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Montreal

Montreal

Our tour next took us to Montreal, Quebec. Walking in the area near our hotel, we found that public art is important in the community. The first picture below is called “The Ring.” It was installed in 2002. The ring itself is a curved tube, weighing 50,000 pounds. The ring is 90 feet in diameter. When looked through at a certain angle, it focuses one’s attention on structures important in Montreal’s history. Another art piece we saw is part of…

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Ottawa

Ottawa

We were next headed to Ottawa, but on the way we stopped for a cruise among the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River. The Thousand Islands actually consists of 1,864 islands within both Canada and the United States. To be considered an island, the land must be above water all year and support at least one tree. We began our cruise near the town of Rockport, a village that is about 200 years old. The first picture below is…

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Toronto

Toronto

We began our Tauck Canadian Capitals tour in Toronto, the provincial capital of Ontario. We have visited Toronto a few times before. On our last trip (Cruising the Great Lakes), one of our stops was the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). There is a picture of the exterior of the museum above the blog title and you will see a large crystal structure on the exterior of the building. This is named The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal in recognition of a financial…

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Cape Breton Island

Cape Breton Island

We left Prince Edward Island and traveled back to Nova Scotia. We stayed on Cape Breton Island at the Keltic Lodge. It was set on beautiful grounds within Cape Breton Highlands National Park. As we walked the grounds, we were treated to beautiful scenery and also saw several lobster boats setting and retrieving their traps. These are pictures taken at Keltic Lodge. These pictures were taken at a quick photo stop at Black Brook, part of Cape Breton Highlands National…

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Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island

Before we left Nova Scotia for Prince Edward Island (PEI), we learned a little about the First Nations people, especially the Mi’kmaq. For a long time, their stories were passed from one generation to the next by word of mouth. A missionary, Reverend Silas Tertius Rand, spent about 40 years with the Mi’kmaq and other First Nations people, making one of the first written recordings of some of their stories and legends. The Mi’kmaq people believed that Glooscap was the…

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The Bay of Fundy

The Bay of Fundy

A highlight of our Maritimes trip was visiting the Bay of Fundy where we could walk on the ocean floor at low tide. Tides are caused by gravitational forces exerted on the earth by the moon and to a lesser extent, the sun. Fundy’s tides are the highest in the world in part because of the funnel-shape of the bay which forces the water into a smaller space. At its fastest, the water level rises 13 feet in an hour….

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Fishing Villages and Peggy’s Cove

Fishing Villages and Peggy’s Cove

We also explored a few sites near Halifax. We first headed to Lunenburg by way of Mahone Bay. The town of Mahone Bay has just over 1,000 people. It is a fishing village and a well-known tourist destination. Pictures of three churches along the bay, similar to the one below, are popular photographs on postcards. We also saw colorful homes. The paint used for these homes may have been left from the paint families used for their fishing boats. We…

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Halifax

Halifax

We traveled with Tauck on their Canadian Maritimes tour which began in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The British military founded Halifax in 1749. The Welcome Dinner for our tour was held at the Citadel in Halifax. The Citadel, situated at the top of a hill – later known as Citadel Hill – was in a perfect position to defend the harbor. One of the first buildings constructed was a wooden guardhouse at the top of the hill. Settlers built their homes…

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Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park

After leaving Sequoia National Park, we went to Yosemite National Park and stayed on the property at The Ahwahnee. The hotel was commissioned in the 1920’s in the hope of drawing affluent visitors to Yosemite. It was felt that affluent and influential visitors would encourage continued support of Yosemite as a national park. The Ahwahnee was named a National Historical Site in 1987. The Ahwahnee was positioned close to cliffs with a goal of making it “part of the scene…

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Sequoia National Park

Sequoia National Park

As part of our Tauck tour, we drove to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. They are adjacent to each other but became national parks at different times so have different names. They have been jointly managed since 1943. Sequoias grow in both parks. Giant sequoias grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, between 4,000 and 8,000 feet in elevation. They are closely related to the coast redwoods we saw at Muir Woods, but there are differences….

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