Ol’ South!

We were up bright and early this morning to hop the shuttle to our plantation tour.

Our first stop was a working plantation, named Laura.  It has a rich and fascinating history – run by Creole women for generations.  In the Creole culture, your family is your business and your business is your family.  All who lived on the plantation were expected to work for the family, and there was always a “President” of the business.  In most cultures, the responsibility would fall to the eldest son – but not in Creole culture.  They believed that the President should be the smartest person in the family – the one best suited to manage the business.  It just so happened in this particular family that those individuals were more often than not women!  

We learned a lot about the Creole people today.  Because Louisiana was a French colony until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, French was the language of the people.  One of the first things the Americans did after purchasing the state was to ban the speaking of French.  The Creoles rebelled by speaking French in their homes, and they marked their defiance by painting their homes in a multitude of colours.  If a home was multicoloured, you knew that French was the language spoken within its walls.  

We learned more about the ownership of slaves, and both agreed that it was a shame that the grandeur of the plantations and the antebellum homes (literally meaning “big house”) came at the expense of human beings.  At Laura, the “president” recognized that the expense of purchasing male slaves was far greater than of purchasing females.  She therefore purchased 30 females and only 5 males, allowing nature to take its course.  Within about 15 years she had a strong “crop” of slaves.

From Laura we moved on to Oak Alley, so named for the alley of 28 oak trees leading up to the “big house”.  Interestingly, the alley of trees was in fact planted a full 100 years prior to the construction of the mansion, so that at the time the house was actually built, there was a natural funnel created that directed the breezes straight through the house as an early form of air conditioning.  These trees are already 300 years old and have a life expectancy o 600 years!

The gardens surrounding both plantations were amazing – so rich and lush.  In particular, Oak Alley had grounds like nothing we’ve seen before and it wasn’t surprising to learn that they do host weddings and other special events on the grounds.

After our plantation tour we hopped the St. Charles streetcar and traveled to the Garden District, where we wandered for about an hour marvelling at the grand homes throughout the neighbourhood.  They are truly remarkable with some taking up an entire city block!  The distinction between the rich and the poor within the city of New Orleans is significant.

We finished our day with more live music in an outdoor cafe on Bourbon Street before having dinner in the open air courtyard at the Gumbo Shop.  While our Creole fixings were great, our vote for best food on our trip goes to Oceana, also in the heart of the French Quarter, where we dined with Mary Kay and Rick Reid last night.  

Nawlins – Day 2

Today was our second full day in ‘Nawlins, and we started out with a city tour by bus.  It was a great chance to see a variety of neighbourhoods and to learn more about the history of New Orleans, as well as about the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

Our tour guide, Butch, was a native of the city and a wealth of knowledge.  We learned the difference between Creole and Cajan.  Creole referred to the offspring of any French, Spanish, German, or Irish man and a female “person of colour”.  Creole children were often well educated by their wealthy white Fathers, even sent overseas to further their educations.  Many of these Creole children returned to New Orleans, setting up successful businesses and building brightly coloured homes – an expression of their own joy for life.  I have never seen so many houses in varying shades of pink and lavender in my life!

Cajun referred to people of Acadian heritage.  When France wanted to rid itself of criminals, they loaded then on a ship bound for Nova Scotia.  Once  landed in Nova Scotia these same Acadians were driven South, to Louisiana.  When asked where they had come from, they responded “Acadian”, however the difference in dialect allowed for the interpretation “A Cajun”.  The name stuck.

One very interesting part of the tour took us to a local cemetery.  The burial customs are dramatically different than what we are accustomed to in Canada.  The wealthy dead are buried in family tombs, literally stacked one atop the other.  After a body is placed inside, the tomb is sealed with brick and mortar.  Between the intense Louisiana heat and high humidity levels, it takes about one year for decomposition to be complete.  The remains fall between slats and voila! you’re ready to place another beloved in the tomb.  It is still the law that a family must wait one year and a day before a tomb can be re-opened for another burial.

The less fortunate who cannot afford a family tomb (which even 100 years ago cost over $10,000) are placed in “wall tombs” with the remains of strangers.  At the back of each of the wall tombs is a shaft into which the remains of the last resident are pushed with a long hooked tool before the next body is added.  Hence the expression when someone is down on their luck and is pushed aside in favour of another – “getting the shaft” or “being shafted”.

We visited Ward 9 on our tour as well – the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.  It was amazing to see how much destruction is still left – almost 6 years later.  We toured Musicians Village, a new neighbourhood built within Ward 9 to bring musicians back to New Orleans.  Spearheaded by Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr., 70 homes were erected specifically for musicians to return to.  In exchange for their own sweat equity, they were offered 20 year interest free mortgages to help to sweeten the deal.  The homes are painted in all of those great Creole colours.

New Orleans – We’ve Arrived!

We arrived in New Orleans without incident on Tuesday May 10th, late in the afternoon, and checked into the Hotel St. Pierre.  Whoever was responsible for the photos we viewed online before booking deserves an award for home staging!  It is certainly not all it was reported to be, but the bed is comfortable and the water pressure in the shower is good, so we’ll manage.

Friends of ours from Woodstock happen to be holidaying here as well, Garry Honcoop and Dianne Loft, so we met up with them on Tuesday night and experienced Bourbon Street together before going to Pier 424 for a seafood supper.  

Bourbon Street.  Hmmm.  What can I say without sounding like a prude?  It’s a dirty place, without a doubt.  The smell of urine and vomit permeates the air, but people are out in droves, drinks in hand, music blaring from literally dozens of different venues, all trying to lure you through the doors with promises of “3 for 1 drinks”, live music, and scantily clad young women.  It is legal to consume alcohol on the streets of New Orleans, and vendors take full advantage of this fact, with kiosks set up throughout the French Quarter where you can stop and by a Hurricane, Margarita, or any other fruity concoction you can think of.  As a matter of fact, New Orleans is the birthplace of the cocktail, invented by local pharmacist Antoine Peychaud, when he combined cognac with his own bitters recipe, a drop of water, and a pinch of sugar.  Mixed in an egg cup, “coquetier”, which his English-speaking customers mispronounced as ‘”cocktail”.

For our first full day in the city we checked out Cafe du Monde and tried the world famous beignets, which were every bit as delicious as their reputation suggested.  We then stopped at the local visitors centre and booked ourselves on a series of tours, the first of which was a Swamp tour.

After a 45 minute drive east of New Orleans, we found ourselves at Honey Island Swamp, where we were treated to a two-hour excursion deep into the swamp, by Captain Bishop.  With a degree in marine biology, he really new his stuff.  

The alligators were aplenty and had no qualms about coming up alongside the boat, coaxed by the occasional offer a marshmallow from the Captain.  We learned that the distance between a gator’s snout and its eyes is in direct correlation to its overall length – a gator with a 7 inch spread from nose to eyes will be 7 feet in length, etc.

We finished our night back on Bourbon Street, enjoying live music in an open air cafe, followed by more live music in Pat O’Brien’s Piano Bar, before meeting up again with Garry and Dianne for dinner in an open courtyard.  

We’re looking forward to Day #2!

2010 Photographic Artist of the Year in Ontario

These are the 4 images which earned me the title of 2010 Photographic Artist of the Year in Ontario

The second image titled ” Bird Carver ” was captured in Stratford Ontario during the Art Festival

The other 3 images were shot in Newfoundland last August while on a Photographic Vacation

Sounds Of The Sea

NL09

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The Final Day on the Island

This post is a little behind, as we had limited access to internet connection over the past two days.

We spent our final full day in Newfoundland touring the shores of Conception Bay and Trinity Bay.  It was a beautiful day for the drive and we had plenty of time to travel into many of the communities along the way, beginning with Brigus, which is a historic site and was home to Captain Robert Bartlett, a renowned navigator whose career spanned from the late 1800′s until approximately 1930.  We visited Hawthorne Cottage, which had been his family home and in which his youngest sister, Eleanor, resided in until her death in 1971.

We saw some stunning new homes on the shores of Conception Bay, stark contrast to so many of the quaint saltbox style houses we had become accustomed to seeing.

We traveled to the very tip of the peninsula that separates the two Bays, stopping at Caplin Cove where Nelson finally got some tail – whale tail that is.  We were treated to a show by no less than four whales frolicking off the coast.  Unfortunately despite Nelson’s extreme off-roading (leaving my knuckles white) we weren’t able to get as close as we would have liked.  Still, Nelson managed to capture that elusive “tail” shot that he had been so relentlessly pursuing.

We visited Bay de Verde, which literally translates to green bay and found that the description was very accurate.  We rounded the tip of the peninsula and took in Heart’s Content, Heart’s Desire and Heart’s Delight which sounded far more picturesque than they turned out to be.

It was great relaxing day and a perfect way to finish our time on the Island.  The following day we did a few final errands and found a wonderful place for lunch in St. John’s – The Hungry Heart Cafe – the food was unbelievable and I am hopeful I will yet be able to convince the Chef to surrender up her recipe for the vegetarian crepe lasagne, which currently holds the title of the best thing I’ve ever tasted (and I’ve tasted a lot of things).

Four hours on an odd little shuttle bus with a driver whose accent was the thickest we’d heard in our travels (we just smiled and nodded in response to most of his comments on the drive), followed by 18 hours on a pretty rough ferry ride and we arrived in Sydney, where we enjoyed the second-to-none hospitality of Warren and Katheryn for a day before checking into our hotel for the duration of our time here.

Woefully Without Whales

Continuing on his ongoing quest to get “up close and personal” with a whale, Nelson boarded his third boat tour of the week, this time in Bay Bulls.  I, on the other hand am quite satisfied with having seen whales from a distance, so I set out further south, checking out some art galleries and venturing as far as Ferryland.

Two and a half hours later I returned to pick up a rather dejected Nelson.  Not only did he not get the photo opportunity he was hoping for, he didn’t see even a single trace of a whale.  What he did see were more lighthouses and puffins – lots of puffins.  According to the tour guide, as many as 80,000 puffins reside in the area they visited.  I think it would be safe to say that Nelson is “puffined out” at this point.

I quite enjoyed my solo travel, picking up a piece of sculpture by a Witless Bay potter and touring the archeological  dig site at Ferryland.  An entire 17th century community has been unearthed and the display of artifacts was quite fascinating – everything from boots, buckles and buttons to currency and glass pieces from bottles that were clearly stamped with the names and dates of those who had them made.  Apparently it was the tradition to have your own name or initials imprinted directly into the glass when you had bottles made “back in the day”.  Entire cobblestone streets have been uncovered.  I could go on, but if you’re at all like Nelson, you’d probably prefer I didn’t.

After the disappointing whale watching tour we travelled to Cape Spear, just outside St. John’s.  Cape Spear holds the distinction of being the most Eastern point in North America and is also the site of a World War II battery.  We enjoyed the rugged coastline and the lighthouses, before the weather determined that it was time for us to call it day.

Our Room With A View

Today we spent the day in St. John’s or “Town” as it is referred to throughout the rest of the province.  We’re so enjoying our apartment, and started the day with the view we’re sharing below.

We headed up to Signal Hill, which can also be seen from our deck, but unfortunately as we reached the top of the lookout, the fog rolled in and we could barely see what was right in front of us, let alone the view from this historic landmark.

The weather provided us with the perfect excuse to just enjoy the city streets and do some shopping.  The Buskers’ Festival is taking place downtown so we encountered some very interesting individuals in our travels.  We stopped for a traditional Atlantic lunch of fish & chips (OK, I’m the only one who eats fish – Nelson had a very non-Atlantic pizza) at the Yellow Belly Pub.

We ended our day with sushi (OK, again I’m the only one who had sushi – Nelson had some sort of soup) and then headed back to relax and read in the comfort of our home away from home.  

Touring the Bonavista Peninsula

We set out from our B&B in the morning in search of what we were told was the best puffin viewing site in North America.  To get there we had to pass through Dungeon Provincial Park.  We almost looked for an alternate route, as when we had driven through the previous day we were driving through pastures on what was a pretty poor excuse for a road – I kept hearing the voice of “Sarah” at the car rental kiosk reminding us that there was to be “off-roading”.   We’re so glad we didn’t find another route, as this time we actually located “the dungeon” – a remarkable rock formation that essentially creates two caves leading out to sea.  It made for some spectacular photo opportunities.

The rest of our day was spent touring the southern shore of the Bonvista peninsula, taking time to drive through the many fishing communities, Catalina, Port Union, Trinity, Old and New Bonavista.  We stopped for lunch in Trinity and I had wonderful homemade fish cakes – so far my favorite Newfoundland meal.

We pulled into St. John’s in the early evening and settled in to the small apartment we have rented for the next four days.  Once again, we’re on the top floor of a traditional St. John’s row house, but well worth the stairs as the entire back wall of the living room is floor-to-ceiling windows leading out to a deck that is almost the size of the apartment itself and provides a stunning and private view of the harbour.  We are looking forward to a warm evening to enjoy it with a glass of wine.

Heaven on Earth, Thy Name is Bonavista

It seems each place we visit is more stunning than the last.  Everything you’ve seen in the Newfoundland tourism ads – it’s all true.

We started our day headed out from Gros Morne, Nelson feeling a little dejected that he’d not seen a moose in the great wilderness of western Newfoundland.  Almost as if on cue, 25 minutes from our cottage we came upon a female moose grazing at the side of the road.  Nelson was on the shoulder of the road with camera in hand in no time.  I wasn’t too sure that the moose was going to be thrilled with Nelson invading her space, but she didn’t seem to object.

From Gros Morne on the western shores we crossed the island to the Bonavista peninsula, right to the tip which is Cape Bonavista – the spot that John Cabot landed in 1497.  This is the most easterly point in North America.  While at the tip we checked out the lighthouse and fell in love with the puffins.  They are every bit as animated as you could imagine.  Puffins are only about 8 inches long, but have a very short wing span.  They are actually much better swimmers than aviators and are known to “fly” under water at speeds up to 40 km/hour and at depths of 400 ft below the water’s surface!

Before heading back to our B&B for the night, we drove through Dungeon Provincial Park, which is really just an enormous area of pasture land with free roaming cattle, horses and sheep.  While the cattle and horses maintain a respectable distance, the sheep seem to be of the belief that they own the road and were in no hurry to let us pass.

We look forward to more time tomorrow to further explore the peninsula.

Hey! What's with the long face?