I knew it was a mistake the minute I saw her, but it was too late for second thoughts. She was a tiny thing, currently from France, but of Turkish origin, elegantly dressed in the French colors of red, white and blue. Her name was Nordet. The nearby children laughed merrily at her antics, but I didn’t trust her….not for even a minute. At first she was on her best behavior, but soon she couldn’t keep up pretenses any longer.
I sat down, waiting for her to make her move, my palms sweaty with anticipation and my stomach churning. What was she going to do with us? How did I let myself get talked into meeting her?
It started many months earlier when Roger announced he had a bucket list item. He wanted to drive to France. I laughed. “You can’t drive to France,” I told him. Then he showed me the map. There, just off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, was a tiny island group, called Saint Pierre et Miquelon, still a part of France.
I ignored him, hoping this idea would somehow pass, but it did not. He was wrong, actually, he could not drive to France, but he could WALK and drive to get there, so plans were made and off we went.
We drove across the US and crossed into Canada near Detroit, Michigan. It was an adventure. I didn’t give Nordet a thought.
After days of driving through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia I didn’t give Nordet a thought. It was at Sydney, Nova Scotia, that we boarded the Blue Puttees, a huge ferry, named for the 1st Newfoundland regiment, called the Blue Putteeswhich were decimated during World War I at the Battle of the Somme. We watched for an hour or so, as they loaded semi-trailers onto the ferry and wondered if there would be any room left for cars, but eventually we were waved aboard. We parked on deck three. I think the trucks were mostly on other decks. It turns out that the ferry has over 1 3/4 miles of parking. A few trucks were also on deck three with us.
We were instructed to take everything we needed with us as the vehicle decks were locked while underway. Huge chains hung down from the walls, waiting to chain down the vehicles…an ominous sign if you think about it.
Deck seven had a lovely dining room where nice dinners were served. Deck eight had berths, popular with people doing a night crossing, as well as a seating area. Our seats were on deck nine. Comfort all the way for us, with reclining chairs with a view out of the large windows. We left Nova Scotia at 11:45 AM and arrived at Channel Port aux Basques about 6:30 that evening. It was a pleasant journey.
While there are a goodly number of roads in Newfoundland, only one, the Trans Canada Highway, goes all the way from Port aux Basques to the provincial capitol, St. Johns, on the other side. Generally, the road is shaped like the letter C, tipped over onto its open side. You get off the ship at one end of the C and travel mostly around the C, getting off a bit before the other end. We liked the Newfie landscapes. The first part reminded us so much of the area around Glennallen, Alaska. The northern part of the route resembled the Kenai Peninsula and the final side was very much like the Denali Highway.
We soon discovered Newfie food. French fries drenched with gravy, hash browns and potato chips were served at every meal. At grocery stores it was not unusual to see people with cart loads of potato chips.* Of course, there was also abundant seafood…chowders, fish cakes, lobsters, salmon and others. Hearty breakfasts everywhere always included a choice of breakfast meats…ham, sausage, bacon or bologna.
Our last stop was at the little fishing village of Fortune. Our hotel was beautiful inside with hardwood floors and a bed so tall that they provided a stool to help me get into bed. The hotel had only eight rooms and no on site manager, so once they showed us to our room, they left us to our own devices. As it turned out, because it was the end of the season, we were the only customers there that night. We had the entire place to ourselves. At 10 PM, figuring that no other guests would be coming that night, I went out and locked the exterior doors. I might add that the exterior of the Fortune Hotel did not match the luxury features of the interior. It looked like a double wide trailer had been hauled onto the lot and skirted. In fact, we both felt a bit off center when walking around inside…as if maybe the hotel was not quite level.
The next morning when we awoke, there was a stiff breeze, but the Fortune Harbor was well protected from the elements. Since we didn’t have to catch our ferry to Saint Pierre et Miquelon until 4:30 that afternoon, we had a leisurely lunch at Doc’s Diner.
Roger had delicious lasagna and I had their homemade chili. We still had time to spare, so we went for a ride along the coast where we saw a sign that said, “Al Capone was here.” Apparently during prohibition times, this was a hot spot for transporting liquor to smuggle into the US.
At last it was time to go to the ferry terminal. Since we were going to France, we had to have our passports with us. I felt calm and at peace as we waited for the ferry to dock from the other side. Many of the folks waiting to board were native French speakers. One couple, of Basque heritage had their Labrador dog with them. A French family with three small children and two strollers was also waiting. Life was good.
And then I saw her. Nordet. She was not at all like the Blue Puttees. She looked like half a small, very small, ship. In the front was an area with passenger seats. The back of the ship, meant to hold maybe 15 cars, had only low sides. Sadly, no cars could board the ship. When the French government ordered Nordet and fixed up their dock to accommodate her, they did not talk to the Canadian government about it, so the Canadian side did not match the loading area which made it impossible to load any vehicles onto the ferry.
Then we cast off. The harbor was relatively calm and all was well, but we chewed a couple of ginger-based sea sickness candies just in case it got rough. There was a large flat screen TV bolted to the wall where the crew showed us a movie about where to find life jackets and how to safely evacuate the ship. When we were out in the open sea, the ship began to rock and roll. As long as we were going frontwards through the swells it was doable, but we couldn’t go on that way. Things were getting ominous. Soon we had to change direction to get to Saint Pierre. Now Nordet was running parallel to the swells which tossed us wildly around. The crew members were able to catch the TV as it fell off the wall. The little coffee bar fell apart and bottles of water skittered across the floor. It was hot in there. So very hot. I grabbed the safety instruction card and began to wildly fan myself. I must have caught the eye of one of the crew members, who came over to stand in front of me. “Ere, Madame” he said as he handed me a paper towel doused in ice water, as he indicated I should use it to cool my face. “It will ‘elp.” It did help…but not for long. That fickle Nordet was busy fighting with the waves. Sometimes it seemed like the middle of the ship was trying to go one direction and the ends the opposite way. She came clear up out of the water sometimes and then landed with a thump, but that wasn’t as bad as when she rolled from side to side. The little French kids who were laughing merrily earlier were silent. Sounds of retching surrounded us….and I joined them. That chili was not so tasty the second time around.
One crew member tried to tell us that this was normal weather, but later we heard they had been advised not to take the ferry out that day at all. At last we reached Saint Pierre after an hour and a half of misery and terror. By the time we left Nordet behind we were a bedraggled lot as we walked through the wind and rain.
We were so happy to see the car for l’Auberge Saint Pierre waiting for us there. The driver shepherded us into the hotel as he mentioned that the ferry had been late. Not surprising given the ride we had just endured.
Our bed was soft and inviting. We were safe
at last…..until we remembered that in just two days, we’d have to return to Fortune.
*Note on the potato chips. As we later told our friends in Halifax about the cartloads of chips being sold in Newfoundland grocery stores, they nodded knowingly. “Storm chips”, they said. The weather reports were saying that high winds were predicted as the tail of Hurricane Michael traveled up the coast of Nova Scotia and over to Newfoundland. People were stocking up on foods that didn’t require cooking in case the power went out. Hence “storm chips”.
As it happened, we were to leave Saint Pierre on the Sunday afternoon ferry. I was not looking forward to it. Saturday evening we got a text, telling us the ferry would sail early Sunday morning instead of Sunday afternoon to get it to the mainland and back before the wind became too strong again. If it meant avoiding another ride like we had getting there, we were more than happy to be ready early! Fortunately the ride back was much less adventurous.
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