Points Way Down East: Quoddy Saint Fundy

Northern shore of Tunk Lake

For the final time we left Bar Harbor and Ellsworth, twisting through miles of forest and lakes on Route 182, better known as the Blackwoods Scenic Byway, a 12-mile hook between Ellsworth and Harrington.

Cutting along the edge of Taunton Bay, we passed Franklin, Cherryfield and little else except forests rich with fall foliage and broad Tunk Lake. The lake has no development on its shores, making it a truly wild place. We stopped at a turnoff and scrambled to Tunk's shore, watching for any disturbance along its placid shoreline. Our elusive moose again refused to emerge for a lakeside drink. Reconnecting with U.S. 1, the road changed.

The cragginess of Down East gave way to Far Down East, where fields ran thick with red grasses. Towns grew less substantial the further we went. Aside from Machias, once a shipbuilding center due to its massive pines, we spent most of our journey alone on plains of red grasses and trees lush with turning leaves.

We took the turn for Lubec, but Lubec would not be our destination. Before we reached the town, a turned beckoned us to West Quoddy Head. It was just as well.

If we went as far as Lubec, we had every reason to cross the bridge to Canada’s Campobello Island, home to the summer home of the Roosevelt family. The shutdown shuttered it as well. Further up the coast, we ignored St. Croix International Peace Park for the same reason.

 But the true prize of Maine’s far eastern coast sat within a state park.We crossed the bog known as habitat for carnivorous pitcher plants  on a two-lane road and as the pavement gave way to gravel atop a hill, we could see a red and white-striped lighthouse at the shore.

Thomas Jefferson authorized a lighthouse at West Quoddy Head in 1808 (For the record, East Quoddy Head is in New Brunswick). Two centuries late, one still stands within the confines of West Quoddy Head State Park, the easternmost point in the U.S. A stone marker with the coordinates honors the location below the red and white-striped lighthouse.

No one can walk up the lighthouse but it still functions and the former living quarters below now house a small museum. This might have been the site I most anticipated on the entire trip once the possible of a Cadillac Mountain sunrise evaporated.

West Quoddy Head lighthouse, easternmost point in the U.S.

We rounded the lighthouse, took our pictures at the stone market denoting the country’s easternmost point and could not shake an annoying couple with a pair of toddlers dictating their schedule. Maine did not allow anyone to walk up the lighthouse, but a museum below outlined its 200-year history.

Elsewhere in the park, we hiked into mossy, dense woods on cliffs overlooking the Bay of Fundy’s outer edges. A clanging buoy in the harbor serenaded us. The trees were tightly packed and the path was often muddy, but soon we were standing 75 feet above the placid blue waters. We had our first glances of New Brunswick, which would occupy most of the next two days.

Back to U.S. 1 for a final stretch, we only stopped when necessary, including a full tank of gas before we traded gallons for liters. At one stop, I followed Nancy to the shore. Glancing at a bird, I started shouting at her. Convinced it was bald eagle, I wanted her to catch a photo. Realizing a sea gull that tricked me with its feather colors, my voice plummeted.

 Beyond its three border crossings, we did not dawdle in Calais. Canada awaited. After days of crossing harbors, lakes and rivers, the St. Croix River seemed like any other.  The Milltown Bridge quickly took us across the picturesque waterway.

Crossing the St. Croix

But at the east bank of the St. Croix, we had to flash passports if we wished to travel any farther. The Canadian customs agent was fairly friendly, asking some basic questions about our trip.

Before we departed, he reminded me to actually sign my passport. That’s why I get for rarely using it and for having the luck of presenting it to a friendly Canadian border guard.

 In an instant, a river and a border traded Calais for St. Stephen. As we would learn, New Brunswick’s pioneers had the same knack for canonical names as the Spanish rulers of the American Southwest. These names sound natural in Canada, but what if the U.S. reverted to Saint Anthony and Saint David? There would be panic in the streets.

After acquiring some Canadian currency at a Saint Stephen’s bank, we jumped onto New Brunswick Route 1 and enjoy 80 miles of solitude. I cannot remember the last time I drove a highway so empty, but Nancy and I barely saw 10 cars between Saint Stephen and Saint John (not to be confused with St. John's, Newfoundland). The miles of fence designed to keep ungulates off the highway yielded not a single disappointed moose or deer.

Uptown Saint John

 As for Saint John, we crossed its bridge, under repairs just like the Deer Isle span, and entered a downtown dwarfed by docked cruise liners. Of course, that was part of the charm radiating from New Brunswick’s largest city (population 70,000).

The first incorporated city in Canada, Saint John sits at the mouth of the St. John River and along the Bay of Fundy, home to the massive tide differentials we traveled this far to see. In a swing around the harbor, we discovered a multitude of restaurants designed solely to draw cruise ship traffic.

We left the harbor and began exploring Uptown Saint John – given the slope of the streets, the name fits. We sped up steep King Street to escape the cruise passengers and landed at Taste of Egypt, a Mediterranean restaurant worth its weight in kabobs and hummus. After a few days of hardcore Atlantic seafood, some Mediterranean cuisine added some much-needed dietary diversity. Decorated with molded sarcophagi, copied Egyptian artifacts, model camels and a wall of hookahs, the food excelled.

King Square, George V Memorial Pavilion

From the restaurant, we crossed the street and entered King Square, town square and plaza of monuments. A bandstand-fountain combination honored King Edward VI. Another honored a man who died saving others from drowning succumbing himself. Seventy miles from the U.S. border, King Square had the feel of a European gathering place, where friends and acquaintances might gather to chat during summer days like the one we received.

Saint John City Market

At the park’s end we ran into the Saint John City Market, the oldest chartered farmers market in North America. Vendors hawked local produce and goods, including the province’s lone estate winery, where grabbed a bottle for later.

Seventy miles east of Saint John, we found our last turn of the day. Heading back toward the Bay of Fundy, we crossed cattle farms and soon entered Fundy National Park, the protected chunk of ecosystem closest to the bay. We entered moose red alert as soon as we passed the closed admission booth. Any lake, any river and really anything that could have hidden a creature as big as a moose was given a hard glance.

The park was as closed as anything across the border. The road cut through its center, but we saw no one, not a ranger or a any park staff.

Even the wildlife had gone elsewhere for the season. Dusk should have been prime viewing time for fauna. By the time we descended the looping road that passed park headquarters, we saw only one coyote. But it was worth the moment – the coyote had been gnawing on carrion, oblivious to us until the car got within 50 feet. A affable hostess at the Parkland Inn greeted us. We checked in and had but minutes before the hotel lounge closed. But we had moose on our minds. We journeyed back into the park in search of wildlife, heading far up a desolate road and wandering near a river cascading through an old mill. We could barely see and any wildlife could have surprised us. But none did.

Road traversing the Acadian Highlands

Alma closed down at 8 p.m. sharp. At least its retail and restaurant industry did. Another more indispensable industry worked around the clock.

We spent the darker evening hours visiting the Fundy tides. Having arrived at low tide, we walked out into the harbor as the waters returned. One hundred fifty feet from the rocks that formed the high tide line, we saw the waters roll in. Our furthest steps into the bay were under three or four feet of water 20 minutes after we stood there. Driftwood that seemed deeply embedded into the sandy beach rose with the water and bobbed back out into the bay.

In our room, we split a bottle of New Brunswick Estate Red from the Wine Garden, the province’s only private winery. Made from the hybrid grape Marechal Foch, it tasted a bit lighter than Gamay or Pinot noir, with a nice kick of cinnamon and spice on the front end and a tannic finish.

Low tide at Alma on the Bay of Fundy

 When we arrived, the Alma harbor’s fishing boats nestled in the mud flats or sat in cradles designed to hold them at low tide. Four hours later, we saw the same boats bobbing in deep water. One of them returned from an expedition. As the boat motored up, a white refrigerated van eased to the dock’s edge. The fishermen loaded bin after bin of iced plunder into the van, after which it sped off to parts unknown. Fundy lives and dies by its tides, and so do the fortunes of its fishermen.