The Tourist-Eating Whales of Grand Manan

Just got back from Grand Manan and nearly a week of whale watching, sunning and flying kites on the beach, body surfing till our toes froze off, and camping on cliff sides. Grand Manan is an island off the coast of southern New Brunswick, its most recent claim to fame being the burning down of a crack house by a gang of irate locals, giving the country’s prime minister an excuse to implicitly condone the action (much to the chagrin of every decent cop in the country, I would imagine) on the grounds that it shows that Canadians want tougher laws.

Hmm, well … maybe if the cops were to spend less time on pot and more time on crack, we’d be able to get by on the laws we already have. On the other hand, the laws to do that would piss off the prime minister’s boss to the south.

Now for the bright side … it looks like Harper finally sees some merit in the Maritimes being part of Canada. But I think the good folks on Grand Manan would like to just see the whole thing go away. In fact, here’s the way they put it …

But Grand Manan is one of those places with a jagged coast line and lots of cover for covert operations like smuggling and is suspected of being the entry point for more than one questionable cargo. I caught one of these ships sneaking through the fog bringing in a load of tourists, many of whom I suspect were planning on storming into crack houses and drinking all the poor drug dealers’ beer.

Yes, the prime minister has made it clear, it’s open house on drug dealers’ beer and, on the way out, you burn the house down. Do it today in your community … for tougher laws. I mean, what’s the country coming to in Grand Manan? Some streets are safe for no man …

My daughter and I took no chances. We hired a well-known island body guard, Steven Sea Gull …

All joking aside, Grand Manan is a slice of paradise. We stayed at the Hole-in-the-Wall camp ground … right on the edge of a cliff. Here’s what the cliff looks like (we’re right in the center, just right of the bright downward slash …

Here’s my beautiful sophisticated teenage daughter, Cassie, at the picnic table in front of our tent. Notice the proximity of the cliff edge over which she threatened to throw me if I ever called her my sweet little girl again …

This is the view from our picnic table. Notice the irreversible first step ...

We watched boat after boat smuggling in tourists all day. We even saw a bunch of tourists on a sail boat being led back and forth by a Minke whale that was trying to get them to use up all their wind so that he could board the boat and eat them. They disappeared around a very jutting promontory before I could get a picture of this surprisingly common phenomenon.

The cliffs on the northern tip of the island are the highest, and again, little or no railings.

And talk about your idyllic fishing village …

And, of course, no self-respecting island paradise is complete without celebrities. On one of our walks along the cliff edges, Cass and I encountered Peter and Beth Powning. Beth is one of Canada’s leading novelists and Peter is one of Canada’s leading artists. They were roaming the cliff sides, filling up on inspiration.

If you go to Grand Manan, be sure to stop in at the bakery on Route 776 (you can’t miss it … it has windows) for great coffee, bread to die for, and (if you get there early enough) cinnamon rolls that will give you wet dreams. They seem to have a lifetime subscription to the Times Literary Supplement. It’s a must stop for artists, photographers, writers, and beautiful sophisticated teenage daughters …

A trip out to the Swallowtail Lighthouse is a must. Again, no railings. At the end of my 10 K run, I ran out to the lighthouse.

There’s a steep concrete stairway that goes down seemingly forever. On the way back, it goes up. I passed a group of tourists on my way back who chided me about the climb I was in for. I assured them I would die before reaching the top. Amazingly, I took the steps two at a time and practically sprinted to the top where I did the Rocky thing while the tourists a thousand miles below cheered and applauded. Shoulders back and chest out, stride long and purposeful, I ran just past their view and coughed and hacked and nearly threw up. But I didn’t die.

Later that day, we were on the ferry back to the mainland with a boat load of suspicious looking tourists, many of whom I suspected of having been eaten by Minke whales.

Learn more about Grand Manan Island.

Learn more about the Hole-in-the-Wall campground.

I’ll post more pics when I get the film from the other camera developed.