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.