September 2024.
For our 14th anniversary, we planned a fairly spontaneous trip to an island I've wanted to visit since we moved to Maine: Grand Manan. It lives in Canadian waters, but is actually due east off the coast of Maine, so to get there, we drove north into Canada, stopped a few days at a small town called St Andrews (which was a bit disappointing to us), and then took a ferry down for about 90 minutes to the island. The island itself feels fairly big, at over 20 miles long and about 11 miles wide, but we stayed so centrally that it was quite easy to get around and see all the angles and points.
We stayed at a clean and new rental house, Cozy Forest, in a huddle of homes called Turning Tide cottages. The cottage was just a short walk down to a private beach and the central location made exploring easy.
The ferry from Black's Harbour (above) was a highlight of the trip for me; both ways the sun was shining and we could sit in the bright fresh sun-twinkled air; below was taken from the ferry.
The downside of a small island was the food accessibility, which was quite difficult given that it was Labor Day weekend and a lot of the already limited options were closed. But! Right off the boat, we stopped at a tiny diner called Seaquel and they miraculously had GF fish and chips, with super fresh fish. I tried to convince them to sell me some fish, but they were closing up for the week and couldn't. So we stopped at the one and only grocer and tried to stock up. Sadly, local fish was elusive so I ended up making a simple pasta the first night without any local goods.
The first afternoon, though, we stopped at a few places of serenity: Deep Cove Beach
and Southwestern Head trail nearly the Bradford Cove at the far south of the island. We ended up hiking far and the cliffs were unbelievably majestic. Our jaws were open the whole time and we wished we had more time here.
These cliffs all look fairly similar, but what fascinated about the hike was how many twists and turnoffs toward new vistas there were; many of these views are unique. The cliffs were so much taller than anything I've seen in Maine, which was really interesting given that the island really is in Maine adjacent waters.
And even more amazing, these hiking trails were basically empty. We love Acadia so very much, but give the grandeur here, we were surprised how peaceful every hike was, how absent of people.
The next morning, we found a gem called Newton's Cafe, which was just a few minutes from our cottage and was the glow of hospitality we hadn't found with most restaurants and shops being closed. They served coffee, smoothies, ice cream (amazing banana splits!) and had a few great GF options for me. We took sandwiches to go for hiking from there, and were so grateful they were open! It's amazing how much your experience of a place can change based on how much contact you have with people from that place and the natural beauty of Grand Manan was incredible, but we had so little contact with folks who lived there with many places closed.
A few other highlights from the following days there included this hike to see the Hole in the Wall formation.xt
Our host at the cottage gave us the name of a commercial fisherman named Brian who sold us lobsters and steamers, right out of his commercial fishery. The clams were unbelievably delicious, and I was so, so happy to have something local to eat . . .
with this view as the sun set, followed by a crackling camp fire.
We hiked in a few other areas over the next few days: walking on Anchorage Provincial Park, part of the Whale Cove Trail (before realizing the map was wrong and way longer than we thought, but still long enough to watch seals playing in the nearby waters), and Long Eddy Light to Ashburton. On our way back to the car, we saw a couple who had followed the same misguided map as we had earlier, and had hours to hike back on an actual road before they could get lunch, so it was fun to be able to drive them back to town and save them that journey.
We ended the trip at the stunning and, bizarrely empty given how beautiful, Swallowtail Lighthouse.
The short hike from the parking lot was magical: across a small footbridge and over a turquoise bay, through a small maze of hilly bits.
We wished we had longer there, but had a ferry to catch so we raced back to the car.
Our three days were utterly stunning and took our breath back to peace many times. We already can't wait to return and next time will plan to be there in high season so that we have some food options. But this island was the serenity we crave when Maine gets a bit too trafficky, and we can't wait to be back already.
