Picture of house now.
The place was built around 1930 and is full of wood panelling and Alain found an old section when redecorating that had the price list of all the wines etc. that were sold in town as it was originally owned by a Justice of the Peace who supplied the liquor licences.
They say moving house is one of the most stressful periods in your life. Well this house was originally just a foot from the sidewalk. So 12 years ago the owners (then in their 60s) decided to move. They moved the whole place about 60 feet back. They now live across the road and keep an eye on how the place is doing having only sold it to the current owner a year ago.
Here is a picture Alain had of the house being moved.
Whilst the idea of moving the house in one piece is amazing enough, the truly crazy piece is that the old lady owner insisted that she stayed in the house when it moved so she could watch that the China etc didn't get damaged ❗️❗️❗️
They in fact lived in it during the whole operation.
All that effort to create a front garden.
Moving buildings is a bit of theme today. This is a church we saw being moved later in the day.
And so to the breakfast. Starts with locally made croissant and some cheese from a place down the road. The tables are laid in an interesting fashion, and there is a tea board to choose from.
This was the table opposite us.
The tea board
The remainder of the breakfast was large but very healthy (well moderately so anyway).
One with meat
And a slightly different take on the one without.
A veritable fruit fest, plus I now know you can have fried eggs
Sunny side up - disgusting, basically raw or maybe warmed over a candle I think.
Over easy - just right though cooked both sides
Over hard - edible but a bit like a yellow and white brick.
We are ready to find the Acadian Historic Village now. This is the New Brunswick equivalent of St Fagans. We are lucky as it is the last weekend that they are open, the season finishes after that, although they do do a limited number (10) of houses tour with a guide next week, but then that's it for the winter.
The Village was very interesting, it was set out in chronological order from the oldest to the newest and all the houses have been moved here from other parts of New Brunswick in order to preserve them.
Eric enjoys posing with some of the artefacts.
They had to pump their water by hand in the earlier 1800s.
Most houses would have a root store at the back or in a basement. The farmer needed a much larger store as he would provide some to the villagers as payment for goods etc.
Nearly all of the houses have guides in them, dressed authentically, and working at the various occupations represented. They also all had dinner in the houses each day, which they prepare themselves and eat even when there are visitors in the house.
In one of the early kitchens.
Spun with water added as the flax doesn't contain any oil as wool does.
And woven.
Eric enjoying a 'shot'
The lady who was making bread had to set the fire in the outside stove herself, testing the temperature with a rudimentary thermometer, putting her arm in the oven and if she could say a complete Hail Mary
The oven was at the right temperature!
Eric made sure he sat well back from the flames and was sure it must be ready. Using a sixth doggy sense in place of a paw.
A chance meeting at one of the houses was with a man who was actual born in it 70 years ago, who was back to see it for the first time since it had been moved form it's original location about 3 hours drive away. He's just going in the door to talk to the guide.
Eric enjoys the swing in the orchard.
We are now in the more modern 1900s part, with the railroad and gas station.
It takes us over three hours to walk around the site chatting to the various guides along the way.
After leaving here we head to the Lameque and Miscou Islands. Alain has recommended a stop for tea and cakes plus some local craft, so we head there first. A coffee, coconut and apple muffin and almond croissant later, followed by a purchase of some earrings (what, not more!) we head out towards Miscou Bog and then the Lighthouse.
We find some interesting garden and house roadside views.
Miniature houses and a church in the garden, not exactly Bourton-on-the -Water.
We really loved these fishing boats, but has the fishing season finished already as well as the tourist season.
Driving this route also produces more churches
Looks plain enough from the outside.
Looks just like a variation of the others but inside
Alain had recommended we visit inside here and he called it 'The Candy Church'. As we enter we can see why. A lady comes to talk to us, she doesn't speak any English but we understand that they have had a festival of Baroque music here but that it has now finished. We somehow manage to have a bit of a tour, and also get multiple hugs and handshakes. She tells us her name, asks ours, and introduces the 'concierge' who we later understand is the maintenance man.
The local parisheners were not too impressed when the priest initially bought masses of cheap paint and asked a local unemployed student to help doing some painting. Now it's a great attraction. I wonder if Mawdlam Church could do with a similar makeover.
We see signs that suggest they have a lot of snow here in the winter, for example, 'Expect White Out Conditions'.
The little tourist map shows points of interest to stop at on the way including multiple binocular icons -
over 260 species of bird have been seen on Miscou Island alone.
Eric hasn't spotted any yet though.
Lameque island has exploited bog areas, including an ecological reserve with an adjacent wind farm.
There are lots of Boneparte's Gulls on the rails and some Banded Kingfisher on the gazebos.
Miscou Island bridge, built in 1996. Previously they crossed by cable ferry or in winter on the ice.
Miscou Island has over 3000 hectares of peat bog in it's natural state. The residents of Miscou were concerned that their bog would be similarly exploited by the multi national companies. They banded together and said that if any trucks came ove the bridge they would blow it up and revert to their previous means of access. The threat has worked so far.
There is a boardwalk trail across a small part of the bog.
The flowers that I had taken photos of in the previous bog at Kouchibougiac were of course flowers of the Pitcher Plant, but here we can see them 'face on'.
We stop at a couple of the bird watching sites but don't really see many, some Gulls, Kingfishers, the ubiquitous Cormorant, and a Sparrow species.
We do hear a Bittern booming here, but it's not seen.
We have to retire to the car for the application of insect repellant. One of the best sightings as we reach the islands are four individual osprey nests on top of the telegraph or electricity poles, there are Osprey sitting on three of them. Finding somewhere to stop was more of a problem, there are only three roads on Lameque and quite a lot of traffic, even though it's off-season.
The Lighthouse is at the end of Miscou, luckily open to visit and climb (but also closing after this weekend).
There is a guide at the top who gives us a bit of the history. It's a wooden lighthouse, but is 160 years old. The person who built it brought the wood from British Columbia, soaked it in saltwater for two days as part of its preservation treatment, and then built the structure that still stands today - that's quite impressive.
View from the lighthouse towards Wilson's Point.
We return home as dusk is falling, but no moose. We do manage to get lost even though as we said there are only 3 roads.