Saint Pierre (and more)

The last trip of #teachersummer2017 started with a little bit of history and a lot of fantastic friends. I managed to squeeze in all my old* favorites and several of their children!! I took practically no pictures during all the quality hang-out time, but I did manage to get tons of Ptarcie and I on our impromptu Freedom Trail tour.**

 From Boston I met up with Dad and AT in Halifax, Nova Scotia.*** We had a lovely time touring the boardwalk, including the Maritime Museum and Canadian Immigration Museum. The latter was total propaganda about how nice and easy it is to move to Canada and I was sold hard. The former was a whole lot of boats.

In the afternoon, Dad and I headed to The World's Worst Fort.**** It was straight up a hill but didn't have much of a view up top. Inside the fort were barracks you could tour but mostly tourists being hot. We did, however, find the perfect accessory for all future Keltic Kudzu gigs.

Upon leaving the WWF, we found the nicest art gallery so we were able to call the day an overall win. It featured the work of Maud Lewis*****, a Nova Scotian folk artist best known for painting her house and selling her paintings out of it. They have the house on display in the museum along with her artwork. All of her work was charming, colorful, and joyful.

After a full day in Halifax, we boarded a plane for Saint Pierre.****** Saint Pierre and Miquelon are two islands just south of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean. You can see Canada from them but they are territories of France. They speak French, they use the Euro, and they have all the rights of the EU. It is a fascinating comparison to our April trip to French Guiana. There, everyone wanted more attention from mainland France and felt very misunderstood. In Saint Pierre, they feel it's no big deal. They're just France.

The island of Saint Pierre has a population around 6,000 and everyone knows everyone. There is a small town with brightly colored buildings bracing themselves for a harsh winter. We primarily traveled around the island looking at beautiful lonely vistas. Occasionally there were horses and once there was a seal!*******

Tomorrow the dream team returns to Halifax and drives north to Prince Edward Island.********
-KT

*Know this is not a reflection on their age but how near and dear they are in my heart. But we also talked about how old we are now.
**AKA the tour where I insisted Ptarcie and I continue to follow the red line throughout the North End until we had other plans.
***Not a point, nice try. Just Canada.
****Devoted blog readers will know we have been to a great many forts and have very strong opinions.
*****Soon to be featured in the upcoming movie, "Maudie," or "that preview I saw last week where I wanted Ethan Hawke to to stop being so Ethan Hawke."
******Point.
*******Photographed here but incredibly poorly.
********Point.