While Randy was trying to get comfortable in quarantine on the ship the rest of us went on with our excursions. There really wasn’t anything we could do for him.
Randy is watching what’s missing on the ship cams. The crew delivered his meals and surprised him with afternoon tea each day.
We entered the province of Quebec and the rest of us left for our excursion into Baie-Comeau.
Baie-Comeau was established in 1936 by American Robert McCormick.
He named the town in honor of Napoleon-Alexandre Comeau, a Quebec Naturalist. Both men are remembered with murals on town buildings.
McCormick’s intent was to acquire black spruce for his newspaper, The Chicago Tribune. The deep port near Baie-Comeau never freezes so he also constructed a paper mill, a hydroelectric power plant and the McCormick Dam to generate electricity.
In most reports McCormick took care of his workers with homes, churches and bilingual schools. The town infrastructure was built to modern standards with electricity, indoor plumbing and telephones.He promoted work life balance and sponsored fun activities for the community.
Former Canada Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was born in Baie-Comeau.
After a day of touring, Cindy, Darrel and I went to visit Randy. He could come out on his balcony and we could talk from the deck below.
The next morning Darrel and Cindy and I went on an excursion into the town and region of Saguenay, also in Quebec.
We were told the area once belonged to ALCOA but they got into trouble due to price fixing. They were required to dispose of some assets including the area of Saguenay.
Nativity scenes from all around the world are on display as a tourist attraction. This one is from the Inuit.
The Ha! Ha! Pyramid was built as a monument to commemorate the Saguenay flood in 1996. The pyramid, named after the nearby river, originated as a form of therapy to help residents recover. It is made of 3,000 yield signs because the French word to yield is very similar to the word to help each other.
Nearly 95 percent of those who live in the Saguenay region speak only French. There are lots of small remote villages in a land of 16, 000 lakes.
The area has 900 feet deep fjords and 900 feet high cliffs. The southernmost fjord in the northern hemisphere is in Saguenay.
The US ski team trains here in the spring when the snow is gone in Vermont.
The Saguenay river goes for 100 miles before depositing into the St. Lawrence River. The first 40 miles are fresh water and then it shifts to salt water due to tides. As a result, there are both fresh and salt water species living in the Saguenay River.
It was nice to get out and walk in nature! Poor Randy is left on-board.
There are lots of whales in St Lawrence river. Some beluga whales move into the Saguenay River during the summer. To keep them safe, there are speed limits and a limit on motors on the waterways. Some areas are considered a beluga nursery.
We passed another evening on board and visited Randy again from the deck below.
The last day was spent cruising the St. Lawrence River towards Quebec City.
The St. Lawrence River’s headwaters flow from Lake Ontario. The river connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and forms part of the international boundary between Canada and the United States.
While we were able to watch and get narration on deck.
Randy watched from his TV with the aft cam.
He got some preliminary information about disembarking and going into quarantine in Canada.
The rest of us enjoyed the dueling pianos one more time, this time on the big stage..
Cindy and I enjoyed our last chocolate martinis of the cruise.
Up next: We all disembark in Quebec City. Randy’s journey was very different from ours.
We had heard the Maritime provinces were beautiful but this was the first place that the natural beauty really made an impression.
Our tour didn’t start until noon and the ship’s crew were doing emergency drills so we were able to watch the process. There were announcements for fire emergency, medical emergency, evacuation, and calls to abandon ship! It was quite interesting and we are glad to know that they do such things.
Colonized by the French in 1604, the island came under British control at the end of the French and Indian war in 1763. It became part of Nova Scotia. In 1769 the island became its own British colony named after Prince Edward, fourth son of King George III. In 1873 Prince Edward Island became Canada’s seventh province.
Our guide told us that Prince Edward Island is Canada’s smallest province. It is twice the size of Rhode Island and has a population of 150,000.
In the 1960s the school system transitioned from one room schools to a coordinated system. There are two colleges on the island.
On PEI they don’t want to build higher than the basilica. Everything on the island needs to be planned ahead because their port freezes in winter, usually from December to April.
Although singer Anne Murray was raised in Nova Scotia, our tour guide told us her singing career was given a big boost in a local establishment called the Prince Edward Room.
We, like many people, knew of Prince Edward Island because of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 book Anne of Green Gables. We fondly remember watching the entire PBS series with our own red haired girl, our daughter Natasha.
PEI has many pilgrimage sites for Anne of Green Gables fans.
They also offer the musical theater production of Anne & Gilbert.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough port time to do both. We chose the musical and it was delightful. It was my favorite excursion on the entire trip.
The play is based on Montgomery’s second and third Anne books, Anne of Avonlea (1909) and Anne of the Island (1915).
They did not allow photographs of the production but I took this one from their website.
And then the next morning….
It was another sea day but Randy wasn’t feeling well. He took a Covid test that we brought from home.
Results were positive so he did the right thing and contacted the medical center. A medical technician came in a hazmat suit to test us both.
We were told that our home tests might have been damaged by putting them in checked luggage on the airplane. Our fingers were crossed.
Alas, when we got our results Randy’s was still positive. I was negative. He was given a short time to pack and taken away. He was COVID patient number 13 on the ship.
Randy went into quarantine on deck four and I remained on deck ten. My cabin (formerly our cabin) was sanitized by the room steward in full protective garb.
Randy’s cabin also had a balcony but with an obstructed view. He was told he could order anything he wanted, any time he wanted, but was expected to stay in his cabin.
He felt gradually worse throughout the day. The medical office called and checked on him, as did I and Darrell and Cindy.
I had a quick dinner on my own and went back to my cabin. I didn’t want to be out and about as I might still test positive. (I never did.) Randy and I were able to talk several times over the ship phones.
We were told that Holland America would cover all costs related to Randy’s quarantine. He wasn’t just going to be in quarantine on the ship but would also be staying in Canada to finish his quarantine at the end of the cruise.
Next up: Randy stays in quarantine while the rest of us go on with cruise activities.
Over years of cruising, we have learned to really enjoy sea days. With no port to visit, the ship’s crew usually has extra activities, entertainment and lectures available. During the lecture on this sea day we were told about the Canadian Maple Syrup Heist.
Over several months in 2011 and 2012, the contents of 9571 barrels of maple syrup ,nearly 3,000 tons, was stolen from a storage facility in Quebec. It was valued at $18.7 million Canadian (about $14 million US), the most valuable heist in Canadian history.
The storage facility was operated by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers which represent 77 percent of the global supply of maple syrup. They maintain a strategic reserve of maple syrup across multiple warehouses in Quebec. At the annual inspection in July 2012, it was discovered that barrels had been either drained and refilled with water, or just drained. The stolen syrup was trucked to Vermont and New Brunswick where it was sold in small batches to reduce suspicion. Most was sold to legitimate syrup distributors unaware of the theft. Seventeen men were arrested in December 2012.
Netflix featured the heist in their documentary Dirty Money (season 1, episode 5) and Amazon is developing a comedy series called The Sticky, based on the heist.
When we arrived in Corner Brook the next morning, we had lost our sunshine!
We had a very rainy tour called In the Footsteps of Captain Cook.
Our guide told us some interesting things about Labrador and Newfoundland but very little about Captain Cook.
As it pertains to this region, Cook was given command to survey Labrador and Newfoundland from 1763 – 1767.
He also mapped the eastern seaboard and the Saint Lawrence River.
The province of Newfoundland is pronounced Newfin-land. They have their own time zone that is 90 minutes ahead of US Eastern standard time. Newfoundland is the island and Labrador is part of the mainland.
At the tip of the northern peninsula of the island of Newfoundland are remains of a Viking Village, now a Unesco World Heritage Site. This is the first indication of Europeans in North America, likely Leif Erikson in the 11th century.
Italian explorer John Cabot landed in Newfoundland in 1497 sailing under the commission of Henry VII, King of England. They found the natives covered in red oker, likely as a pest deterrent. The term Red Indian was not originally derogatory.
Newfoundland had periods of British leading and independence. Following a government bankruptcy in 1934, Newfoundland became a British protectorate.
In 1948 there were referendums to decide the political future of Newfoundland. The choices were join Canada, remain under British rule or go independent. The eventual result, by a small margin, was for Newfoundland and Labrador to become the tenth province of Canada. (Our tour guide told us the options were be part of Canada, remain under British rule, or American statehood. I didn’t find validation in my research that statehood was really an option.)
Because Newfoundland is so isolated, there is an attitude of cooperation for everyone’s survival.
The history of helping with survival was apparent in 1942 when two US warships, the USS Truxtun and USS Pollux were destroyed by running aground in a violent storm. Unfortunately, 203 people died. However, 186 were saved through the valiant efforts of Newfoundland men.
There are five international airports in Newfoundland, some built by the Americans during WWII.
The helping nature returned again when, on Sept 11, 2001, US airspace was shut down due to terrorist attacks. There were 4546 aircraft flying over the US. Four hundred international flights were enroute to the US, mostly from Europe. Two hundred and fifty aircraft carrying 43,895 people were diverted to land across Canada. Thirty-eight planes landed in Gander, Newfoundland with 6595 people arriving in a town of 10,000 residents.
The care the town of Gander gave to those stranded passengers was remarkable. If that sounds familiar, I wrote about it when we went to see the play Come From Away this past winter. We learned about Come From Away while in Newfoundland.
There are very large caribou herds on both Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland has polar bear as they travel on the ice flow. Labrador is famous for Northern Lights, puffins, whales and ice bergs.
As part of our tour we were welcomed for lunch at St. James Church.
It appeared to be a fund raising activity for the church which was fine. The food was good, the company was warm and the space was dry. There were a few crafts for sale.
After a soggy day in port we were glad to get back to the ship.
We enjoyed dinner in the main dining room. We met our waiter, Anthony, on our earlier voyage on Nieuw Statendam and knew to look for him again. He was just as enjoyable on this cruise.
One of our favorite entertainment acts on this cruise was the dueling pianos in Billboard Onboard. They played most evenings and we were almost always there.
For our Halifax excursion, we opted for the Hop-On Hop-Off Bus.
Our ride had narration along the way and we learned that Halifax is the fastest growing city in Canada. It was developed along the second largest ice free harbor in the world, second only to Sydney Harbor in Australia.
We were asked to take out and look at a $10 bill. This bill is the first Canadian bill positioned vertically. The woman is the Viola Desmond. She played an important role in Canada’s civil rights movement. On Nov. 8, 1946, she went to see a movie in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Desmond, 32, was dragged out of the theatre by police and jailed for sitting in the “whites only” section of the theater. Although often compared to Rosa Parks, Desmond did her act of disobedience years earlier. Viola Desmond is buried in Halifax.
We passed by the Old Town Clock. It was a gift of Prince Edward, father of Queen Victoria. He sent the clock to the people of Halifax to remind them about the importance of punctuality.
We didn’t have time for all of the stops on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. We had identified a few we wanted to see. One of those was the Halifax Citadel, a National Historic site. Halifax was established in 1749, and although close to sites of war, no battles were ever fought there.
The Citadel was never fired on in anger – not even by those pesky Americans!.
On Citadel Hill we watched preparation for the Noon Gun.
We saw the the hourly changing of the guard.
Our next stop was the Fairview Lawn Cemetery.
When the Titanic sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, Halifax was the closest major port. The Titanic response operations centered in Halifax. The decision was made that Carpathia would take the survivors to New York City. The dead would go to Halifax. Reportedly, the White Star Line didn’t want Americans to see the bodies.
There were originally 209 bodies from Titanic buried in Halifax. Fifty nine were claimed by families or communities and taken away. The remaining 150 stayed in Halifax, most at Fairview but some also at the Jewish and Catholic cemeteries.
There are four rows of graves placed in the shape of ship’s keel.
The White Star line paid for simple headstones. Each includes a number representing the order in which the bodies were recovered.
Families were able to pay extra for larger or more elaborate headstones. All show a death date of April 15 because there was no way to know if the death was very late April 14 or early on the 15th.
Although families and authorities tried to identify victims, there are still fifty that remain unnamed. Three were identified later by DNA research.
This child’s stone was more elaborate because the Mackay-Bennett rescue boat crew paid for it to be so. The small child was the fourth victim recovered.
In 2007 the child was identified by DNA as third class toddler Sidney Leslie Goodwin. He was the only member of his large family to be identified.
At the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic we saw more exhibits about Titanic.
Halifax crews picked up bodies for weeks after the sinking. It was hard, grim work. Crews received double pay and extra rum rations.
This crew of the Mackay-Bennett. found so many bodies in the first few days that they ran low on embalming supplies. Health laws required preservation to return a body to port. The captain made the decision to begin preserving only the bodies of first class passengers reasoning that identifying wealthy men might be important in resolving estates. Other bodies were buried at sea after being documented.
When additional supplies reached the Mackay-Bennett all bodies were once again preserved. On April 30, the Mackay-Bennett was the first ship to return to Halifax and had coffins stacked on deck This crew had found 306 bodies during their time at sea, including child number four.
Two other Halifax ships and crews spent time in the area after the Mackay-Bennett left.. Weeks after the sinking, the crew of the Minia found 17 bodies and the crew of the Montmagny followed with four more.
These shoes are believed to be from child #4, The shoes, like the other victims’ clothing, should have been burned. An official just couldn’t burn these. He took the shoes home and privately kept them for decades. Years later, the shoes were returned to Halifax and are on display at the museum.
There were also displays about the Cunard ships Lusitania, Mauritania and Franconia. Samual Cunard was raised in Halifax. He began the Cunard line and was in competition with the White Star Line.
On the bus we heard about the Halifax Explosion but the museum filled in far more detail.
The Halifax Harbor has a section called the Narrows and that was the site of the largest man-made explosion ever known, the Halifax Explosion.
The explosion happened on December 6, 1917 when the Norwegian vessel IMO, with a relief mission to Belgium, collided with the French munitions ship SS Mont-Blanc.
The Mont-Blanc exploded and an area one mile square was totally destroyed. Serious damage extended much farther. Nearly two thousand people died immediately and 9000 were injured.
There were 1639 buildings destroyed and 12000 buildings damaged. Windows shattered 62 miles away. A deck gun landed 3.5 miles away and part of the Mont Blanc anchor was found two miles away.
That level of blast was not felt again until the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan.
People all over the world responded with assistance. Boston helped and Halifax still sends a tree each Christmas to display in Boston Common.
The CSS Acadia, a riveted steel hulled vessel, was available for touring outside the museum. It is the only vessel still remaining that survived the Dec 6,1917 explosion.
She was a research vessel in the Arctic but was assigned to the Royal Canadian Navy during both world wars.
CSS Acadia was decommissioned in 1969 and designated a National Historic Site.
While on the tour bus, we passed Pier 21, Halifax’ version of Ellis Island. Many people from Scotland came through Pier 21. Nova Scotia means New Scotland.
The lands that are now New Brunswick went back and forth between French and English rule. During the time of American independence, these lands belonged to England.
Saint John, New Brunswick is Canada’s oldest incorporated city. The city began in 1783 as loyalists moved north following the US Revolution.
Benedict Arnold, infamous American traitor, went to England after escaping capture and joined His Majesty’s Service. In time, he and his wife came to Saint John, New Brunswick and he became a merchant. They lived in Saint John for six years but were not well revered.
Martello Tower was built during the War of 1812. It had a low entrance and irregular stair measurements as a protective measure. The tower was attacked by the United States because it was a place nearby where the Americans could attack England. (The section on top was added during World War II.)
(Editorial comment – It was so very strange throughout this trip to hear about incidences where the US and Canada were attacking each other. I know it was a long time ago and Canada was British Canada at the time, but the whole idea just doesn’t compute!)
Saint John population increased between 1840-50s as many people came from Ireland during the potato famine.
In the mid 1800s, Saint John became the third largest ship building town in Canada.
We were told that the owners of this 1910-11 house had been on a trip abroad buying furniture. The furniture sank on the Titanic. I don’t know what happened to the people.
Rockwood Park was designed by Calvert Vaux, one of the designers of New York City’s Central Park.
The park was formed around Libby Lake where local man Charles Gorman set a world speed skating record. He competed for Canada in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics.
New Brunswick is the only official bilingual province. Quebec’s official language is French while the rest are official English language provinces.
The McDonald’s in this part of Canada used to have McLobster!
This area is known as the Reversing Falls Rapids. It is where the mouth of the Saint John river connects with the Bay of Fundy.
Most tides throughout the world adjust about three feet. The highest tides in the world are here.
The Saint John River usually goes towards the ocean except at high tide. The tidal change can be 28 feet in the river and 40 feet in the Bay of Fundy. The result is that the river actually falls fifteen feet backwards. Levels of brackishness can be found 70 miles upriver.
Power production turbines were installed and then destroyed by the tidal action. Work continues on a new design that can handle the extreme tides.
A 100 year old pulp mill is across the river.
It was very difficult to build bridges across the gorge. Three attempts failed either during construction or after the fact. The bridge in the picture was built in the early 1900s.
We were not there during the tidal change. It would have been interesting to see!
We boarded the Nieuw Statendam once more and set sail to our next port – Halifax, Nova Scotia
We arrived in Boston, turned in our rental car, and took a shuttle to the hotel. We had the fun and unexpected experience of running into Sharon, a friend from Boise, on the shuttle. She was also in town for a cruise, but not the same one as we were.
In the morning we connected with our planned Boise friends Darrell and Cindy. We headed to the pier and processed to board our Holland America ship. The lines were long as everyone went through COVID boarding protocols.
This is the Nieuw Statendam, the same ship we sailed on for 21 days from Fort Lauderdale to Rome earlier in the year. We had mixed feelings. We had enjoyed the ship previously, and knew our way around, but it would have been nice to experience a different ship as well.
We did get a complimentary upgrade in cabin. It was still a verandah cabin but was the “spa version” with minor upgrades in the bathroom. It was located near the spa on Deck 10 – an upgrade if price and location are considered. What we lost in the upgrade was the extended balcony we had booked on Deck 4.
Our itinerary was to go from Boston to Quebec City with stops in Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, New Foundland, Prince Edward Island and Quebec.
We left Boston in the evening.
Early morning progress shown on the TV in our cabin..
Sailing into Portland, Maine.
Our first shore excursion was aboard the 91 year old schooner Timberwind.
She served as a pilot boat in the harbor until 1969 under the name Portland Pilot. Built in 1931, she also served in Rockport, Maine and Belfast. She returned to her home waters in 2018 to be part of the Portland Schooner Company.
Timberwind is 70 feet long with a beam of 14 feet. She has an oak frame, and is sheathed in yellow pine. The deck planking is also yellow pine. Timberlwind was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
On the day of our sail, the predominantly female crew asked for volunteers to help with the rigging and sails.
Darrel and Randy volunteered.
We enjoyed our view back on the city and the commentary around the harbor.
It was a nice day to sail around the harbor with Cindy and Darrell!
Fort Gorges was planned as one of three forts in the Portland Harbor. It was constructed entirely with local granite, and had 56 gun emplacements. By the time it was completed in 1864, it was already considered obsolete. Fort Gorges had a live-in caretaker after the Civil War, and it was a storage facility in both World War I and World War II. Fort Gorges was given to the city of Portland in 1960 and is community space,
Fort Scammel was built on an island in the harbor in 1808 as part of the national system of fortifications. Although it was armed over several wars and conflicts, only one shot was ever fired – that during the War of 1812.
A bastion on the opposite side was built to protect access through the main channel. A third bastion was never completed.
The Portland Harbor was the closest, deepest naval port to Europe and there was lots happening during World War II. It was the last fuel stop enroute to Europe. The harbor was guarded by submarine nets and patrolled by the same Portland Pilot for the US Coast Guard.
Ten percent of all boats in the war were built in Portland area shipyards including 30 ocean cargo ships for the British government and 236 Liberty cargo ships for the United States government. The shipyards employed 30,000 workers between 1941 and 1945.
We had a view of the Portland Lighthouse from the water. It is the oldest working lighthouse in United States, built by the Second Continental Congress.
We saw our ship as we headed back in to port.
We traveled to the lighthouse in more traditional transportation- a bus. The Portland Lighthouse is the most photographed lighthouses in the world.
This church is the tallest structure in Maine.
This church is from the 1700s and has damage from two cannonballs.
This building was the original library in Portland.
And in some Maine trivia…
LL Bean is the largest private employer in Maine. If you call them, someone in Maine answers. The company started with Mr. Bean marketing his waterproof boots to hunters after obtaining a list of those with licenses. Ninety-eight of the first 110 pairs came back to the company. Things improved with time!
We learned that Maine was once was part of Massachusetts so, in that way, was part of the original 13 colonies. Mainers had campaigned for statehood following the American Revolution and the Massachusetts legislature agreed to let the territory go in 1819. On March 15, 1820, Maine gained statehood. The quest became entangled in the slavery issue. Most people in Maine supported abolition, so their admission was linked to the admission of Missouri as a slave state. The controversial “Missouri Compromise” preserved the balance between pro and anti slavery members in the US Congress for decades.
We made our way back to the ship and had an enjoyable evening on board. Our next port was Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
This next set of posts are from a trip we took in August and September 2022. Yes, almost a year ago. When we got home in September 2022, I was still writing about Italy. Then came Nashville, and Kauai and Detroit. It was always my plan to go back and write about New England and Canada, but it just didn’t get done.
I regretted that because we really do like having this travelogue for ourselves, and especially because this trip has a unique, hopefully once in a lifetime, ending.
As we prepare to embark soon on another grand adventure, it is now or never on this trip. I was thinking never until I went to delete all the extraneous photographs I take while preparing to write a series of blog posts. I just couldn’t do it. The time is not never, it is now – and hopefully Randy can enjoy the end a year later.
So, to begin….We flew from Phoenix to Bangor, Maine and went to see the city’s primary tourist activity – driving by author Stephen King’s house.
The sculpture in the yard was commissioned by Tabitha King. Artist Josh Landry used a chain saw, and worked for one month, to form a sculpture featuring books and animals out of the stump of a dead 300 year old ash tree.
Going in the direction of Bar Harbor, we traveled along, and over, the Penobscot River. We could see Fort Knox across the river.
To get to Fort Knox we crossed the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.
It has the worlds tallest public bridge observatory at the top of the obelisk shaped center mast.
Fort Knox is one of the best-preserved military fortifications along the New England seacoast.
In the early years of our country, Maine was involved in border disputes with British Canada. Fort Knox was established in 1844 to protect the Penobscot River Valley against a future British naval invasion.
It was one of 42 forts built along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific seaboards after the War of 1812 to defend critical harbors against enemy invasion.
We proceeded to Bar Harbor and found our cottage on the coast.
We enjoyed a sail among the islands of Frenchman Bay aboard a 151 foot schooner.
We ate at Leary’s Landing, the closest Irish pub to Ireland in the United States.
We went into Sherman’s Book Store, the oldest bookstore in Maine. It has been in business since 1866.
We went into Acadia National Park several times but we never did have good weather.
We did what we could and enjoyed driving around.
Neither of us care to eat lobster but when in Maine, you just have too, right?! Randy had a lobster roll. I had a bite of Randy’s lobster roll.
After a few days, we moved into New Hampshire, specifically Franconia Notch State Park. It is the home of Flume Gorge! The flume was formed by molten lava pushing up through cracks in ancient granite. The lava rock was worn away over the ages leaving the flume.
The flume has widened by frost and water.
Logging around the flume generated New Hampshire’s first conservation effort.
The Appalachian trail’s northern most location is also nearby.
Franconia Notch is also famous for the Old Man of the Mountain. Nathanial Hawthorne saw the profile in 1832 and wrote his short story, “The Great Stone Face” published in 1850.
The profile was present for at least two hundred years given a historical reference in 1805.
In the 1870s, a group of hikers reported the granite ledges comprising the Old Man seemed to be slipping. In 1916, a group of quarrymen drilled holes into the forehead stone and installed turnbuckles to anchor the profile.
In 1957 the state of New Hampshire approved sending tools and equipment to the top by helicopter. Four additional turnbuckles were installed and water was diverted to avoid it seeping into crevices. Additional work was done in the early 1960s.
In 1965, the Old Man got an official caretaker, Department of Transportation bridge superintendent Niels Nielsen. He, and his crew, worked each summer painting the turnbuckles, cleaning debris from crevices in the stone, and covering cracks to prevent damage from water seepage. His son, David, eventually took over as caretaker.
The Old Man of the Mountain came down on May 3. 2003.
To “see” the Old Man of the Mountain now you go to Profiler Plaza.
You find a pink granite stone engraved with your height.
While standing on the engraved footprints, sight along the profiler with one eye closed.
It is then possible to see The Old Man of the Mountain once more.
Still in Franconia, we went 4000 feet up to the top of Cannon Mountain on the first tramway in the United States.
Operations began in 1938.
We walked around a bit at the top.
We got engulfed in clouds at the observation deck on the summit.
While waiting for the clouds to lift, I downloaded, and read, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Great Stone Face.”
The task of reading The Great Stone Face was accomplished, but not enjoyed. I’m just not a Hawthorne fan.
At the bottom of the mountain, we saw the original tram car outside the New England Ski Museum. Of course we went in.
US skier Bode Miller learned to ski on Cannon Mountain and loaned his Olympic Medals to the museum.
More in Franconia, we went to The Frost Place.
Owned by the city as a nonprofit educational center for poetry and the arts, The Frost Place is in the poet’s former home.
Out back, we walked the Poetry Trail.
Along the way are opportunities to read about a dozen of Frost’s poems.
We had one more thing to do in New Hampshire before heading to Vermont. We had a cruise upcoming and in August 2022 you still had to test negative for COVID within a specified period of time.
I had not been able to work out in-person testing anywhere in rural New Hampshire or Vermont. We had pre-purchased tests that we could administer ourselves while being medically supervised over our phones.
Talk about stressful! We had to worry about technology and the results while sitting at a picnic table somewhere in rural New Hampshire.
Fortunately, we both tested negative.
That meant we were on to our last New England destination before the cruise – rural Vermont.
We were delighted to finally meet Randy’s cousin, Kevin, and Kevin’s niece Brynna. We talked non-stop for two days. What a joy!
Next post: We hook up with friends and our cruise begins!
Henry Ford and two of his friends, Charles Lindberg and Thomas Edison, were fairly vocal about their anti-semitism. We knew that before we experienced the commemoration of Henry Ford in Detroit and Dearborn. Our Detroit Architecture Tour guide mentioned the fact briefly but then we heard nothing about it again until our final experience in Greenfield Village.
We were told that the Ford family and Ford Motor Company went to great effort to erase, or at least diminish, that part of Ford’s legacy. It was suggested that places like The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village were part of those efforts.
It is unclear if legacy rehabilitation was of concern to Henry Ford when he established the Edison Institute School System in 1929. Later it became the K-12 Greenfield School where Dearborn students (25 per grade) could spread out and learn about history in the same buildings where history happened. Students could also learn about inventors, inventions and the spirit of innovation in the same spaces in which the spirit thrived.
One of the docents we spoke with at Greenfield Village was one of those students, selected by lottery, to attend Greenfield School. He spoke about what a great experience and education he received. There was no charge to his family for him to attend Greenfield School.
We spent most of our village time in the area called Porches and Parlors. There are 26 historic homes, most are original and moved to the village. A few are replicas built with great authenticity. We were told that when Henry Ford had a building moved, it was taken apart carefully and everything saved. Even plaster pieces and mortar were saved to be ground and reused.
Henry Ford was born and raised in this farmhouse, originally located a few miles away from Greenfield Village. At 16 years of age, Henry left the family farm and went to Detroit to work as a machinist.
Henry Ford attended the Scotch Settlement School from age eight to eleven. It was built in 1861 in Dearborn, Michigan. He later restored the building and brought it to Greenfield Village to use as the first classroom for his experimental Edison Institute School System.
At the October 1929 dedication of Greenfield Village, Henry Ford sat at a desk in the same place in the classroom where he sat as a boy. He carved his initials into the replica desk, just as he had done many years before.
H. J. Heinz products were first developed in this house built in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania in 1854. As a young man in the 1860s, H. J. Heinz spent much of his time in the basement making and bottling horseradish. He sold horseradish to people in his hometown and soon began making pickles, sauerkraut and later ketchup. He eventually moved operations to nearby Pittsburgh.
Wilbur and Orville Wright lived in this home while they developed their successful powered airplane. Their father and mother encouraged the boys, and their younger sister Katharine, to be intellectually curious. The home was built in 1870 in Dayton, Ohio.
Noah and Rebecca Webster lived in this house in New Haven, Connecticut.
From this home he published his famous American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. Webster’s dictionary aimed to capture distinctively American words and spellings for the first time.
And while he was considered “Schoolmaster of our Republic” he also believed that all “should be educated a little, but not to rise above their station.” Hmmm.
This house was built in 1835 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of its many residents was poet Robert Frost in the 1920s.
The Giddings House was built about 1750 in Exeter, New Hampshire. It was owned by the family when they were active West Indies traders. Their business was impacted significantly by the American Revolution.
Not all buildings in Greenfield Village are from this continent. The Cotswold Cottage, built in the early 1600s was moved from Gloucestershire, England.
Families who lived in this home may have been farmers and stone masons.
The Susquehanna Plantation was built up between 1826 and 1836 in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. By 1860, Henry and Elizabeth Carroll owned 75 enslaved men, women, and children. The Carrolls were among the elite of the area, a lifestyle made possible by those who were enslaved..
Slaves from the plantation likely supported the Union during the Civil War. Some probably served in the US Colored Troops or worked as prison guards at the large prison camp for Confederate prisoners built nearby Susquehanna in 1863.
This was one of 52 slave quarters on the Hermitage Plantation near Savannah, Georgia.
There were 201 enslaved persons on the plantation manufacturing rice barrels, cast iron products and lumber. Bricks were also made on the plantation and that is why these slave quarters were made of brick.
This home is where Luther Burbank was born in 1849. He was an American plant breeder and naturalist. His experiments led him to develop the Russet Burbank potato – popularly known as the Idaho potato- which would become the world’s most cultivated potato.
William Holmes McGuffey was born in the year 1800 in this small log home in western Pennsylvania. By the late 1800s, McGuffey’s Readers were the most widely circulated textbooks in the United States.
This is the Logan County Court House, build in 1840 in Postville, (now Lincoln), Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln practiced law here between 1840 and 1847. He was a traveling lawyer working mostly on neighbor disputes, contracts and debts.
The section of Greenfield Village, dedicated to the work of Thomas Edison, featured his Menlo Park Complex. Unlike many buildings in Greenfield Village, these are not originals that were moved. Structural components of the original New Jersey complex were incorporated in the rebuild in 1929 in Greenfield Village.
In 1876, Thomas Edison set a goal to have one major invention every six months and one minor invention every 10 days. He did very well towards that goal.
Menlo Park Laboratory was where Thomas Edison’s electric lighting system was created as well as the first phonograph.
Machinists were highly skilled independent craftsmen and were critical to industrial change in the 1800s,
This is a replica building of Edison’s machine shop and the world’s first central power station used for his experiments and electrical lighting demonstrations in 1879 and 1880.
Unmarried male workers from Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory lived in Sarah Jordan’s boarding house. The boarding house was one of the first homes ever to be wired for electrical light.
After exploring, we enjoyed lunch at the Eagle Tavern, built in 1831-32 in Clinton Michigan.
All people, regardless of social class, came together in taverns.
As we recall, our food was quite good. The mixed drinks, surely authentic to the era, were not to our taste.
There was an opportunity to ride around Greenfield Village in period vehicles but we never did.
We also could have explored sections of Greenfield Village devoted to Working Farms, Liberty Craftworks and Railroad Junction. As we had visited similar living museums elsewhere, we did not dedicate our time there. Greenfield Village is very large covering 90 acres!
Henry Ford’s work in Greenfield Village was dedicated a National Landmark in 1987.
The Henry Ford was founded on Oct 21, 1929, as part of the Edison Institute. The purpose was to preserve items of historical interest and innovation. It later opened to the public as a museum.
In the 523,000 square feet facility, there is opportunity to display innovations large, small and every size in-between.
There is a list of the must see exhibits. All but one will be featured in this post. (We saw the exploded Eames lounge chair but it failed to make an impression on us at the time and I didn’t take a picture.)
The first must see we came to was the Dymaxion House. This unique housing was prototyped for mass production in 1946 at a price of $6,500 each. Over 3700 inquiries were made about the 1017 square foot home but very few were ever built.
The Graham family, initial investors of the Dymaxion, lived in this house for 20 years. They had challenges with sound, heating and cooling. In 1992 the Grahams gave their Dymaxion, the last remaining, to the Henry Ford Museum.
Another of the must see items was the Rosa Parks Bus.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on this bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That event sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
This was the seat Rosa Parks was sitting in. We were at the Henry Ford on a weekday in May and there were many school groups on field trips. We were delighted to see and hear that the students on the bus were very knowledgable about the event and almost all wanted to sit in the very seat.
Also on the list is the chair Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot at Ford Theatre.
This is the 1961 Lincoln that President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was shot in Dallas in 1963. The car was made by the Lincoln Motor Company (a Division of Ford) in Dearborn. It was a deep blue color at the time of Kennedy’s use.
Following Kennedy’s assassination, the car underwent a rebuild, changing the color to black, but also adding full armor, bullet resistant glass, tires that can run flat and a back rail and platform for secret service agents. The car was used occasionally by presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter.
There were other presidential vehicles on display including this Brougham carriage used by President Teddy Roosevelt. He did not like automobiles. The build year on this carriage is circa 1902 and was not custom. It was also used in the Taft, Wilson, Harding and Coolidge administrations for household errands.
This 1939 Lincoln was the first car ever built purposefully for use by a president – in this case for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was nicknamed the “Sunshine Special” because he loved to ride in it with the top down. It had extra wide running boards and rear hinges on the back seat doors to make it easier to get FDR in and out of the car. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 the car was returned to the factory where it was equipped with armor plate and bullet-resistant tires and gas tank. The “Sunshine Special” was also used by President Harry Truman and retired in 1950.
President Dwight Eisenhower used this new 1950 Lincoln “Bubbletop” There was (and is) always a conflict between a president’s desire to be accessible and seen, and the desire to keep him safe.
This 1972 Lincoln was used from 1972-92 by presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and GHW Bush. Reagan was injured when, in an assassination attempt, a bullet ricocheted off the car and hit him.
These vehicles were just a few of well over one hundred being displayed in one collection or another. There were vehicles in all shapes, sizes, ages, power sources and purpose.
Being a Ford museum, of course there is information about the Model T. In this display they identified 7882 distinct steps in making the 1923 Model T Touring car.
In 1956, the Ford Motor Company built the Thunderbird. It was promoted as a car purchased just for the pleasure of driving.
This is a 1962 Mustang I Roadster. The Mustang was designed to have people think of Ford as exciting and forward thinking. This was a concept car and different from the Mustang that was released in 1964.
There was an entire collection of racing cars from early to current. This particular Ford vehicle was the winner of the 10 mile 1901 Sweepstakes.
This 1967 Mark IV was driven by the first all American car team to win La Mans, a 24 hour race. It was built by Ford in Dearborn.
In 1903, this Packard was the second vehicle to go across the continent from San Francisco to New York City. It took 61 days. (The first vehicle to do so, also in 1903, took 63 days.)
The most photographed item in the museum, and not to be missed, is the 1942 Allegheny class locomotive, one of the largest and strongest ever built. It was designed to pull 160 coal cars, each with a 60- ton load over the Allegheny Mountains between Virginia and West Virginia. That load might be 1.25 miles in length!
Allegheny #1601 was the second ever built and is one of only two remaining. It is 125-ft long, 11-ft 2-in wide, 16-ft 5 ½-in tall and weighs approximately 771,000 lbs. Its original price was $230,663.
This is a 1922 Canadian Pacific Snowplow engine used from 1923 to 1990 in rural Canada and New England. The engine’s wings plow a single track 16 feet wide.
The last run of this 1858 Rogers train brought Henry and Clara Ford and their guests, Thomas and Mina Edison, and President Herbert Hoover and First Lady Lou Hoover to the dedication ceremony for The Henry Ford’s 1929 dedication ceremonies. The opening was timed to be on the 50th anniversary of Edison’s invention of the lightbulb. The locomotive was named The President in Hoover’s honor.
Edsel Ford coaxed his father into beginning an aviation division. Henry Ford only flew a few times in his life. The pilot for his first ever trip was friend Charles Lindbergh.
Henry Ford wanted to produce a small affordable plane for all, a Model T of the sky. This very first 1926 Flivver was only flown by Ford test pilot Harry Brooks and Charles Lindbergh. After 5.5 million dollars, Ford stopped the Flivver project when Harry Brooks, who was like a son to him, died in a Flivver crash.
The Ford TriMotor was the first successful all metal plane, nicknamed the Flying Washboard. The plane was made of a corrugated aluminum alloy called “duralumin” that was as strong as steel while remaining relatively lightweight. There were 199 Ford TriMotor planes made. People trusted Ford airplanes because of the cars.
This Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro was built in 1931. The company only made thirty of these plane/helicopters for about $15,000 each. The engine ran the propeller, and the blades turned on their own providing additional lift. The autogiro could land vertically but could not take off vertically.
Edsel Ford financed Admiral Richard Byrd’s Arctic Expedition in 1926. Thereby the plane was named the Josephine Ford. However Tony Fokker was the manufacturer so he made sure that his name was prominent too so the plane was not mistaken for a Ford TriMotor. There is no definitive answer as to whether Byrd was successful in his attempt to fly over the north pole.
In November 1929 Byrd made the first ever attempt to fly over the South Pole. The successful attempt was made in a Ford TriMotor plane.
Among some other random things that caught my eye (among thousands more I could have chosen), there was a McDonalds sign.
Sign #146 in the McDonald’s system was installed August 1960 at the Madison Heights, Michigan franchise. This style of sign was used until 1962 when new stores installed the more modern Golden Arches. This sign was in use until it was donated to The Henry Ford in 1986.
One final item is Henry Ford’s Kitchen Sink Engine. Text from the display states: “On December 24, 1893, Henry Ford carried his first experimental engine, made from bits of scrap metal, into the family kitchen and clamped it to the sink. His wife, Clara, fed gasoline to the intake valve while Henry wired the spark plug to an overhead light and spun the flywheel. The little engine coughed and then roared to life.”
And that engine changed the future for the Fords and America.
We visited the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Construction on the Rogue plant began in 1917 and was completed in 1928. At that time it was the largest integrated factory in the world.
Over the years this plant has produced fifteen Ford products including the second generation Model A, V-8, Thunderbird and Mustang.
Now it is the production home of the Ford F-150, the best selling truck in the US for 46 years.
Our tour started with two theater events The first was a movie sponsored jointly by Ford and the United Automotive, Aerospace and Agricultural Implements Workers (UAW).
We hadn’t known that UAW had a broader membership base than auto workers.
The movie repeated some of what we had learned at the Piquette Plant Tour but added a segment about labor relations. Ford resisted union organizers passionately (and physically) because he thought he’d already done enough for his employees. He doubled their wages at one point. It took four years, but Ford employees did eventually unionize.
While Henry Ford was in charge, he emphasized bringing in all necessary raw materials and making everything in house. Under this management style, raw materials were turned into a car within 72 hours.
In a move that Henry Ford would not have approved, many components are now outsourced. The Rouge plant has only enough back stock for a few days of production.
Our second theater event involved video, robotic arms and visual imagery to build an F-150 right before our eyes. It gave us a very good overview for what we would see later on the assembly line floor.
We explored some of the exhibits in the visitor center and Randy looked over the 2021 Hybrid F-150. This truck is a pre-production version of the hybrid model of the F-150. It combined a 3.5-liter turbocharged V-6 with a lithium-ion battery and 35-kilowatt electric motor, producing 430 horsepower. The hybrid engine has 20% better fuel economy. Ford Truck customers are able to choose the powertrain that most suited their needs – gas-powered internal combustion engine, hybrid gas-electric or full electric. My original research didn’t find that the hybrid F-150s were available but reader Mark has seen and driven a hybrid. Cool!
We went to an observation deck for a view of the Rouge Factory grounds.
The dark building in the distance is the stamping plant. It is the size of 50 football fields. Military grade aluminum is used for body parts. The aluminum scraps from the process are collected and turned into chips and recycled. The recycled aluminum collected in one month, 20 million pounds, is enough for 51 jumbo jets or 37,000 Ford F-150s.
The building with the stacks is for painting. Body parts are run through a primer pool and then spray painted by robots.
Final assembly occurs in the very large building under the living roof. This is the view from above the roof in the observation deck. This building is the size of ten football fields and is the only one we were able to tour.
The living roof utilizes several varieties of ground cover and, including the ivy on the sides, lowers the inside temperature by ten degrees. The insulation factor and the use of skylights reduce the amount of electricity needed to run that portion of the plant. The roof also cleans the air and absorbs rainwater. It saves the company significant money over a traditional roof and is thought to have double the lifespan.
The new electric truck The F150 Lightning is produced on the same plant grounds but in a separate building.
Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed inside the plant. We walked above and around the work being done below to create the world’s most popular truck for the last 46 years, the Ford F-150.
The 4.5 mile production line allows 53 seconds for each “job” whether it involves a robot putting in the windshield or an assembly line employee clipping in a rear light. A new F150 comes out of the Rouge Plant every 53 seconds.
The new truck is one of nine body types, on one of three chassis, with over 1000 combinations of options.
The assembly line computers are programmed to build each truck to the specifications of the buyer. Thirteen hundred trucks come off the line every day and all are pre-sold. None are going out for dealer stock.
Once the truck is built, it gets 8 gallons of fuel and goes for a 2-3 mile test drive. If quality control is satisfied, the truck is complete. It is shipped out to its new owner within 24-48 hours.
The rouge factory seems like an engineering marvel of consistency and efficiency. It also seems like a very boring job!
The workers do the same thing, or a very slightly modified version of the same thing based on the model, every 53 seconds for hours! We were told they sometimes trade jobs within their 10 person team to mix it up.
Workers seemed to wear whatever clothes they wanted. Some wore ear protection and many wore earbuds, presumably listening to music or audiobooks.
Randy did research on the average wage for beginning assembly workers at Ford – $20 per hour. We assume their compensation includes good benefits negotiated by the union, but we were surprised it wasn’t more money per hour.
Next up: One of Henry Ford’s “gifts” to Dearborn – The Henry Ford Museum of Innovation
Serene Wandering 