Veggie Haggis for Rabbie Burns day!

Time to dig out my kilted skirt and haggis recipe in preparation for one of the many Burn's night celebrations around the Bay of Fundy. As you may have figured out by now, I'm pretty much a pescetarian (a vegetarian who eats fish) so the prospect of partaking in the "chieftan o' the puddin' race" at our annual event is challenging. Luckily, the Vegetarian Society of Scotland offers this fine organ-free alternative:

Vegetarian Haggis Recipe

100g/4oz onion, peeled & finely chopped 15ml/1tbsp sunflower oil 50g/2oz carrots, very finely chopped 35g/11/2 oz mushrooms, finely chopped 50g/2oz red lentils 600ml/1pint vegetable stock 25g/1oz mashed, tinned red kidney beans 35g/11/2 oz ground peanuts 25g/1oz ground hazelnuts 30ml/2tbsp shoyu ( soy sauce) 15ml/1tbsp lemon juice 7.5ml/11/2tsp dried thyme 5ml/1tsp dried rosemary generous pinch cayenne pepper 7.5ml/11/2 tsp mixed spice 200g/8oz fine oatmeal Freshly ground black pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C, 375°F or Gas Mark 5 2. Sauté the onion in the oil for 5 minutes, then add the carrot and mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes. 3. Now add the lentils and three quarters of the stock. 4. Blend the mashed red kidney beans in the remaining stock, add these to the pan with the nuts, shoyu, lemon juice and seasonings. Cook everything, well mixed together, for a further 10 to 15 minutes. 5. Then add the oatmeal, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes, adding a little extra liquid if necessary. 6. Turn the mixture into a lightly oiled 1lb loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes. 7. Serve with mashed neeps and tatties.

If you plan to celebrate this Scottish poet's birthday on January 25 but don't feel up to making haggis from scratch you can always order it canned (both original & veg) from MacSween's in the U.K. For last year's musings on Burn's Night, see my post Time and Tide.

Oat Cakes & Ice Cakes

Ice cakes in the harbour make me think of oat cakes in the cupboard, so I thought this was the perfect time to share my grandmother's secret Scottish Oat Cake recipe from the 'old country'. If you live down here by the Bay you'll automatically know that oat cakes are not actually 'cakes' but rather a type of cookie.

Scottish Oat Cakes

3 c. unbleached white flour or whole wheat flour
3 c. rolled oats
1 c. sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 c. cold butter
about 3/4 c. cold water

Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter to fine crumbs. Add enough water to moisten. Roll to the depth of a woolen blanket. Cut in traditional diamond shapes. Bake at 350 degrees F for 7 to 10 minutes. Longer time = crisper cookie. Enjoy a chunk of cheddar cheese with this heritage recipe. Makes lots so share some with a friend!

Chicken bones for Christmas?

Since mentioning our lobster-eating Christmas tradition in my last post, I feel compelled to reveal another Bay of Fundy food tradition oft witnessed at this time of year: eating chicken bones. And no, it's not random leftover body parts of real chickens that creep their way into our poultry-free season - it's the famous Ganong chicken bones candy.

In case you're not from the Bay of Fundy, I should explain: "chicken bones" are a pink, tubular, cinnamon candy with a row of semi-sweet chocolate lengthwise inside. Chicken bones were invented by our Ganong Bros. chocolate company and are still available throughout the region (and the country!).

Based in St Stephen, New Brunswick, Ganong is actually Canada's oldest candy company (founded in 1873). It's still thriving; employing about 400 people and shipping throughout the world. Chicken bones are readily available here year-round but, somehow, they always remind of Christmas! (p.s. real 'chicken bone' connoisseurs are careful to avoid the 'knock offs' - not nearly as tasty the real thing!)

Turkey vs. Lobster: the great debate!

It's not unusual for Bay of Fundy folk to celebrate family occasions with a lobster boil. Here in upper Fundy the lobster season comes to a close at the end of December so it's a great chance to have a final feed before next spring when the season opens again.

In our family it's an easy choice between turkey and lobster for Christmas dinner...the red guy looks so jolly and always wins!

Fundy beach fire etiquette

In case you find yourself around the beautiful Bay of Fundy this summer, I thought I'd pass along a few tips for hosting a proper bonfire.

Tip #1 - arrive before dusk to gather driftwood. Look well above the normal high tide line (e.g. in the marsh grasses) for wood because the usual to-fro of the tides will have drawn back most driftwood from the regular tide line. (Note that by the end of the summer you may have to bring some of your own woodstove wood because the driftwood might be quite picked over.)

Tip #2 - look for a couple of large driftwood trees to use as benches. At commonly frequented beaches, these will often already be set in a V or U around a makeshift pit. (BTW it is considered a major faux pas to use driftwood tree trunks as fire wood!!)

Tip #3 - it is not necessary to build one of those cute oval fire pits surrounded by large rocks; this will immediately give you away as a city camper. You are on a stone beach - there is nothing nearby to catch fire! (Exception: if you have little kids with you, you may want to put some sort of visual barrier around the pit).

Tip #4 - determine if the tide is coming in or out. If it's on its way in and you build your fire half way down the beach you may not have time to roast a marshmallow. Instead, I'd suggest building your fire just below the anticipated high tide line. If the tide is in or just heading out when you build your fire, build it on the high side of tide line or you'll end up sitting on wet sand.

Here's a photo of our first beach fire of the season (last night), which leads me to my final tip:

Tip #5 - train your dog to fetch more driftwood while you cook your s'mores. You can see our yellow lab in action just behind the blaze.

New Year's tradition....drop a sardine!

Most of the time I'd rather eat Bay of Fundy sardines than drop them but if you're looking for a very bay way to ring in the new year consider the annual sardine drop in Eastport, Maine.

An 8-foot to scale model of the Atlantic Herring will be lowered from the third story window of the Tides Institute and Museum of Art at midnight Eastern Time. Also, a 'Maple Leaf' will be lowered at midnight Atlantic Time, (or 11:00 pm eastern), as Eastport is just west of the Atlantic time zone with the Canadian islands of Deer and Campobello located just off shore in Passamaquoddy Bay. Last year a crowd of more than 300 revelers came to celebrate--twice!

Sculptor, Bill Schaefer, of East Machias, created the fish, which has a bent wood frame and is stretched with canvas. To offer a more authentic rendition, he painted the sardine in a 'contemporary realism' style to look like it was caught fresh from the Atlantic.

For more info on the Sardine and Maple Leaf Drop, visit the Tides Institute and Museum of Art web site.

The Annual Christmas Tree Hunt

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas on the Bay of Fundy without the annual tree hunt. No city parking lots with strings of lights for us, no sirreee. It's the real thing here around the bay....tromping through the woods, in any kind of weather (storm is best!), searching for the perfect 'real' tree. Admittedly, this escapade is somewhat more civilized than it was when I was a kid. Way back then we'd go to my grandfather's farm, wade into the forest, climb the highest tree, lob off the top 10 feet, drag home the crown, drill a few holes into which we'd plug a few spare limbs (to fill in the bare spots) and heartily congratulate ourselves for knowing the difference between fir and spruce!

Nowadays around the Bay of Fundy, rural tree farms or U-Cuts (like summer strawberry U-picks but for Christmas trees) provide accessible but still magical means for Christmas tree hunting. At our nearby Tree Farm, Ram's Head, it's a relaxed, kinda self-serve deal - the good old honor system. In recent years my teenage kids hem and haw a bit about this task so it makes me grin when they end up wrestling for the best burrowing spot beneath the cut tree on the back of the truck.

For previous Christmas posts, see Christmas With The Captain and Oranges For Christmas.

New Fundy fish co-op!

Last year I blogged about low lobster demand putting such downward pressure on lobster prices that fishers were in danger of spending more to catch them than they could sell them for. This resulted in quite a few lobster fishers selling their wares fresh & direct to consumers out of the backs of their trucks in various cities in the region.

I don't know if that initiative influenced this recent one but there's just been a CSF (Community Supported Fishery) Co-op created for Bay of Fundy! how lovely....here's the scoop!

This summer "Off The Hook" CSF is connecting a co-operative of small-scale, groundfish bottom hook & line fishermen from the Bay of Fundy to subscribing customers in the Halifax area. Subscribers pay in summer for weekly shares of the co-op's catch of fresh whole haddock, hake and pollock.

CSFs provide several benefits to small-scale fishers, such as more family income, more market choices, and increased ownership and control of their livelihood. Since there are no 'middlemen' involved, fishermen can get a fair price for their catch. Subscribers benefit through increased access to the freshest local, traceable, high quality fish along with renewed connections with local fishing communities and the ocean that sustains us all.

Read more about this creative initiative on Off the Hook's website and take a look at the feature feature coverage on the CBC National News the other night.

Thanks to Becky Cliche-Shanahan for permission to use these photos of the CSF folks in action!

I brake for sticky buns!

One of my favourite memories of touring the Bay of Fundy occured when a tour group I was guiding many years ago commandeered the coach and MADE us stop for "sticky buns" at Kelly's Bakery in the village of Alma, New Brunswick.

My earnest attempt to keep the group 'on schedule' instantly became irrelevant when I tasted one of these famous 'sticky buns'....they're like a really poofy cinnamon bun about the size of a large fist. Whenever I'm in Alma I always make a point to buy one fresh from Kelly's (as well as take a dozen to lock in the trunk so we have a half chance of making it home together)....

pure carb delight and a 'must stop' attraction in Alma!

A Sweet Sign of Spring

One sure sign of spring on the Bay of Fundy is the beginning of the maple sugar season. Rain and warmer daytime temperatures in recent days mean that the sap is now flowing.

Every spring, maple producers in our region journey into their sugar woods to collect sap from maple trees. Sap is a clear liquid and tastes like fresh spring water. However, once it's boiled, sap takes on its distinctive maple flavour.

There are many family owned & operated maple sugar camps around the upper part of the Bay of Fundy (see posts from previous years about our family's camp) but one that really stands out is Sugar Moon Farm in Earltown (near Truro, NS).

This family has successfully transformed the 6-8 week long maple season into a year round experience with demonstrations, a log cabin restaurant, sugar camp tours & interpretative programming, sugar bush hiking trails, maple products for sale and even guest Chefs' Nights featuring a maple dining extravaganza with the province's finest chefs!! They are also a member of the Atlantic Economusee Network of artisans who celebrate and share traditional crafts or trades.

It's great to have this sugar farm in operation year round. As you might expect, we don't get many tourists visiting Bay of Fundy in early March so with Sugar Moon Farm even our summer and fall visitors can get a glimpse of this important part of our heritage! Maple syrup FAQs.

Happy birthday, Robert Burns!

Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, once wrote: "Nae man can tether time or tide". For this quote alone (not to mention all the Scottish connections from our part of the country), I welcome Robbie Burns as an honorary Bay of Fundy-ite.

On Robbie's birthday January 25, or the Saturday nearest this date, people around the world celebrate his life & poetry and their Scottish heritage.

Each year our family feasts and dances with about 200 other kilted Bay of Fundy Scottish descendents (ages 2 to 90!) at the annual Burns night dinner and ceilidh (dance) in Port Williams, Nova Scotia.

I'm dusting off my kilted skirt and getting ready this weekend for the speeches as well as a fine meal of neeps, tatties, and haggis (and, who knows, perhaps even a wee dram o' scotch!).

Big tree takes a ferry ride

If you live in Nova Scotia you're probably aware that the province sends one of it's most grandiose 'Christmas' trees to Boston, Massachusetts, every fall. This tree lights up the downtown over the holidays to recognize Bostonians for their many kindnesses following the Halifax Explosion in 1917.

This year a 15 metre (50 foot) white spruce was the tree of choice and this week the tree was transported to Boston via the "Princess of Acadia" (the ferry across Bay of Fundy from Digby, Nova Scotia, to Saint John, New Brunswick). A prestigious guest on a delightful Bay adventure on its way to being enjoyed by our neighbours in Boston!

Read more

Eating off the ocean floor

Perfect beach weather this weekend - er, perhaps not for tanning - but I love these warm misty days for taking pictures. Seeing as it's still early May, I pretty much found the expected number of folks at this beach in Two Islands, Nova Scotia: 2 tourists looking for fossils and one local clammer!

Clams are harvested by hand with a pitch fork in the Parrsboro-Five Islands area from Bay of Fundy's low tide mudflats. It's a simple, if somewhat labour intensive, way of eating from the ocean floor. There is still a Clam Factory in operation seasonally in Five Islands. There it's not uncommon to see dozens of locals participating in the harvest and, of course, fresh clam chowder and fried clams 'n chips on local restaurant menus.

Pining for Bay of Fundy sea glass

Alright, I have a confession to make, while I don't like seeing trash wash up on any beach, I have to say that all this 'clean beach' stuff has meant the loss of one item long cherished by beachcombers: sea glass. Before the days of plastic containers, we used to find ourselves a dandy collection of sea-softened bits of broken bottles. When I was a child I collected them; spending several summers filling up a glass pickle jar with such bright, opaque, beach-tumbled glass bits.

However, now that there is so much recycling going on it's a rare event to find such glass treasures on the beach....em, to the point that I gasped with pleasure when I spotted this piece, then photographed it, pocketed it and rubbed away my worries on it for the rest of my visit to the beach. At the last minute, before I got back in the car, I tossed it back on the beach for another nostalgic beach explorer to re-discover.

We like our trees BIG here in Fundy

Most rural Bay of Fundy residents make an annual trek to the woods each December to chop a fresh tree for the holidays. Allergy issues aside, it's always great to see a 'real' tree...reminds me of the debate between our region's real maple syrup and fake 'table syrup'.

Great to see 'real' win over 'plastic' in the Fundy city of Saint John, New Brunswick as well. Check out this massive (3-storey high) fir tree outside the entrance to the New Brunswick Museum in courtyard of Market Square (Uptown Saint John) ~ now that's what I call one purdy Christmas tree!

Strange Fundy ritual

If you live around Fundy you'll know that our tidal waters are a teensy bit on the cool side - a result, no doubt, of a fresh batch of Atlantic ocean water coming in twice a day with the tides.

But, undaunted, we locals certainly swim or, at least, wade in the tide. When I was growing up, there was an older local gentleman who went to the wharf every day, year round, to soak his legs at high tide 'for arthritis'...em, to get arthritis surely...not to cure it! Little local kids will stay in for hours in the summer especially when the tide rolls in late afternoon over the sun-baked mud flats.

Last week I had a note from Kathleen Gidney down in the Digby Area who said she's made the idea of a dip in Fundy cool tides into a fun challenge for visitors participating in her scenic tours. A level 1 challenge is Fundy water up to the ankles; level 2 is up to the knees; level 3 is, well, not usually recommended for visitors without paramedics on hand!! Kathleen issues an "I survived the Fundy Challenge" certificate to all who get up the nerve to take the Level 1 & 2 challenge like the brave U.K. visitor in this photo. Fun!

Fundy dulse harvest makes national news

Well, it must have been a slow news day in Toronto last week - Fundy dulse pickers got a nice spread in the Globe & Mail, Canada's national newspaper - right on! It's actually a brilliant article about one of Fundy's best known dulsing grounds: Dark Harbour on Grand Manan Island.

Although I've previously mentioned hand harvesting dulse as a bit of a hobby, the commercial harvest of dulse is anything but leisurely and glamorous!!

Tory Zimmerman's article is accompanied by a great short video/still documentary that really gives a sense of this lifestyle fishery - a window into one of our many Fundy worlds.

Blog photo credit: Laurie Murison, Grand Manan Whale Research site.

Fundy take on a traditional stag

Friends of ours hosted a uniquely Bay of Fundy-themed stag party last week: mud sliding and river rafting the tidal bore on the Shubenacadie River. I've known lots of people who've done this adventure for no reason but it's more profound as the framework for a ritualistic event such as a stag. Something kinda testosteroneish about fellas pushin' each other around in the mud and throwin' each other overboard. Typical of many stags, the event was captured on camera, so I'm pleased to share these rare glimpses of this Fundy-style, pre-nuptial male bonding ritual. Dude: the flying mud slidin' man is awesome - Thanks guys!!

P.S. that's not chocolate milk they're in - it's the silty, warm Shubenacadie River!

McLobster anyone?

It's not only Bay of Fundy fish n' chip joints and modern bistros that get in the mood for developing local culinary delights each season; here you'll also witness such stalwarts as McDonald's shaking up its menu. Many of our fast food restaurants offer a limited-time-offer rendition of a Fundy favourite: the somewhat ordinary, but really quite tasty, "lobster roll".

The recipe is quite simple:

• mix fresh lobster bits with mayo, salt & pepper
• edge with lettuce
• then fill a toasted or grilled hot dog bun.
  

In true McDonald's fashion the lobster roll is titled: "McLobster". Seasonal availability (usually just summer) is announced on the classic outdoor slotted billboard as evidenced by the photo I took this week.

Best Fundy spot for Canada Day

It's Canada Day today! If you're Canadian you may immediately think of our nation's capital (Ottawa) or, in Atlantic Canada, perhaps Charlottetown, PEI, as the place to be on Canada Day today. I'd like to offer up a lesser known Bay of Fundy hotspot for Canada Day celebrations: the Ottawa House by the Sea Museum & Historic Site in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.

The full 9 chapters (240 yrs) of history of the Ottawa House are too extensive to mention in a single blog post, but suffice to say that the building (and adjacent Partridge Island) have played a prominent role in trade, the Age of Sail, Canadian sovereignty, early settlement & growth of the region, etc., since it was first constructed in the 1770s.

What makes the Ottawa House most suited to Canada Day celebrations is that it was Sir Charles Tupper's summer home in the 1860s, in the years leading up to Confederation. It was here that Tupper regularly hosted his fellow Fathers of Confederation and other notables who were instrumental in forming our great nation in 1867.

Canada Day is joyfully celebrated each year at the Ottawa House. The museum (overlooking the Minas Basin of the Bay of Fundy) offers an afternoon of flag raising, speeches, tours, performances by the Parrsboro Citizens Band, and, of course, birthday cake!