Day 5

Roosevelt Campobello Park

Today we planned to explore Campobello Island a bit. The island is very scenic with many trails. Besides Herring Cove Provincial Park, there is also the Roosevelt Campobello International Park. There isn’t much to do in Herring Cove, so we cleaned up and headed for the Roosevelt Park.

This was the vacation spot for Franklin D. Roosevelt. He came here every summer as a child until he developed polio here in the summer of 1921. He came back a few times after that, but not as often as he once did. This park was established jointly by Canada and the US in 1964.

The Roosevelt’s cottage and the cottage next to them have been preserved and you can tour the entire cottage. The inside of the cottage was nice, there was a tour guide in every part of the house. These tour guides were helpful, they knew all the details from the daily workings of the house to pieces of furniture and who sat on them. However, they were extremely robotic in their presentation, as if they were reading off an image of a notecard in their brain and were being forced not to deviate from its script.

We decided to check out the park drives. This is an area that covers the southern portion of the island and is where the Roosevelts once drove carriages through the woods to go swimming and picnic among the trees. Those who owned the land after the Roosevelts logged the land for pulp. Although the trees are growing back, it is a young forest, not like the forest the Roosevelts knew.

The gravel and dirt roads through the forest today are close to the way they were earlier in this century. We took the Cranberry Point Drive to Fox Farm, a place where people used to “farm” foxes. Then we went on Fox Hill Drive, which passes two hills of huge, moss-covered boulders.

We went to the southern part of the island down Liberty Point Drive. There was supposed to be a trail that went by a huge bog but I saw nothing. Instead, we walked on the rocky beach, again, no sand. Collected a few rocks though. Beautiful, smoothed rocks of all colors, from pure black to pink to white with spotty black specks. All were the same—rounded, worn, and approximately the same size, about golf ball to softball size.

Soon it was time to head back, so we drove out Liberty Point Drive to Glensevern Road, an old logging road that’s wide enough to land a small plane. We left Campobello Island over the FDR Memorial Bridge and entered the United States with an instant gain of an hour. We ate in a restaurant outside of Lubec on ME 189. It was good food and good service. It would probably be the last place we would see fresh lobster—today we are driving north away from the coast.

Into the North Woods

We got back to US 1 and headed north along the St. Croix River separating Maine from New Brunswick. The towns along the road are farther and farther apart now. Calais, Maine, is a big town and pretty much the last large town near the coast. From now on the road would straighten and flatten a little. The towns are a bit more industrial now and less B&B, tourist-type towns. Logging trucks frequently roll past doing 70+ miles per hour, leaving a trail of bark and shavings in their wake.

At Houlton we met up with I-95, where the eastern interstate starts. Get on here and it’ll take you to Miami, but not today—we kept our northerly route up US 1. Once away from the remnants of I-95 development, the road became quite scenic. Before, the road was a little hilly, and there were trees lining the sides of the road. Now it was a bit flatter and farms began popping up. They grow a lot of potatoes up here, who knew? The towns looked nicer and we actually saw some people. Mountains could be seen in the distance, towering over the otherwise flat horizon.

At Mars Hill, we shied away from the large towns of Presque Isle and Caribou, Maine, and took the more direct US 1 ALT. This continues on a straight path north directly next to the Canadian border, passing through the smaller towns of Fort Fairfield and Limestone, and eventually meeting back up with US 1 in Van Buren, Maine.

Riding along the St. John River, we could see Canadians doing the same on the other side. This river begins in the northwest part of Maine and flows down through New Brunswick to the city of Saint John, the largest city in New Brunswick. It wasn’t too long till Madawaska, Maine, where we would cross the river into Edmunston, New Brunswick. This means we were back in the Atlantic Time Zone again, not that it matters too much.

Back in Canada

Now that we were in Canada and Sergio’s interview went well with the men in customs, we needed to find Trans-Canada 2. It took a bit of driving before I convinced myself that we were going in the wrong direction. We asked a couple, who were pulled over on the side of the road next to a recycling bin, where this road is. It seems as though people speak French up here before English. We were on route 2 for a bit, and within minutes saw the park we were looking for: Les Jardins Provincial Park. This is on the tiny sliver of New Brunswick that is between Maine and Québec.

We went to register and were met with a “Oui?” to which I replied, “Do you have any open campsites?” This park is very open; not too many trees. In the east is a mountain or large hill, and there are hills to our west but the park is in the valley. It lies on a river that drains into the St. John. There are pine trees that have been planted but other than that, no other original forest. Once we found our site (No. 107) we got out of the car and sat in the grass for a while.

It was getting hot and we were both very tired. The sun was on its way down now and I couldn’t wait for it to fall below the horizon. The bugs were again nipping at any exposed flesh they could find. These were professional bugs too. We sprayed with the bug spray and left it sitting out, ready for action. Came back later to find the top of the can and the nozzle were covered with bugs, dying in the liquid residue of the spray. Was it suicide, akin to beached whales? Eventually, after sitting in the grass for about an hour, we started setting up the tent and once the sun was far enough down, we were able to sit at our picnic table, which was not protected by the shade of the small evergreen trees.

I was relaxed now after the long drive. The people next to us had the RV, the kids, and the dog. They had awnings, a gas grill set up, and were nice enough to provide the park with an Elton John concert blaring from their stereo. The French language seems very loud to me, perhaps it’s just the people up here. We both were too worn out to regroup and go get something to eat so we ate some Ritz crackers and called it a night. It was getting hotter now and this made it hard to sleep. I was trying not to think what it would be like tomorrow morning when the sun hit the tent without any trees to filter it. Recalling past experiences, I know it heats up like an oven pretty quickly.