Wednesday 18 May 2022--I'm headed to Moncton, New Brunswick today, an
hour and a quarter if I go direct, but I have things to see on a very indirect route.
I start by driving out the dead-end road to West Bay. There are views from
here of the tip of Cape Split, the deeply-cleft cliffs showing the origin of the
name. There's also a view of Partridge Island, at one time the site of the
settlement that eventually became Parrsboro. There's a local legend, similar to
the story of Farmer in the Magdalen Islands, about a man from Partridge Island
who sold a horse to someone on Cape Blomidon. It's four miles across the
Minas Passage, but the fellow carted the horse overland, 150 miles around the
Minas Basin. When he got back home, the horse was waiting for him, having
swum across the channel. The story goes that the man made the overland trek
again to give the buyer his money back.
Back through Parrsboro, then west, about thirty miles to Advocate Harbour.
The name is pronounced like the verb, rather than the noun, with a long a.
There's a pebbly beach here, backed by a seawall, which, along with dikes by
the harbor itself, polderize the marshes behind. For some reason, the seawall has
a vast accumulation of driftwood atop it. The fact that the road running behind
it is called Driftwood Lane suggests that this is the normal state of things.
The entrance to Cape Chignecto Provincial Park is just west of town. There's
an interpretation center--not open yet--and a short walk down to a beach, from
which can be seen the rugged headland jutting southwest into Fundy, dividing
Chignecto Bay from the Minas Channel. Kayaking along the 600-foot cliffs
and sea caves is the major activity here. (I suppose it's trees dropping off the
eroding cliffs that wash up at Advocate Harbour.) The park has backcountry
camping along its miles of trails. Three days is suggested for the full loop, which
will take the hiker past abandoned farmland and logging camps, and scant
remains of the ghost towns of Eatonville and New Yarmouth. There's a day
use area at the north end of the park, with a couple of easy trails leading to
scenic overlooks, more my speed. It'll have to wait for another visit.
Route 209 leads north, east of the park, and then along the coast of Chignecto
Bay. Three-quarters of an hour along, I come to the Joggins Fossil Centre,
above the Joggins Fossil Cliffs. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
famous for its abundance of fossils from an ancient rainforest, exposed by the
eroding cliffs along the shore. Charles Lyell, considered the father of modern
geology, visited Joggins in 1842 and 1852, and apparently the fossil record
here is cited in Darwin's On the Origins of Species, although it's unclear to me
whether he ever visited. I have a good look around the Centre, and then go
halfway down the stairs to look at the cliffs. I have unfortunately arrived at high
tide, so a walk on the beach is not possible. Another thing to come back for.
I have lunch at McPuffin's, just up the street, and then drive up through the town
of Amherst, one of many named for our old pal Lord Jeff, whose reputation in
the 18th century was obviously much better than it is today. One of the bus
tours I drove had instructions to turn the passengers loose for lunch here, but
the place was pretty dire, so we found other accommodation eventually. It
doesn't look quite so bad today, but I don't feel any urge to stop.
West of town, down a side road just this side of the New Brunswick border, I
find the Beaubassin and Fort Lawrence National Historic Sites. Beaubassin
was a prosperous and important Acadian village, a vital transportation link
between Québec and Louisbourg. With British troops threatening in 1750,
the Acadians abandoned and burned Beaubassin and other villages in the area,
so that the British could not occupy them. The French built Fort Beauséjour
(which I visited in 2012) across the marsh, hoping to hold the disputed border at
the Missaguash River, which today marks the border between Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick. The Brits countered with Fort Lawrence, capturing
Beauséjour in 1755, and subsequently commencing the Acadian Deportation.
There have been substantial archaeological digs here, but there is nothing
visible of either the village or the fort today; nevertheless, the site is evocative,
with its view across the marshes. The interpretation panels help the visitor to
understand what once was here.
I get on the highway and drive the short distance across the New Brunswick
border, then turn north toward the village of Baie Verte, where I stop at the
cemetery to pay my respects to Benjamin Allen, my great-great-great-great-
great grandfather (previously found in 2012). If I am correct in believing that he
took a land grant here after serving under Wolfe at Québec, then he was here
before the Loyalists, and before even the New England Planters, recruited to
populate deserted Acadian farms.* Take the coast road up to Bayfield, where
I visit great-great-great-great grandparents George and Charlotte Letitia
Thompson Allen, the latter a daughter of the Yorkshire incomers. Pass by the
Confederation Bridge leading to Prince Edward Island, resisting the urge to
cross, and continue along the Acadian shore, through Cap-Pelé, hometown of
the late big league pitcher Rhéal Cormier. Pass through Shediac, then hop
onto highway 16. Arrive in Moncton, find my hotel, and check in. I've passed by
this city of 80,000, the largest in New Brunswick, many times, but this is my first
chance to stay and have a look around. Dinner this evening is in the Tide &
Boar Gastropub, followed by a couple of pints at Happy Craft Brewing.
Next
*Some months later, I find myself rethinking Benjamin Allen. For one thing, looking at the photo
of his headstone, it occurs to me that the base it's set in might not be original. The stone's
placement in the yard has always seemed odd to me, too. Referring to W M Burns' A History
and Story of Botsford, published in 1933, I note that Ben's "mortal remains lie in the old
churchyard" in Baie Verte. I don't know where the old churchyard is, or was; maybe this cemetery
is it, or maybe not. Possibly the stone, if not Ben himself, was moved, because the old church was
demolished, or the land repurposed. Burns also says that Ben was a Scot living in New
England before the French & Indian War, and returned there after. I've discounted this
because he goes on to say that Ben returned north as a Loyalist in the wake of the American
Revolution, in 1783, and that is almost certainly untrue; he was married in what is now New
Brunswick in 1771, and all of his children were born there. I've assumed that he was from
Scotland, and the New England connection was the result of confusion with a contemporary
Benjamin Allen born in Connecticut, who pops up spuriously in a lot of the online genealogies I
see. But it seems very possible to me now that Benjamin Allen was in fact from New England
and returned there after the war, only to go back north as one of the New England Planters. It's
a path well documented in other cases, like that of Jonathan Eddy. More research needed.
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