PEI–Orwell Historic Village–East Coast Scenic Drive

 

The Orwell Corner Historic Village is about 25 minutes east of Charlottetown on the way to the Wood Islands Ferry Terminal.  The village consists of mostly original buildings with a few reconstructions.  It captures the essence of rural village life in the mid-1800’s in PEI.  Once you pass through the gates of the visitors centre they do a pretty good job of blocking out 21st. Century technology.       The interpreters that we saw did not wear any watches nor did they have modern eye glasses that would spoil the setting.  The blacksmith was “sweating it out” by the forge making decorative hooks to be sold in the the visitors centre, while the women were giving demonstrations of the many useful articles for sale in the general store.

As it was a slow day, one of the farmers cornered us and proceeded to tell us about every piece of farming equipment that they had in the yard, most of which still operated.  When we were able to escape we went to the schoolhouse. The school held about 40 children from grades 1 to 10 in one room.  Some of the smaller children sat 3 to a desk.  I guess class size was not an issue with teachers at this time.

Afterwards we drove further along the coast to the Cape Bear lighthouse.  The lighthouse is still there and open for tours during the summer but the light has since be removed and replaced by an automatic light. Samuel, a grade 12 student from Montague, PEI gave us the tour of the station and described the former Marconi Wireless station that first received the distress call from the sinking Titanic.  (Cape Race, NL received the signal at the same time but was not a part of Canada then.)

 

 

Prince Edward Island appears so small on the maps of Canada but we were hard pressed to travel the perimeter of the island on the secondary roads that exist there.  We were wishing that we had the rental car back!

Another Rant - Good Service and Bad Service

Technorati Tags: vehicle,automobile,truck,car,repair,service,Halifax,Hammonds Plains,Winnipeg,GM,Birchwood

 

Friday, July 26 – Another post out of order!

Every time that I go to my GM Stealership in Winnipeg I feel that I’m going to Get It In the End.  Not in a pleasant way.  Before our trip, I had taken the truck into Birchwood GM with a braking issue…Every time I depressed the brake pedal the truck would start to brake but when I had slowed to about 10 km/h it would seem to go soft and braking power would diminish until I applied more pressure.  Anyway, when I returned at the end of the day to pick it up the Stealership reported this as a Non-issue and that it was working as it should…I swallowed that one.  Janet does not swallow anything…and she felt that we should get a second opinion.  So while we were in Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia.  Let me tell you about Hammonds Plains – It is a dot on the map just north of Halifax about 17 Km., where we are camped. They have a few service businesses there and one of them; (fortunately for us) is Hammonds Plains Service Centre .  I phoned them at 7:30 AM and told them I was from out of town and that my wife would divorce me if I didn’t have those @#$%^&* brakes fixed.  The service writer told me that they were fully booked, being a Friday, but she could squeeze me in at 9:00 AM.  I was in their shop by 8:50 and after waiting about 1/2 hour, Danny came out to talk to me…well actually he was not only the tech but he was also one of the owners!  No kidding, the owner actually came out to talk to me. ( At my Stealership, I couldn’t get an audience with a tech or the service manager if my life depended on it.)  Anyway, after test driving it – yes that’s right, they actually took it out to experience the problem, not just scan it -  he was pretty sure that it was a bad sensor on one of the front wheels.  He could order a new part and have it installed this afternoon – he told me the part would be about $250.  I told him that this was a very small price to save my marriage and to go ahead.  He told me he would call around 1:00 or 1:30 PM to advise if the part was in and that I should go back home and bring the truck back later.

Fast Forward 12:51 PM and I’m still eating my lunch.  Hello, yes the part is in and can you bring the truck in…Five minutes later I’m in the reception area.  About 3/4 hour later Danny is out front again with the new part in his hand explaining that he didn’t have to replace the the old part, he just cleaned it up, reinstalled it and checked the gap between the sensor and the rotor.  He had just returned from test driving it AGAIN! …I’m beginning to love this man!!  I told him that this was a long way to come to get my car and truck serviced and do they have a branch office in Winnipeg?…No such luck!  Final bill - $198.32 including a healthy 15% Harmonized Sales Tax for the boys downtown and in Ottawa.

So if you are anywhere near Halifax and need excellent auto service you should check out Hammonds Plains Service Centre .  All their techs are fully qualified and most have years of service experience behind them. They are passionate about training and customer service.

Post Script – Janet and I, are still happily,  amicably, married.

Prince Edward Island

Friday, July 12 to Thursday, July 18   -   Days 24 to 30

Charlottetown

We took the Confederation  Bridge to get to Prince Edward Island. (If you follow this link – also check out the “About” tab – neat design and construction stuff.) This is the longest bridge over ice covered water in the world at 13 kilometers.  An amazing structure that only took 4 years to complete including the approaches and toll plazas.  (The City of Winnipeg could learn some lessons from this massive project.)

In the truck we were able to see over the barricades – that’s a lot of water below us and we could see the red sandstone cliffs of PEI appearing in the distance.  There is no toll going over to PEI but there is a toll coming back – I suppose that is how they increase their population on the island.  And it’s true they grow potatoes on the Island: lots of them from what we could tell travelling towards Charlottetown.  The soil is a deep brick red colour and appears to be derived from those same red sandstone cliffs.

We settled into a Kampground of America (KOA), in Cornwall which is just outside Charlottetown.  Finally a good Wi-Fi connection!  We have been surprised that there is such poor connectivity in the east. This was our home base for exploration of the island.

Charlottetown prides itself on being the Birthplace of Canadian Confederation, although nothing was ever signed at the 1864 Charlottetown Conference and PEI didn’t even join confederation until 1873.  They joined Canada when their railroads needed to be bailed-out of financial difficulty. Their pride in joining confederation is shown in a number of venues around the city. The Confederation Centre of the Arts presents a free, outdoor, noon hour show, daily during July and August.  The show presents a story of Canada from the landing of the white man, to the building of the trans Canada Railroad – immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot’s, Canadian Railroad Trilogy and through to the multi-cultural Canada of today.                                               There are also people in period dress who do impromptu presentations on the street as well as leading guided tours through the downtown.   The other tribute to Confederation is a museum called Founders Hall. This is a multi-median presentation of confederation starting with the Charlottetown Conference of course and working through to the Canadian Centennial in 1967.

 

Lots of nice old buildings in the downtown area.  We went into St. Dunstan’s Basilica which is just down the street from Province House.  I’d never been in such an ornately decorated church in my life.  I can only imagine someplace in Europe that could surpass the beauty of this place.

Sea Caves, Covered Bridges and the Hopewell Rocks

Saturday, July 6 to Thursday, July 11 – Days 18 to 23

Penobsquis, Kings County , New Brunswick

The “tranny transplant” had been posted previously, so I won’t discuss that at length.  Just to get things into the proper chronology…The truck transmission “went south” for us on Saturday afternoon.  We spent the balance of Saturday and Sunday brooding about what we should do next.  We decided that on the following Monday, July 8 we would rent a car and do some touring while we waited for the truck to get fixed.  We rented a Kia Sportage, which was cheap at only $35 dollars a day – no mileage charges.  It was fairly roomy and easy to get in and out of.  The only complaint that I had was the steering tended to be a bit “twitchy” for me.

  We travelled to the tiny, coastal, fishing village of St. Martin via Fundy National Park.  We didn’t spend lots of time in the park but it looks like a great place for hikers.  We had tried to time our trip so that it coincided with low tide that afternoon but it turned out that we were a couple of hours early before we could get into the sea caves.  We decided to catch a couple of covered bridges located on the edge of town.  Kings County has the most covered bridges of any place in Canada and over the course of the few days that we were here we saw six of them.  The reason that they built covered bridges was to protect to wooden beams and bridge decking. They proved most popular though as romantic hide-aways.

We then proceeded to the Fundy Trail, it is a hiking, biking, driving trail that follows the shoreline of the Bay of Fundy.  It starts just east of St. Martin and runs for about 11 Km one way.  We stopped at most of the scenic lookouts into the bay and they were quite spectacular.

 

By the time we returned to St. Martin the tide had gone out and we were able to walk to the sea caves. Really quite neat. The picture on the left shows one of the caves when we arrived – the picture on the right shows the same cave at low tide with people walking on the beach at its mouth.

 

The Hopewell Rocks is one of the prime attractions on the Bay of Fundy.  Again to really appreciate them you should try to see them at both high and low tides. We were fortunate enough to have the time to do this. In fact they sell tickets that are good for two consecutive days. There are two highs and two lows in 24 hours and 52 minutes – the difference between a high & a low is about 6 hours and 13 minutes. You can walk on the ocean floor 3 hours before and 3 hours after the low tide.  These formations are called the “Flower Pots”.  At left you can see people walking around and through the arches; on the left you could paddle through on a kayak – as many people sign-up to do.

 

The Fundy tides are the highest in the world due to the shape of the bay, which becomes shallower and narrower the further up the bay you go.  The volume of water that rushes into the bay twice a day is approximately 100 cubic Kilometers. I suppose for Maritimers this is just an everyday occurrence but for this couple from the prairies it is absolutely amazing.

Saint John–Last Day

Friday, July 5 – Day 17

Another day, another museum.  This time it was the New Brunswick Museum. It is located in the uptown area, in the converted Market Square, near the docks.  Lots of outdoor restaurants, bars and cafes here, catering to the young crowd that works in the area.

At the entrance to the museum is a tall column of water that is powered by the Fundy tides. The Column is in the centre of the staircase and rises over 30 feet high. The column is marked at at different levels and the current level coincides with the current tide experienced in the bay.   When we were there we noticed that the tide was definitely rising in the tubes.

They have done a particularly good job telling the history of whales and whaling.  A large part of their information/knowledge came from a beached Right Whale, a few years ago.  Unfortunately, Delilah the whale died, but they found out later that her calf was adopted by a pod and survived.

 

There was also a good exhibition of New Brunswick industry which included ship building and forestry, farming and mining.  The shipbuilding exhibition was very effective; showing how the keel was laid and then how it was built up from there. It demonstrated how the ship was fitted out with masts, rigging and sails and how it was finally ready for launch.

The CAA Tour Book had listed the museum as a gem and usually we agree with their assessments. Janet and I, were expecting so much more from this museum but it just didn’t seem to get us excited.

Small World Story - On our way back to Hardings Point Campground we stopped by a Cox Communication store to see if we could get a cheap “burner” cell phone.  We explained that we were from Manitoba and what we were hoping to get.  It turns out that she used to live in Winnipeg and went to Westwood collegiate.  She lived in the Heritage Park area so a great number of her friends went to Sturgeon Heights Collegiate. (Our boys went to Silver Heights Collegiate, the school that merged with Sturgeon Creek Collegiate to form Sturgeon Heights). She was a few years younger than Kevin and David so wouldn’t know any mutual people – It just seems strange that we would choose that store and that sales associate.  Anyway, we didn’t purchase the burner phone as it would only be effective in New Brunswick as each province seems to have their own provider – not like the USA where there are national networks such as Sprint and Verizon.

Saint John, New Brunswick – Reversing Rapids & A Martello Tower

Thursday, July 4 – Day 16

We took a somewhat leisurely drive into Saint John to see a couple of things today.  Janet and I, both can remember as kids learning about the Reversing Falls in Social Studies class.  The city has since revised the name to Reversing Rapids because they really aren’t a waterfall at all.  We got up early to be there for 09:00 AM which was one of the high tides for the day.  They have set up a roomy parking/viewing area which is easy to access from the main road.  We arrived at about 09:10 and could see that the flow was clearly going upstream which is contrary to a normal rivers flow.  Janet and I were both somewhat disappointed but we were told by someone at the visitors centre that to truly appreciate this phenomenon you should try to see it at both high and low tide, so we decided to come back around  3:00 pm when the tide was going out.

 

There was lots of time to kill so we found our way to the Carlton-Martello Tower.  Now I thought that this was the name of the tower and that is partly true.  Carlton is the name of the height of land that the tower sits on.  Martello is the name of the person who originally designed this type of fortification in the early 1800’s.  The British Navy had apparently laid siege to one of these towers in Corsica.  After days and days of canon fire the tower was hardly affected.  After this war the British adopted the design and built about 200 of these forts around the world because they were both highly effective and really inexpensive to build. (The large concrete structure was added during the second world war when the tower was used as an observation post.)  They are inherently strong due to their structure.   At the base the walls are about 8’ thick and the roof is supported by a central pillar which forms an arched ceiling in the interior.  The inside is surprisingly spacious. 

At the outbreak of the war of 1812, British Engineers were dispatched to build a defensive structure in New Brunswick to repel any land invasion from the west.  Unfortunately the tower was not completed until 1815, when the war was over. Fortunately it did not see any action so it did not suffer any artillery fire which had become more accurate, due to the development of “rifling” of the cannon barrel.  This allowed a consistent hit in single location which eventually would cause a collapse of  the structure.  This Martello tower is one of the best preserved of its kind in the world.

We went uptown once again to gawk at the buildings and to see the old cemetery adjacent to King’s Square.  The cemetery dates back to the late 1780’s and many of the headstones are no longer discernible.  The oldest headstone that we saw was from 1798.  Lots of young people in this place.  Pioneer life really must have taken its toll.

Speaking of young people.  There seems to be lots of them uptown.  We were some of the older ones.  Maybe all these hills chase the older people into the suburbs?  Another thing – we never got pan-handled once in all the time we spent there.  We did see this guy though!  (Check his left shoulder- that’s a 3’ long iguana-at least he picks up after him.

Saint John, New Brunswick

Wednesday, July 3 – Day 015

Woke early this morning as we would be crossing another time zone and losing another hour. We crossed from Calais, Maine to St. Stephens, New Brunswick.  The lineup was approximately 30 minutes to get to the checkpoint.  While we were waiting in line we saw a couple of people crossing from Canada on foot and then returning a few minutes later with a loaf of bread or a jug of milk.  I suppose these border communities can take advantage of the deals on either side of the border quite easily.

The roads that greeted us in New Brunswick were the best yet.  Apparently the section of road between St. Stephens and Saint John had been resurfaced in the last couple of years so it really hasn’t experienced any frost heaving yet.  Beautiful, lush and rolling country side.

We found a campground just outside of Saint John, called Hardings Point Campground.  It sits on a peninsula in the Saint John River and is served by a local cable ferry.  A steel cable is attached to each shore and is submerged deep enough to allow boats to travel over it.  Apparently this was a Canadian invention.  The ferry pulls itself from shore to shore along this cable. We were told that the ferry runs 24/7, 365 days a year.

Our camp site was located at the top of a hill, and if we were lucky we could catch a glimpse of the Saint John River between the seasonal trailer sites. Once we were settled we went into Saint John and landed up right in the heart of their uptown area.  Intriguing way to pay for parking they collect a fee up front, and get a ticket and then when you leave you get a refund on any time left.

We had read about their historic walking tour so we found an information centre and got a map of the historic buildings.  And there are LOTS!!   Our heads were swiveling around like 'Linda Blair” in the Exorcist!  Beautiful architecture on public buildings and private dwellings.  As we were walking around the Trinity Royal area, there was a young woman who was working on her laptop on the door step of one of the walk ups.  “Where are you from?”, she asked me.  I told her that I was from Winnipeg and asked if I looked like a tourist with a camera around my neck and shooting every building as I walked and gawked.  She told me that there had been a great fire in 1877, which destroyed 1300 homes in this area.  Rebuilding was done based on many designs from Boston and hence many of the buildings are called “Boston Brownstones” and there are very strict guidelines as to what can and cannot be done to the buildings. 

As we proceeded along a man stopped me as I was taking a picture of one of the churches.  He told me that the weather vane at the top of the church was in the shape of a fish that was over 6’ long. He also pointed out another stone church at the top of the hill, which apparently was made from the ballast from old wooden ships.  When shipments of wood were sent loaded  to England the ships basically “dead headed” back.  To add ballast and keep the ships lower in the water they used stone, which became a building material here in Saint John for this entire church.  He also pointed out to me that Saint John has the prettiest women because they have to climb the hilly streets to keep in shape…I couldn’t disagree with him.

Lubec

Monday, July 1 – Day 13 & Tuesday, July 2 – Day 14

We only had to drive about 90 miles along the coast today to Lubec, Maine.  The roads were all “thirdary” (that’s worse than secondary, but not yet gravel).  We arrived at the Sunset Point Campground, just after noon.  The owner told us about the sites to see in and around Lubec Maine.  We were already aware of FDR’s Campobello Island, but we did not know about Tea with Eleanor Roosevelt, which in the words of the owner, “is not to be missed!”  We unhooked the trailer and wolfed down some sandwiches and with our passports in hand we were ready to cross the bridge to Campobello Island, New Brunswick.  Now understand this – the bridge is maybe two hundred yards long, yet there is no land connection to it from Canada…you have to take two ferries to get from St. Stephens, NB to Deer Island to Campobello Island.   This is why we went to Lubec.  Anyway we got through fairly quickly and were on our way to FDR’s home.

I don’t know what it is about this trip but we seem to be missing our turn-offs, and we drove right past the entrance to the FDR International Park into Friar Bay, (the town of - not the water.)  People were lining the road and waving at us…but it was not a welcoming committee, we were travelling the route of the local Canada Day parade and they were waving their flags. When we finally got turned around we had to run the gauntlet of parade watchers once again and found our way to the the park.  Unfortunately, the 2:00 PM Tea was sold out, but we were able to stroll through the grounds and visit the “cottage” where Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent many of his summers as a youth.

FDR was stricken with polio in 1921 and despite intensive exercise and therapy never fully regained the use of his legs. Much of the campaigning for his first run as president was actually done by his wife Eleanor.  He was elected by a huge majority in 1932 and he was elected to an unprecedented four consecutive terms. He died in office just a few weeks before the end of World War II in Europe.  His legacy was social security, unemployment insurance and bank deposit insurance.  But it was Eleanor who was the real dynamo.

We went for “Tea with Eleanor” on the Tuesday morning.  There were two interpreters who served us tea and cookies and proceeded for the next hour to keep us entertained and informed about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt.  It turns out that she was quite progressive for her day…when she held one of her first press conferences she told the news agencies to send only women reporters – the agencies all of a sudden were forced to hire some female reporters.    Another time she attended a political meeting where the room was divided down the middle by black and white, a black female friend of Eleanor was asked to move over to the “Negro” side of the room, whereupon Eleanor moved her chair over to the black side as well.  She visited wounded soldiers at the military hospitals during the war.  Some years after FDR died she was asked by then president Dwight Eisenhower  to sit as a special ambassador for Human Rights at the UN. 

While in Lubec we also spent some time at the most easterly point in the United States the West Quoddy lighthouse.  When we arrived on the first afternoon the weather had changed quite dramatically and a heavy fog rolled in from the Atlantic – the foghorn was also blowing.  We could hear it and other foghorns in the area sounding all night.

I have uploaded a short video of the lighthouse with the horn sounding at: http://youtu.be/o7tIpPHHvs0

When we arrived back at our trailer on our second day here, we started talking with our neighbours in the next rig.  They were Gary & Billie Savage from Pennsylvania, it also so happens that they also winter down in Mission, Texas.  We will be touching base with them this winter.

Acadia National Park in Clouds

Friday, June 28 to Sunday, June 30 – Days 10 –12

It rained all three days that we spent in the Acadia National Park area.  We made several attempts to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest point on the east coast, north of Rio de Janeiro.  We actually were able to make it the 1530 vertical feet but we couldn’t see any of the spectacular views that we’d been promised.  The wind blew rain in from the ocean and if it did clear we were never there.  The wind was so strong it almost blew us over.  We purchased a book about the park from the Visitors Center, so hopefully there will be images in there.

As mentioned in a previous post, Acadia National Park was at one time a summer retreat for many of the wealthy people from New York and Boston and they did leave a legacy of carriage roads throughout the park.  Stone bridges were added by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which had been set up by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as a work project for unemployed youths during the depression.

The park is located on Desert Island so named because when it was first seen by European sailors it’s top was bare rock.  The shoreline is generally rocky with steep cliffs in areas and there seems to be a single sand beach, named just that, Sand Beach.  It was the setting for the beach scene in the movie “Cider House Rules” with Charlize Theron and Tobey Maguire. 

There is a wild flower garden in a secluded area of the park that was exceptionally well interpreted.  The plants were segregated by habitat – marsh, bog, roadside, meadow, etc. and then each individual plant was identified.  One plant that I used to see as a child in Hamilton was the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.  They also had a “Showy Lady Slipper”, which has not been seen in the park for the last 30 years.  They set-up cages around it to protect it from loving hands.

The Maine Lighthouse Museum and Acadia National Park

Friday, June 28 – Day 10

It poured buckets last night. A continuation of the kind of weather that we’ve had the last few days.  Cool and Wet!  Needless to say the Forest Fire Hazard Level is low.  We are on the road again today heading “Down east” towards Acadia National Park.  “Down east” is a term that is used in Maine to describe the tourist region – it is derived from sailing days when the ships leaving Boston would travel “down” wind, in an easterly direction along the coast.

We stopped off at the town of Rockland, which proclaims itself as the “Lobster Capital of the World”, they even have a large rusty lobster statue to prove it. That is not the reason that we stopped here though.  The town also hosts the Maine Lighthouse Museum.  The Garmin GPS had guided us right to the front door of the museum.   Miss Garmin, as we call her, has led us into some very tight spots and when your hauling a 34’ trailer it is not just a matter of doing a U-turn in the middle of the street, to correct a wrong turn.   Anyway there was three consecutive parking spots in front but not wanting to get ticketed, I went and asked the local constabulary if it would be OK to park there.  The police station conveniently shares the lower offices with the museum and visitors bureau on the main floor. An officer came out and checked it and gave us the official blessing to go ahead to the museum.

The museum details the history of lighthouses in America and how the invention of the Fresnel lens was able to increase the intensity of light cast out to sea.  They demonstrated this by using a 42 watt compact spiral fluorescent bulb and projecting this light through a Fresnel lens to produce a very intense, almost blinding beam of light.  Fresnel lenses are still in use today in most lighthouses around the world. Each light house projects its own unique light beam pattern so that mariners can determine exactly where they are in relation to the light house. 

Other displays describe the life of a light house keeper as well as early Coast Guard rescue operations. A bargain price for the museum at $5.00 per person but we got the senior rate of $4.00.  A worthwhile stop.

As we continued east we passed the Penobscot Bridge Observatory in Prospect, Maine.  As it was still raining and overcast we decide to forego a visit this time and come back on the way home through via Bangor.

We arrived at the Timberland Acres RV Park in Trenton, Maine just after 1:30 PM and had the pleasure of once again un-hooking in the rain.  We had a quick bite to eat and then headed into Acadia National Park.  We made a stop at the Park Visitor Centre and watched a short film on the history of the park.  The park is somewhat unusual in that it was a playground for the rich in the latter part of the 19th. Century.  They had built large summer cottages and the Rockefeller family had developed an intricate carriage road system throughout the island.  After the crash of 1929 many of the families sold their holdings here and then after a major fire destroyed many of the properties in 1947 most of the remaining families sold.  Most of this land was purchased by George Dorr, who gave all of the land to the government to be used as a public park.  Dorr, died penniless but Acadia National Park is his testament.

New England Foods

 

This was a day for culinary adventures for Janet and Jerry  We started the day at the Maritime Museum where we tried a lobster roll and New England Clam Chowdah.  (That’s what it is called down east, not chowder.) The lobster roll here was similar to a tuna or salmon salad sandwich substituting lobster for the fish.  The chowdah was thick and warming on a cool, cloudy day.

We drove back to Booth Bay to find some lobster for dinner and stopped in at Booth Bay Lobster Wharf.  They have  several tanks filled with lobsters ranging from 1 lb. to 3 lbs. .  We (actually the owner’s son) selected 2 soft sided lobsters that totaled 3.2 lb..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before

15 minutes later – sweet and tender!

The Maine Maritime Museum

Thursday June 27 – Day 9

We retraced some of our steps this morning to return to Bath, ME.  Bath is and has been a major shipbuilding port since the 1600’s. Currently under construction at the Bath Iron Works (BIW) is the new Zumwalt class of US Navy destroyer (DDG1000).  (Follow  the link to see the video amazing!) The destroyer is in a dry dock which can be seen from the Kennebec River cruise.  However, the whole super-structure has been covered to prevent photography.  All river traffic must stay outside of the 400’ exclusion area…there is an armed military zodiac to prevent anyone from getting too near.  The tour guide said that the hull is a unique design that reduces the ships radar footprint and the weaponry that it is currently equipped with will be obsolete in six months. It takes about 3 years to complete a ship from the time the keel is laid until it is delivered, fully outfitted to the navy.

The Kennebec River cruise is an add-on to the admission price for the Maine Maritime Museum. The museum is set on the former property of the Percy and Small Shipbuilding company and retains many of the buildings used by the company in the building of wooden schooners and sailing vessels. Shipbuilding in the early days required carpenters and woodworkers – a large wooden ship such as the Wyoming would require between 26,000 and 34,000 treenails or “trunnels” , basically wooden pegs that would be driven into the timbers like nails.  The Wyoming was a six masted coastal schooner that could carry approx. 6,000 long tons of coal.  It was 426’ long with a deck height of 50’ – it was the largest wooden vessel ever built in the US.  There is a life size sculpture sitting in the same slip it occupied when it was built in 1909. 

There was also an area set aside for the history of lobstering in Maine.  The lobster trap is a fairly straight forward device, whether it is made from wood or steel mesh. The traditional wooden trap has a hinged door at the top which is opened to bait the trap and remove any trapped lobsters. The lobster enters the trap and goes through the circular hole in the netting to get the bait.  As it searches for a way out it cannot get back out the opening.  And Voila – dinner!