A little touch of Canada on Campobello Island

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 22, 2022

Today's adventure will take us to the farthest northeasterly point of our travels this summer. We're going to Canada! We were on the road at 7:40 a.m. this morning. This is an international day, so we have our passports ready. Mark filled out the "Arrive Can" form on-line yesterday, where he put in all our passport and Covid vaccination information. That made our border crossing easier. They verified that we didn't have any guns, mace, or plants, and welcomed us to Canada for the day. That border line meant we also crossed from Eastern to Atlantic time zone. So we lost an hour as we rolled into Canada. We crossed the FDR bridge to Campobello Island, and arrived at the visitor center at 10:00 Atlantic time--right when they opened!

Our destination today is the Roosevelt Campobello International Park. Jointly owned and operated by the United States and Canada, this park is free to visit. This island is where Franklin Delano Roosevelt's family spent most of their summers. The cottage where FDR and Eleanor's family lived during the hot months is the crown jewel of the park. Free tours of the house are given every 15 minutes, and they include both floors of the house.

Franklin Roosevelt's parents first visited Campbell Island when he was just a little boy. They liked their visit so much that they bought property and built a cottage (that is no longer standing). Their next door neighbor sold the house pictured above to FDR's Mother at the bargain price of $5,000--fully furnished. She gave it to FDR and Eleanor when they married, so they could move in next door to his mother every summer. Almost all of the furniture is original to the previous owner.

It's always fun when we travel to places that have links to sites that we have already visited. A month ago we were in New York, visiting the Roosevelt's other homes in Hyde Park. There our guide said that Eleanor Roosevelt was 40 years old before she ever owned and got to decorate her own home. Besides the White House, and Hyde Park's Springwood, this is another example of a house that was already furnished, decorated, and owned by her mother-in-law. Eleanor had only a few pieces of furniture, such as her own desk, where she was an avid writer.

This summer cottage was enlarged for their growing family, but was kept quite simple. While this island was simply named Campbell Island, at some point it was decided that it would sound fancier if they added a couple "o's" to the name. So it became Campobello Island.

Just like their home in New York, after FDR was paralyzed from polio, Eleanor slept in a twin bed out of the way. It was here on Campobello Island that he actually came down with the first symptoms of the disease.

Their five children had school lessons, even in the summers at Campobello. They had a little classroom in one of the rooms upstairs. FDR Jr. was born here in the cottage when he decided to arrive early. 

Interesting side note: Our tour guide lives here on the island, and she pointed out that expectant mothers that live on Campobello Island can decide if their children are born as Canadian citizens or American citizens. It's a 40-minute drive with a trip through customs to get to a hospital in the United States, or a 3-hour boat and car ride to the nearest hospital in Canada. Our tour guide's mother opted for the longer trip to the Canadian hospital.

After completing their lessons, the Roosevelt children had a big backyard that led clear to the ocean. We had foggy weather this morning, but we heard that the view from the backyard is great on a clear day.

Eleanor loved flowers, and the park service still tends a flower bed in front of their cottage.

Of course, Denisa took too many pictures of the lovely dahlias out front.

While some of the dahlias were as big as dinner plates, others are much smaller. They also have interesting colors and textures. So even though they look quite different, all of these are examples of dahlias.

At one time, there were 20 fine old summer cottages in this village on Campobello Island. But over time they deteriorated and only six now remain. Those six are part of the park, and are open to visitors. The most fun is the Wells-Shober House, with its big front porch.

What fun it would have been to sit on that big curved porch, watching the president's kids ride their bikes through the neighborhood!

This house hosts a special program two times each day. We snagged a couple free tickets for the morning "Tea with Eleanor" program. The tables inside were set with white linen table cloths and napkins.

A couple women we met on the front porch invited us to have tea with them.

Our mid-morning snack included home-made ginger snaps and hot tea. Now you should know that Mark loves every kind of cookie made, but he hates tea. So he enthusiastically ate the ginger snaps and sipped the tiniest amount of tea. While sipping our tea, two park employees told stories from Eleanor Roosevelt's life.

 Another one of the remaining cottages belonged to the Hubbard family. It is open for a self-guided tour.

The neatest part of this house is what looks like a lovely picture on the wall.

But it is actually a large oval window that showcases the view of the Bay of Fundy from the dining room of the Hubbard House.

One of the other remaining cottages in the International Park has been converted to a restaurant where many visitors eat lunch. But with our ginger snaps and tea, we weren't hungry yet.

The very friendly hosts at the Roosevelt International Park provided us with a map of other places to visit during our day on Campobello Island. One of those is the lighthouse on the north edge of the island. We made the drive to the north side, but the fog was too thick to even see the lighthouse.

Visitors that want to see the lighthouse have to arrive within an hour and a half of low tide to take the walk to get closer. We were literally walking where the ocean usually covers this sea weed and rocks. Sea weed drapes everywhere over the slippery path. We are very close to the Bay of Fundy--known for having the biggest change between high and low tides in the world.

We had to climb several ladders on this path, and it is easy to see that the bottom of these rusty ladders were usually under water.

After our interesting walk, we finally made it to the Head Harbour Lighthouse--still engulfed in fog.

We stayed for a while, and finally got a blue sky picture of the lighthouse with its signature red-crossed paint job.

We thought it was comical that signs were posted prohibiting climbing on the slippery rocks because it was not safe. The walk to get here over slippery sea weed and wet rocks was obviously not safe either.

A helicopter landing pad is next to the lighthouse, and gives clear views of those slippery rocks and the sea views. Another sign warned not to go out on the pad when the fog horns are sounding because it might cause ear damage. The fog horns were obviously in use today, and they sound every 60 seconds. So we figured out that you could run out on the landing pad, snap a quick picture, and get back to safety before it blasted the fog warning again.

It doesn't take much of a walk to start losing the lighthouse in the fog.

The trip back to the pickup was a little dryer since we were getting closer to low tide.

The walk to the lighthouse is not exactly handicap-accessible with steep ladders and slippery terrain.

Even though the fog is less thick now, don't expect to see the lighthouse without that interesting hike at just the right time of day.

We had other stops planned on the island, and some of them even had blue skies! We stopped in to see the legs of the wooden piers almost completely out of the water at low tide.

One of our stops was at the beach at Herring Cove.

When we first arrived, we couldn't figure out the purpose for this odd combination of poles and netting in the ocean.

The poles came all the way to the beach, and ended in a circular pen in the deeper water.

That's  when we found out from a local that this was a fish wier trap. It is used to herd fish along the long netted fence, and then trap them in the round pen at the end. Then they can be scooped out of the water for some easy fishing.

We got this information by striking up a conversation with this couple. This is Ronald Rees and Jane Merrill, two Canadian authors. Mr. Rees specializes in New Brunswick and Welsh history, so he was the perfect person to ask about this very historical method of catching fish.

He also explained these contraptions we saw in the harbor. These are cages that are used to raise salmon.

We were also greeted by some crabs who gave us white-eyed stares.

This is a rocky beach, made up of tiny stones instead of sand.

We picked up red pebbles along the beach, and Denisa used them to form "CA." That's the first two letters of Campobello and Canada--both words that are too long to spell in their entirety on the beach.

The Roosevelt cottage backs up to the Bay of Fundy. This is close to the area in Canada that experiences the very biggest change in water level between high tide and low tide in the world. We stopped in at another harbor to see boats almost dragging in the mud. We could also see the water line on the rocky shore behind the boats to see the difference between the current tide and high tide.

This international park has many miles of trails, so we decided to hike one of them. We chose the Bog Walk. Most of the trail was on a board walk, and it included descriptions of different plants that are found in a northern bog. The most unique was the pitcher plant. It has an unusual downward-facing stinky bloom designed to attract insects.

It's a carnivorous plant that then traps flying insects that land in the fluid-filled leaves. The picture below is of the water-filled pitchers that are directly under the "bloom."

The hairs on the leaves make it impossible for the insect to crawl out of the water that will soon turn them into plant food.

We also found cranberries growing in the bog. The berries are still white, as they won't ripen for another month--some time in the September.

Our furthest point on Campobello Island was a drive to Liberty Point. Can you see why this formation is named "Frog Rock"?

No kiss required to take this picture of the frog and the prince.

Campobello has some beautifully rocky shore line. We have wandered into more of God's wonders today!

We can tell that the summer season is coming to an end. The pink-flowering summer fire weed has bloomed all the way to the top and is now just tall pink seed stalks. In its place, the golden rod has begun its fall blooms of yellow. Even though it's August, the season is changing to autumn here in the north.

Our last stop on Campobello Island was Mulholland Point Lighthouse.

It's on the most southerly point of the island, and we didn't have to slip and slide over slimy sea weed to get a picture. The cloudy skies have turned to blue, and we've had a great day in Canada!

To get back to the United States, we just had to make the drive over the FDR bridge that joins this Canadian Island to the U.S. mainland. Built in 1962, this bridge makes this an easy day trip. Back when the Roosevelts summered here, the only access was via boat.

Denisa took a picture of yet another lighthouse in the middle of the bay as we entered into the United States. It was a quick and easy border crossing, as the U.S. doesn't even require pre-certification like Canada.

We had originally planned a fish lunch on the bay at Lubec, Maine. But we played too long on Campobello island and we were running out of daylight. So we drove right on through Lubec towards West Quoddy Lighthouse.

This iconic candy-striped lighthouse marks a rocky shore line. But more interesting to us is that this marks the most eastern point in the United States. We visited the most western point several years ago, so this means that we have truly traveled from coast to coast in this beautiful country of ours. Today it was also nice to experience a little touch of Canada on Campobello Island.