We reluctantly left Prince Edward Island after a very relaxing time there and headed across the ten-mile long Confederation Bridge across the Northumberland Strait into New Brunswick. We then went north up the eastern coast of New Brunswick. It is also called the Acadian Coast as so many Acadians live there. We didn’t stop to see anything as we had already visited some Acadian sites earlier, and we were anxious to get to the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec for some new adventures.
The Gaspe Peninsula was rated by National Geographic as the third most beautiful destination in the world after the Norwegian Fjords and the Kootenay and Yoho National Parks in British Columbia. Because there is a town named Gaspe, a Cape Gaspe, and the GaspeNational Park, the Gaspe Peninsula’s common name is Gaspesie.We crossed the Restigouche River from Campbelltown, NB into Pointe-a-la-Croix, Quebec. The first thing we noticed was that all of the signs were only in French. In New Brunswick they had been in both French and English. This caused us a few problems when we were trying to talk with the natives, not many of whom spoke English. We could get the meaning from some signs, but not others. The second thing we noticed was that most of the churches had silver spires and silver roofs.
By mid-afternoon we stopped in the pretty town of Carleton-sur-Mer for the night. The village has really gone all out to attract tourists to this beautiful area with the Bay of Chaleurs on one side and the Chic Chocs Mountains, on the other. The mountains are the end of the Appalachian Mountain Range. After being in PEI where the tallest place is only 400 feet above sea level, this was quite a change.
The town has created a huge campground on a long, narrow spit of land that ends at the lighthouse. There are miles and miles of bike paths linking the campground to the village shops, the wharf, playgrounds, etc., so we took advantage of that and biked for a few hours before setting in right next to the bay for the night.
The next day we headed along the shoreline, passing many beautiful fishing and tourist towns. The prettiest, and also most touristy town, was Perce which is on a peninsula overlooking Bonaventure Island and Perce Rock, a huge rock with an arch that boats can go through when the tides are right. All along the coast were coves, bays, peninsulas and points extending into the beautiful water of the Gulf of S. Lawrence. After going through the town of Gaspe, we reached Forillon National Park where we camped for the night near Cape Gaspe where seals play in the water.In the morning we went to Grande-Greve in the park, the site of a former cod fishing town. People would come here every summer to work in the cod fishing industry, and a few stayed all year. The “Company Store” would trade goods or credit to the fishermen in return for the cod which were packaged and shipped to Mediterranean Markets. Most of the time, the fisherman ended up owing the store more than they made with the codfish. The Company Store here was owned by wealthy business men from the Jersey and Guernsey Isles. The store manager in Gaspe made a little money, but most of the money earned from fishing went outside the country.
Women and children worked right along with the men. Those whose families were staying all year also worked in their nearby garden plots to grow what they would need to make it through the year. They canned vegetables and fruits, and “put up” fish for their use, also. They had pickled or dried herring and mackerel, salt-dried cod, and pickled cod heads. The only things they bought from the company store were tea, sugar, flour, and molasses.
Here is the recipe they gave for pickled cod head: Yuck, yuck, and more yuck!!!!!
Put coarse salt into a bucket of hot water
Let it soak for 24 hours.
Drop a potato into the brine. If it floats, the brine is good, but if it sinks, even a little, the brine is too weak.
For a stronger brine, stick a nail in the potato. If it floats, your brine is very strong.
et the cod heads soak in the brine until they are to be eaten.
Each worker had a particular specialty. Some were the fishermen, those who caught the cod, or those who caught the herring which was used for bait. Others worked onshore in special jobs for processing the cod: dressing, salting, and drying out the cod. As soon as the morning’s catch arrived at the stagehead, the cod were unloaded and taken to the splitting cabin. Splitting or “dressing’ the cod, which required both speed and precision,, was done by teams of three working at splitting boards. A skilled team could dress thousands of cod each day. The “throater” cut the cod’s throat and slit its belly. The “header” removed its liver and guts and beheaded the fish on the edge of the splitting board. The “splitter” cut the fish wide open and removed the spine.
Then the salter took over. The dressed cod were salted to extract their water and kill bacteria. Workers, called fishlayers, arranged the split cod, flesh-side up, in a circle in round wooden salting tubs. As each layer was completed the salter sprinkled just enough salt on each fish to preserve it without burning the flesh with too much salt.
After sitting in the salt for several days, the salted cod were washed in large wooden tubs filled with lightly salted water. Workers used long-handled mops to remove the salt and the last impurities.
Then the drying crew took over. The cod were laid on racks, called flakes, in the sun. There were usually not enough flakes, so the fish were also laid on the pebbly beaches to dry. It was better if the wind was from the northwest, and the sun was not too hot. The weather had to be watched constantly by the head dryer. The fish were turned every few hours, with women and children usually having that job. At night the fish were gathered into piles of fifteen or twenty each, with the flesh side down, the largest on top to act as a cover to the rest. In the morning they were spread out with the flesh up. If the sun got too hot in the middle of the day, they were turned with the flesh down to prevent being burned. On evenings when rain was forecast, the cod were gathered in small piles and covered with haggots, small wooden covers that looked like pitched roofs.
When the cod was sufficiently dry, which took about three weeks, large round piles of them were made, each containing as many as a ton and a half of fish. The piles were then covered with birch bark held in place by heavy stones so the pressure on them would squeeze out any moisture that remained.
Once the drying process was finished, the cod was taken to warehouses where experts arranged it in stacks according to the size and quality. The stacks allowed any moisture remaining to evaporate.
The process of packaging the cod for shipping also took place inside the warehouse. The dried fish were stuffed into huge barrels called puncheons, and a large “fish” screw was used to tighten the barrel lid onto the barrel. Depending on the size of the fish placed in the barrel, each barrel weighed between 400 and 500 pounds.
Cod could be bought from Norway and Newfoundland, but the Gaspe cod was always ready ahead of the other since their climate allowed the cod to dry faster. This allowed the Gaspe cod to hit the market sooner in the fall, and they had no difficulty getting rid of their cod. Italian, Portuguese and Spaniards were the biggest importers of dried cod because as Catholics, their religion required them to avoid meat for more than 100 days each year. Inferior grade cod was shipped to ports in the West Indies and Brazil to be used as cheap food for plantation slaves. Dried cod was never very popular in Quebec. People there only liked salted fish, not dried, or fish that was only partly dried.
Cod from Gaspesie was famous for its pale, translucent appearance and its virtual imperishability, and the process used to dry it was called “Gaspe Cure.” The curing process they followed was the same that have been used in the 16th century, and was still viable in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cod is still cured the same way in processing plants nearby. We saw the outdoor flakes that are still used today.
The northern part of Gaspesie has mostly small fishing villages where the southern part has tourism as well as fishing. There were also a few small farms. As we got back around to the entrance to the peninsula on the north side we did see more tourism and farms. In the middle of the peninsula it is mountainous and there are very few towns, just mostly wilderness and the huge Gaspe National Park. We drove through there hoping to see some wildlife, but didn’t see any. Rain from Hurricane Irene was just starting as we went through the park. Thankfully when the worst of the rain and wind came, we were camped in an isolated spot along the bay.
We lucked out again with the weather as the rain had stopped by morning, and by mid-afternoon when we left Gaspesie, the sun came out. As we headed to northern Maine we passed many small farms with long, narrow fields of hay bales nearby. Next to the run-down barns we saw long, narrow plastic wrapped bales of silage fifty or more feet long.
When we crossed the border into Maine, we were surprised to see that churches there along the border also had silver spires like those in Quebec. Aside from the couple of border towns in northern Maine, there is not much other than trees and wildlife. We thought we’d see some moose, but we didn’t. We camped next to Eagle Lake surrounded by lots of pine trees.
The next day we drove to the coast of Maine and wandered down to the Pemaquid Peninsula where we stayed for the night. I really like driving on the roads in the small New England villages. They are narrow (not much wider than one car width) and winding, with trees making a canopy over most of them. The old, old homes are huge, often with attached barns and sheds. There are lots of little bays, lakes, ponds, and rivers along the way. We found a great lobster pound and filled up on lobster for dinner. We also cooked several to take home to our daughters.
The last night we were on our trip, we wandered into New Hampshire and camped at a large state park next to a lake. There were 300 campsites there, and we were the only campers! Then on Thursday, Sept. 1, we headed for home via back roads, and our wonderful vacation came to an end.
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