were a few interesting places there, but all dark.

The chicken pot pie at Governor’s was pretty good. So was the haddock chowder. 

I didn’t want merlot with either of those, so I asked for white.

Governor’s had run out of its pinot grigio and chardonnay, so I opted for white zinfandel. This is actually a pink wine, and it may only come from California for all I know. 

I used to like it.

I remembered it as slightly sweet, but pleasant. I was surprised how thin and sweet this was. Joanna tasted a sip and said it was like sugar water. 

I guess that’s what happens to your tastebuds if you let Larry do the driving in Provence. You taste so much of the real thing that you get fussy.

They had moscato on the menu, too, but the waitress said it was sweet, so I stayed with the pink fruit juice for a refill.

Monday morning we set out for New Brunswick. Neither Joanna nor I had been there, and we had no idea when or if we’d be back in this part of the world again, so we needed at least to get a glimpse of the place before we headed elsewhere.

On the way north, we came across the St. Croix Island International Historic Site.

It’s a very small park run by the U.S. National Park Service on the bank where U.S. 1 crosses the St. Croix River.

There’s a river island where a French expedition led by someone named Pierre Dugua built a small settlement in 1604. It is regarded as “the beginning of a permanent European presence in northern North America.”

In other words, it’s the first place north of Florida where Europeans, built something, and didn’t all die or go back home.

The locals, part of the Penobscot tribe, called St. Croix Island something like “Run Out of Food Island.” The Penobscot were friendly enough. But Dugua apparently was thinking defensively. He decided to build a fort there. 

It was from here that Samuel Champlain, who was a member of the expedition, struck off with a small contingent of sailors and Penobscot guides to explore the coast of present-day Maine.

It was on that trip that he named Mount Desert Island. His ship struck a rock near the island, and the group had to stay there a while to make repairs.

Dugua went back to France and left 70 or 80 men in the fort. As the Indian name warned, they ran out of food. There was no supply of fresh water on the island, either.

They were iced in so they couldn’t cross the river to resupply. Almost half of them died. It’s believed now that scurvy took a lot of them.

In the spring, the Penobscot came back and saved the asses of the rest.

When Dugua sailed back from France, he moved the colony to somewhere in Nova Scotia.

Dugua’s payment for leading the expedition was to be a monopoly on the French fur trade with North America. That didn’t sit well with lots of others who had the king’s ear. 

Eventually Dugua lost the monopoly. He remained active in colonizing, though. He backed Champlain’s expedition that founded Quebec City in 1608.

There’s a short trail in the park with illustrations of various events—the arrival of Dugua’s ships, etc. At each spot is a life-size bronze of one of the figures in the illustration, including a Penobscot woman with a cradleboard and Dugua waving his hat.

If that kind of hat comes back, I may get one just so I can wave it.

The border crossing was fine. I even remembered to take off my sunglasses so as not to irritate the agent. We declared a banana, but that was OK to take across.

We stayed at Dominion Hill Inn in Digdeguash, N.B. It started as a farm in the 19th century and was later bought by the publisher of The Saturday Evening Post and expanded as a home for his daughter. 

Now it has been converted into a bed-and-breakfast style complex. We stayed in half a small cabin. Space was tight—no desk, one chair—but otherwise comfortable and exceptionally neat and clean. Cheap, too, for this area and season.

At breakfast they had real blueberries, real strawberries (not canned or thawed), and fresh muffins.

The place is off in the sticks. The owner gave us directions to St. Andrews, N.B., where we could find a number of good places for dinner. 

The first thing we saw as we came into town was a restored blockhouse.  It was one of several along this stretch of shore to protect the cannons out front.

It faces the coast of Maine and was built by the town during the War of 1812.

The town may have been particularly alert to the threat of invasion by the U.S. It was founded in the 1780s by refugee loyalists after they were run out of the States when the Revolutionary War ended.

The U.S. invaded Canada frequently in the old days. First there was Benedict Arnold’s assault on Quebec City. I think the Continental Congress expected the French Canadians to rise up, too, but they had become more Canadian than French by that time.

Ontario was the target in 1812. Again, the U.S. expected the locals to rise up against the British. 

The most recent invasion that I’ve learned about so far was in the 1830s. A group of Irish nationals enlisted several drunken U.S. citizens to attack Brockville, Ontario. Again, for some reason known only to them and to God, they expected the locals to join them in throwing off the British Raj.

When we got to the blockhouse, the tide was out and there were people and pickup trucks on the beach. A large truck in the parking lot had a sign explaining that they were harvesting contaminated shellfish to clean up the area. 

Another small sign, this one stuck on a post, had a skull on it and warned clammers not to dig here. It mentioned chemical contaminants and “paralytic toxins.”

OK. Good safety tip. Nothing on the half shell in St. Andrews.

St. Andrews is a vacation destination with a short stretch that feels almost like Cape May. 

We got a table on the veranda at the Harbour Front on Water Street. Joanna had a haddock filet with dill. I remembered the seafood pie from the other night and ordered something similar, a seafood casserole with a cream sauce. 

Both were very tasty. 

I was drinking local beers, Harb Ale, which was the house brand pale ale, and an amber. Both were OK but forgettable, a little too thin and watery. Indeed, I did forget the name of the amber.

Tuesday we crossed back into the States.

On the way to the bridge, there is a sign with a cannabis leaf inside a red circle. Grass is legal in Canada now. It’s legal for medical use in Maine, but you can’t take it across the border. 

For some reason the U.S. officer looked into the trunk. What for, I don’t know. He just peered inside. There could have been a kilo of weed in there and he wouldn’t see it that way.

Maybe somebody has been smuggling something big, like historic statuary or refugees.

We got to the Comfort Inn in Augusta around 3. 

We were hungry and tired, so we didn’t feel like exploring for a place to eat. We went across the highway to a Texas Roadhouse. 

Tuesday night and the joint was packed. Tuesday is kids’ night. They even had someone walking around in an armadillo suit. No, I’m not making that up.

Two or three waitresses were line-dancing to one number on the jukebox.

We both opted for the sirloin and the Mirassou pinot noir. Another pleasant surprise was the dish of green beans. They were cooked through and made with bits of onion and chopped ham. Very nice.

We’re going to head out and explore Augusta now.

Be well, all, and pay attention to the locals when it comes to finding something good to eat.

Harry