PaddleWise Discussion on Atlantic Canada Paddling




Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:33:26 -0800
From: Rob Gendreau 
Subject: [Paddlewise] Atlantic Canada paddling

I'm gonna be on the east coast this summer (probably August). I'm 
interested in getting recommendations on sea kayaking outfitters and 
trips. I'm particularly interested in multi-day tours. I've seen a 
couple, Cape Breton and the southern coast of Newfoundland, that look 
good. I've gotten suggestions to go with Coastal Adventures, and they 
have a decent web site. I also saw a trip offered by Eastern Edge 
Outfitters that looked good (BTW, anyone know of a current e-mail address 
for them? the one on their web site bounces; not a good omen).

Thanks for the help.
Rob

Rob Gendreau
Oakland, California


Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 06:56:23 EST From: Bhansen97 Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Atlantic Canada paddling Rob - Are you at all interested in trips within the US? If so, I cannot say enough good things about Tom Bergh's Maine Island Kayak Company (MIKCO). URL is www.maineislandkayak.com . Tom is much more than an outfitter, much more than a great teacher and trip leader. He's dedicated to the outdoors in a way that few people I've met are dedicated. Over the years, I've traveled and taken classes with several outfits in the east, including Riversports, W.I.L.D.W.A.T.E.R.S, The Kayak Centre, and H2Outfitters. While there are some excellent teachers at some of these places, none of them has the depth and breadth of knowledge that Tom and is partner Phil Dalgin have - for that matter, I'd say the whole staff is excellent. I've never tagged along on a class at any level of instruction, or gone on a trip of any length, with them, and not learned several things of real value, met some great people, and had a terrific time. The MIKCO trips are zero-impact trips up and down the Maine coast, ranging in length from a day to 5 days. The food is amazing (much better than I take along on our own family trips). The equipment is first-rate, single glass kayaks by VCP, ASSC, and similar makers. I usually bring my own kit, but Tom can outfit you completely, if you like. Check out his excellent web site. Good hunting. Bill Hansen Ithaca NY (not affiliated in any way with MIKCO)
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 08:25:13 -0500 From: "Sisler, Clyde" Subject: RE: [Paddlewise] Atlantic Canada paddling I've been doing some research on Atlantic Canada. FWIW here's a couple of trip reports on Cape Breton & Nova Scotia: http://www.grassroots.ns.ca/~adnet/rec/coast/CBHigh.html http://www.grassroots.ns.ca/~adnet/rec/coast/GenNS.html Here's a couple of Nova Scotia links: http://explore.gov.ns.ca/ http://www.outdoorns.com/ http://nsonline.com/ I'm most interested in northern Newfoundland and Labrador. Not much info on the Labrador coast (not much there, including roads). Notre Dame Bay (the eastern most point in North America) in Newfoundland has hundreds of islands, ice bergs (dunno about August) whales, seals, porpoises, eagles, and other wildlife. Bona Vista Bay & Gros Morne National Park sound like other great locations in Newfoundland. There's also some Viking archeological sites in the area that sound really cool. I have a fair number of links on Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, PEI plus notes but they're in HTML format. I'm getting ready to put up my own web pages but that won't for another couple of weeks so I can't point you to them. I can email the HMTL files and you should be able to spot & copy the URL's with no problem. Let me know. I've been quite successful using a browser to search on such things as +"sea kayaking" +"where ever". I've also found that some of the browsers are case sensitive so you might get different results with "Sea Kayaking" as opposed to "sea kayaking".
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 13:03:26 -0500 From: Michael Daly Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Atlantic Canada paddling Rob Gendreau wrote: > I'm gonna be on the east coast this summer (probably August). I'm > interested in getting recommendations on sea kayaking outfitters and > trips. I'm particularly interested in multi-day tours. I've seen a > couple, Cape Breton and the southern coast of Newfoundland, that look > good. I've gotten suggestions to go with Coastal Adventures, and they > have a decent web site. I went on a trip with Coastal Adventures last August and can vouch for the quality of the trips, guides and food. We took a seven day outing through the Eastern Shore Islands northeast of Halifax. We started at Tangier (Coastal Adventures home base) and ended at Moser River. We camped on a different island every night with the exception of spending one in a log cabin maintained by locals that is freely accessible to anyone on condition they leave it in at least as good shape as they found it (the Nova Scotians are wonderful and this kind of communal spirit is typical in the rural areas - at one shopping centre we drove to the following week we saw that folks left their car windows open in the parking lot with parcels on the seats, no fear of theft!). We saw many seals, a couple of porpoise, lots of shore birds (comorant, osprey etc) but the water around the islands is too shallow to expect to see whales (up to about 60ft. depth). The islands are generally heavily wooded with very fragrant coniferous trees. There are beaches but often cobble rather than sand. The water's a tad cold to swim in. The sea was generally calm, with many opportunities to paddle relatively protected from island to island. There are very few boats. The fishery in the area is dormant and the population in the area is low. The Eastern Shore is a secret about to be discovered. Scott Cunningham, who with his wife Gayle, runs Coastal Adventures, has written a good book - Sea Kayaking in Nova Scotia - published by Nimbus ISBN 1-55109-156-9. I've not paddled Cape Breton, but have hiked the area. It's a wonderful place and Coastal Adventures provides trips there as well. Gros Morne in Newfoundland is supposed to be spectacular from all reports I've received and it's on my list of places to paddle in Eastern Canada (as well as Saguenay and the Minganie in Quebec). The tourist information folks in the Maritimes are very helpful. Nova Scotia Tourism is at 800-565-0000. email nsvisit@fox.nstn.ca. They have a web site at http://explore.gov.ns.ca/virtualns. Things to watch for: in Halifax in early August they have a Buskers' Festival in the harbour area. Lots of great shows and pay what you like after the show. The Fortress at Louisberg is a reconstruction of the original settlement by the French at Isle Royale (as Cape Breton was known then) A fascinating walk through history. I could go on - but I'll let it rest for now. Mike.