Miscou Island

"It's value to us is in getting there, breathing for a while, feeling the waves, looking at the distant vista that is Gaspe and the Gulf and leaving. Leaving is as important as getting there."

Miscou Island's charm is its remoteness. It's not on the way to anywhere. You have to want to go there.

Once a year since we've discovered it was there we've made our pilgrimage to Miscou Island, the furthest point northeast you can go in New Brunswick. Now, we always know we're going. Even when we set out to go somewhere else, we know we're going. Miscou has that kind of pull. This year, though, it had more pull than usual.

This time we had set out to explore Val Comeau Beach near Tracadie-Sheila, which is about mid-way between our cottage and the island. We weren't up for a long trip since it was the first day of an all too brief holiday and commuting to work had been taking its toll, as was being away from each other during the week. Much of the trip would be highway driving, but in my little Echo with the wind blowing loudly in the windows—no air-conditioning—conversation is impossible, so we may as well have been traveling separately. Given all that, Val Comeau seemed a reasonable destination.

Val Comeau's great. It's a great beach and has a picnic spot by the beach that will be our lunch spot from now on whenever we go to Miscou, but halfway through the meal I knew we were going to Miscou. I'm sure Elaine did, too. "How far is it to Miscou?" I asked her while we checking out Tracadie later. "Not far," she answered. Elaine's the navigator. So we were on our way; as if we ever doubted it; as if we even had a choice. I don't even remember asking her if we were going. We just went.

Sometimes it feels like all roads lead to the lighthouse at Miscou.

What pulls us there? The beaches at Cap-Lumière, another remote spot, are better. It's not the restaurants. Miscou Lighthouse has only an ice cream stand which wasn't there two years ago and last year didn't even have any ice cream. Locals have started to put some effort into making it more of a tourist destination, but we were going there when there was only the lighthouse. What draws us? Elaine says you have to want to go to Miscou and she's right because it's not en route to anywhere you're likely to be heading. But once you're there...

Reaching Miscou Lighthouse is like reaching somewhere sacred. Stark, blown clean by the wind, most everything behind the beach is flat, scrubby bog. It's the edge of the province and when I step past the lighthouse it's like walking through a membrane out of my world and into some other state of mind. Most days the surf is serious ocean surf, the wind almost relentless, the beach going on too far for us to reach the end. On a clear day, across the Baie-des-Chaleurs you can see the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, another province, a whole other world. When you look east you're looking into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And always the wind blows. It's an edge of the world.

To the lighthouse

Getting to Miscou is a relief. The drive isn't easy. You have to really want to get there. But then, at the end, I see the very tall, massive, octagonal shaped, red and white lighthouse. Read more Lighthouse...