Baie Verte—it was a bay and it was green…cont'd

"We hadn't stopped this time and really the only person we saw that I remeber, other than the backhoe driver, was a tourist trying to put out a transmission fire on his half ton."

This elegant little bridge in Port Elgin crosses the Gaspereau River. Next time we'll park the car and walk about. Hopefully, it won't be the day before a hurricane threatens as it was when visited.

We had made the trip that day to ensure we had covered the southernmost point of the New Brunswick Acadian Coast. We hadn't been drawn there and we probably won't go again unless we hear of something of interest or are on our way to somewhere else, like the Nova Scotian part of Acadie. We'd likely just take the highway, though.

What really put a dent in our enthusiasm were two things. One was a long stretch of road that was low, narrow and had 15 foot alder bushes crowding the shoulders making it a claustrophobic drive. And the second thing was that five kilometers along that road was a detour that sent us back the way we'd come, back to the highway, around to Cape Tormentine and then down to where we hoped we could have seen Cape Spear. A couple of kilometers down that road from the other direction, though, we came across the same thick alder bushes crowding the road, so we gave up.

I don't like giving up on anything. There is more to Baie-Verte than we found, I know it. I had once been given a newspaper assignment of finding something interesting in each of the little outlying communities within the paper's coverage area and I did and the series motored on until the communist world fell apart and filled every corner of the paper, squeezing my little series out. But it had been a good series while it lasted. What it took, though, was stopping to talk to people. That's where the real stories are.

We hadn't stopped this time and really the only person we saw that I remeber, other than the backhoe driver, was a tourist trying to put out a transmission fire under his half-ton. Coming along the highway to Port Elgin we thought we could smell burning tires. On the highway you can't really smell anything your own vehicle is emitting so I knew it wasn't us.

This was the only person I talked to on our visit to Baie Verte and she didn't know any more about the place than I did.

At the traffic circle near the village, though, we came across a half ton with a long travel trailer in tow. The driver had just stopped and gotten out becasue someone had signalled him of trouble and he meandered back until he saw that his transmission was on fire. His reaction was predictable and a little comical. Other people had stopped to offer assistance, so we drove on and I thought "His vacation is ruined" and felt bad for him. That's how the tour began for us.

Around the corner from the transmission fire we stopped to photograph Port Elgin's pretty bridge and the Victorian Veranda Bed and Breakfast and soon heard the siren of the volunteer fire department's firetruck. I tried to think a good thought for the tourist but with the dreary weather the best I could come up with was that I hoped the transmission was still under warranty. We got in the car and began our tour of Baie-Verte.