Category Archives: 2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

Starlite Diner Summerside P.E.I.

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

For lunch we dined at the Starlite Diner in Summerside P.E.I.  This is an old-fashioned traditional diner. A classic diner in other words. The table tops were red and white. There was a juke box. That excited me a lot, until I realized it was for display only. Fake in other words. The songs we heard in the diner were classics but they did not come from the juke box. We did not choose them. An algorithm chose them. Yet it was pleasant to listen to the Beachboys. The music was adequate compensation for the loss of authenticity.

The glasses for water or pop were large and RED!  There was a Texaco Fire Chief sign. Americana paraphernalia. Various coke paraphernalia.  Milk shakes were delicious in metal containers. I enjoyed Chilli and a vanilla shake. Chris had a jumbo hot dog and fries. This was diner food. The best food. Well maybe not the best, but pretty darn good.

The glasses for water or pop were large and RED!  There was a Texaco Fire Chief sign. Americana paraphernalia. Various coke paraphernalia.  Milk shakes were delicious in metal containers. I enjoyed Chilli and a vanilla shake. Chris had a jumbo hot dog and fries. This was diner food. The best food. Well maybe not the best, but pretty darn good.

I “borrowed” these photos from their website, thinking they would not mind since I was being highly complementary.

Does God Make Mistakes?

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Culture Wars, Gender Warfare, Pluralism

 

 

One day in Prince Edward Island rain was forecast for the entire day. So we took a break and did nothing. As well, we felt we needed a break from driving and seeing things. So we stayed put. We do that from time to time on trips. We don’t have the energy to keep going every day.

 

We did hear about people in New Brunswick talking about their new laws targeting trans people. That really seems despicable to me. I think in a few years people will realize how nasty that really was. Some of the evangelicals justify their position on the basis that “God does not make mistakes?”

 

What would they say about our granddaughter who was born with her intestines outside her body.  Thanks to modern science, not God, the doctors knew in advance because of an ultra sound test and were prepared to deal with it. In the good old days, such a “mistake” would have resulted in her death.  We called it a miracle birth. Which it was. But it was a miracle of modern science and God should not get the credit. The scientists who invented the techniques to make for such tests saved her life. Did God not allow her to be born like that?

 

As a result of the surgery on the first day of her life, her intestines were immediately put back where they “belonged” and she lived. Fantastic. But I think God, if there is a God, made a mistake. And doctors “corrected” that mistake.

 

What about children who are born with cleft palate or a cleft lip?  It results in a horrible disfiguration that in many parts of the world permits humans to inflict untold misery on the children with the defect. I recognize that humans are the real problem here, but God, again if there is a God, gets the credit for the condition of that child?  Or can we blame the parent for that?

 

How about intersex children? These are children who are born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit into an exclusively male or female (binary) sex classification. In some cases no one can tell if the child is a boy or a girl. It could be either.  Is that not a mistake? Why does God allow that? How can you impose a gender on such a child. Intersex traits might be apparent when a person’s born, but they might not appear until later (during puberty or even adulthood). In the US now, according to their new president, the country will only recognize 2 genders. What will they do with intersex children? Guess? Flip a coin?

Unfortunately, for Republicans and Canadian conservatives, not everyone’s sexual characteristics fit neatly into 1 of the 2 traditional categories. An estimated 1.7 of children born each year have variations of sexual characteristics. These variations are diverse. Some children have genitalia outside the norms for boys or girls. Some have feminized bodies but also have XY (male) chromosomes. Some have masculine bodies and XX (female) chromosomes.

Many of these children undergo surgery to “normalize” them because that is what their parents want. They want “normal” children, but that is not what God gave them. I actually don’t think this is a mistake at all. These children are just different. But in much of modern society, different is bad. Different means a mistake was made. And different means some children suffer needlessly.

I say, let it be. Whisper words of wisdoms, let it be. Some people are different. Thank God.

Hans Does Good in Just Another Farm

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

We experienced a very exciting moment near the city of Summerside P.E.I. where were staying.  This was when I sailed through a radar notice of my driving. I got an electronic clapping giving thanks for my driving under the 50 km. speed limit. I done good!

This wonderful incident occurred  near a town called “Just Another Farm.” Spoken like a typical modest Canadian! It consisted of 5 farm houses and no businesses. In Canada that warrants being called a town!

 

A Royal Flush is Better than a Full House.

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

Sometimes there are glorious things to see in Canada that you just don’t expect to see. They come as a very pleasant surprise. On the way back to Summerside, P.E.I. after circling the island for lighthouses,  we saw a very impressive sight of a true Canadian icon:  A McCallum Septic Service truck with a sign that read: A Royal Flush is Better than a Full House.

In all my the years of my misspent youth, I never got a royal flush.  Until this day.

Canada’s Confederation Lighthouse

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

East Point Lighthouse in P.E.I., which was built in 1867, is known as Canada’s Confederation Lighthouse and is located at the most eastern tip of PEI and stands an impressive 64′ high with five flights (67 steps) of winding stairs.

 

From here you can see what are called “colliding tides” – The Atlantic Ocean, Northumberland Strait, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Very impressive.

Crabbin Fever at Souris East Lighthouse

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

The Souris East Lighthouse at Knight Point P.E.I. overlooks the town of Souris Visitors are allowed to climb to the lantern room, walk out to the balcony, and discover the panoramic seascape views of the harbour and town of Souris.  With hindsight I recall we did none of that.  Why were we so negligent?  Perhaps I was beginning to worry we might not get home before dark. That is my excuse and no one will take it away from me.

 

Mi’kmaq first settled the area around the river followed by French Acadians, who were expelled by the British in 1758. While the Acadians were living along the river in 1724, they were inflicted by a plague of mice, or souris in French, and this incident led to the naming of the settlements on the flanks of the river Souris East and Souris West.

 

We also saw a cormorant swimming in the small cove near the dock where we photographed the lighthouse. I could not resist photographing it.

 

I liked the name of one of the boats we saw in harbour: “Crabbin Fever.” I am also a sucker for harbours. Never met a harbour I didn’t like.

 

 

Rick’s Fish’n chips Shop  St. Peters P.E.I.

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

A Beautiful Manitoba car at Rick’s Fish’ Chips P.E.I.

We also stopped at Rick’s Fish’n chips at the small town of St. Peters. This was a real Maritime Fish’n chip shack.  It was so good I may never eat Fish’n chips again in Manitoba.

Another exciting moment was when we drove by an autobody shop that advertised, “We sell body parts.”

Sometimes life is grand.

 

St. Peters Harbour Lighthouse and a Tuna Assassin

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Lighthouses

 

 

There were surprisingly many lighthouses on Prince Edward Island. Paradise for. a lover of lighthouses. And who doesn’t love lighthouses?

Today I saw a guy wearing a black shirt with the following inscribed on it: “Tuna Assassin.” He was wearing a bit of sheepish grin. Appropriate, I thought.

When I arrived for the first camera shot there was a lovely reflection of the lighthouse in the water that disappeared because of rising wind by the time I stopped the car and pulled out my camera. That sucked. But at least we saw it.

Although we nearly missed it, we stopped at the St. Peters Harbour Lighthouse. This was a hidden unadvertised gem of a lighthouse near a long-abandoned harbour.  We would not have found it had I not been hungry for an ice cream and a chatty woman operating the shop. When we first arrived, the store was unattended because the young woman had to go to drop off her child at the nearby school. When she returned, I asked her if there were any lighthouses in the area and she knew of this one.  And she gave us directions on how to find it.

The moving sand here made the harbour impractical. Thanks goodness they did not destroy the lighthouse! All we could see were remnants of the old pier.

This was another lighthouse threatened by rising sea levels and the sand that often accompanies that. There were remnants of an old pier nearby more or less buried under the sand.

I couldn’t get enough of this lighthouse.

Webanaki: from Odanak

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

As we travelled in eastern Canada we drove through many territories of various First Nations. I enjoyed that. It was part of my learning experience on our drive through eastern Canada.

The Webanaki people, another First Nation in Eastern Canada,  originally occupied a territory from land south of what is now Boston all the way to the St. Lawrence River. This was a vast territory. Christiane and I travelled through part of that territory on our trip to Eastern Canada in 2024. Specifically, we drove along the southern shore of the St. Lawrence after we crossed from the north shore near Quebec City and then through a large part of New Brunswick before we arrived in Prince Edward Island. The part we drove through is extremely well settled. In fact, as I said when we were driving, often it seemed like one very long town. While the north shore from Montreal to Quebec is more densely populated, there were a lot of people here too.

 

Historically, the Webanaki occupied all the land along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River from Levis to Rimouski and south to Maine. That was a huge territory. Currently the Webanaki occupy a mere 6 sq. kilometres in what they call Odanak. It is a tiny community hemmed in by Quebecois on all sides.  It is very close to the Wolastokuk. As Matthieu O’Bomsawin, who is Abenaki from Odanak said, “this makes it very difficult for us to access our traditional hunting grounds, which are almost non-existent. 98% of our territory has been privatized.”

 

As one member of the First Nation said, “When the Europeans arrived we occupied 100% of the territory. Today reserves [in Quebec] occupy only 0.06% of the entire Quebec territory.” Another member said, “constantly having to look at walls destroyed us.” This is understandable, as they were mainly a nomadic people. Another member said, “I saw the end of the nomadic life. I like living in a house, but the land is where my heart is.”

 

Wolastokuk or Wolastoqiyik

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties

On our way to Prince Edward Island, Christiane and I traveled through the territory of another first nation. This was the territory of  the Wolastokuk or Wolastoqiyik who had ranged over much of Quebec and New Brunswick in around the neighbourhood of Rimouski where we had been in September and October of 2024. Their territory was huge. Yet the reservations they were “given” under the authority of the Indian Act were puny in comparison.

On the CBC show Telling Our Stories, which I had watched, one of them said it was equivalent to “my backyard.” According to Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Wolastoqew Wahssipekuk, the band council that was created under the scheme imposed by the Indian Act was not surrounded by a community that could stimulate the culture of her people. As she said, “the flag is there but we don’t have a community.”

 

One of them told the story of how members of her family each fall would gather into groups to disperse across their territory to hunt and when they returned they found the government had sold their land to European farmers. As one of them said, “They sold our land without our consent.” Is that not what theft is all about? This is not that uncommon. The same thing happened in Manitoba with indigenous people around Petersfield. In exchange they were given much poorer land. White farmers yearned for their land and persuaded the government to do their bidding.

This “Indian problem” is found on many all First Nations. It is not limited to Wolastokuk or Webanaki. It is part of Canadian history which lately Canadians have been celebrating.  This one is not so easy to celebrate.