Adventures with Craig, Fundy Islands, 1993.
Craig was a new guide, a local guy from New Glasgow: tall, lean, blond. He’d taught English in China, and cycled around there a lot: that was his recent big adventure. He felt it qualified him for being a Freewheeling guide, and we were willing to give him a shot. We liked him. He was sincere. He had some of the credentials. He was keen. Philip did a tour with him and pronounced him okay.
Craig and I set off for the Fundy Islands tour, an island hopping trip in New Brunswick. Neither he nor I had even been on these New Brunswick islands, but we had the guide notes, the route description, and a small group: two young (late 20’s) women from the U.S. and a middle-aged (late 50’s) couple from BC. Everyone seemed great. A tall blonde from New York, a self-professed editor and writer, had fantastic wit, and her sarcasm had me laughing right away, and shivering in my boots.
The first leg of the journey involved a van transfer from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, then a ferry transfer to Grand Manan Island. We arrived after hours of driving at the end of a long ferry line-up. It was doubtful that we would get on. We sat for awhile, then Craig suddenly pulled out to the left of the line-up, passed all the cars, and drove onto the ferry. No one stopped us. We sat in astonished silence: it was a great show of guts. I was impressed, and hoped he knew what he was doing. Ours was the only vehicle on the ferry. Craig parked. We all looked at each other. Cool. Hey. Way cool. We got out of the van. Still cool. Grabbed our backpacks, and hit the bathrooms, high fiving, sedately, a bit awestruck.
While we were in our cubicles, an official voice dampened our enthusiastic banter. “All of you from that Freewheeling van, get off this ferry. Get off this ferry now!” It was a meek and quiet bunch that met in the ferry hold. We silently got in the van. Craig backed up the steeply sloping platform with great difficulty, capturing everyone’s attention, and we were directed to the back of the line-up. We did not make that ferry, and rode our bikes around for two hours waiting for the next one. We ate wild blueberries by the side of the road until we were stuffed. It wasn’t so bad.
We arrived happily on Grand Manan Island having been entertained by dozens of noisy, frolicking whales during the crossing, and had time for an exploratory bike ride before dinner. Craig and I were scouting for a place to up our tent up for the night, and found a perfect spot on a high grassy bank overlooking the ocean. After we got our gang settled in their inn, just prior to eating supper, we erected the tent, and returned later in the dark to climb in for a good night’s sleep. It had been a sunny day, but there was fog developing, a low mist.
PJ’s on, teeth brushed, we ducked into the tent, just getting comfortable…
Honk! The “honk” was long, and ripped our eardrums, and rattled our bones, and made our teeth hurt. We both knew instantly that we could not endure another sounding from the fog horn we were camped beside. There was no need for words; we ran out, grabbed our tent with all the belongings inside, and ran furiously and frantically away, down the street, who knows where, just putting distance between us and that next blow…
Lights appeared in the mist behind us, and a police car loomed. I imagine we were quite a sight - t-shirts, bare legs and feet, eyes like startled deer. “What’s going on?” said the cop. We told our story, feeling really dumb. “Come and stay at my house,” he said. He lived next door. We went in for tea, and met his wife, people who actually lived there beside a fog horn. With our earplugs in, we managed a fitful sleep.
The next day, we were on the prowl for new digs, and found a small, secluded beach on the edge of the harbour. There was a little dirt road that led to it, and as we drove down it in our trusty van, Cyclops, and along the beach, in the dark, I said to Craig, who was driving: “Let’s just stop here so we can get out ok in the morning.” “Naw,” said Craig, “the sand is hard, I can go further.” I was firm (I’d had this experience before): “No, I think we should stop right now. I’m nervous about getting stuck in the sand.” “Don’t worry,” said Craig. “It’ll be no problem. The sand is hard. I’ve done this loads of times.”
I had a magical night there, lulled to sleep by the lap of the waves and the sound of whales talking and singing…In the morning, I woke up refreshed, and went for a run. I came back to the sound of Cyclops’ back wheels spinning, buried in sand to the bumper, Craig looking sheepish. Running back up to the village, I asked at the bakery for help (first I had to wake the neighbours up around the back by yelling). It was 8 a.m., but people were not moving in that sleepy place. By 8:45 a.m., a tractor was hauling good old Cyclops ignobly out of the sand, and we were on our way again, late.
The New York writer, Ade, her friend, Robin, and Burt and Nora from BC were all enjoying the stories of our escapades, and we were having a lot of laughs. I hoped we weren’t coming across as unprofessional…
That day, under blistering hot sun and blue sky, we rode our bikes blissfully down quiet roads, until at one point in the late afternoon, we arrived at the end, where the road went no further, and we had no choice but to turn around and ride back. It was Craig’s day in the van, and he looked hot and a bit cross. “Hey Craig,” I said, “why don’t you hop on your bike and ride back to the village [about 30 miles]. We’ll just load up and meet you at the inn.” Craig was delighted, and was gone in seconds, sprinting away like a racehorse out of the gate. We all hung around and had a drink, loaded up the bikes, then got in the van. Yup, I thought, of course this had to happen. Craig has the keys.
Spare keys, you ask? These are the days before spare keys. This is the reason for spare keys.
Well, here we are, I thought, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. No traffic. No people. Hot hot sun. Nothing for miles but a little cottage.
At this time let me qualify my state of mind: My spirits were not dampened! I was a guide extraordinaire! I could get us out of this little fix, no problem! After reassuring our somewhat disgruntled guests, I strode confidently to the little cottage and knocked on the door. A lovely little old man answered, and his eyes twinkled. Here was a gift indeed, a hot, healthy, suntanned woman, wearing hardly any skin-tight lycra and standing on his front porch. Would he give me a lift to catch up to that wayward cyclist? You betcha! His wife popped her head up over his shoulder: “I’ll pack a lunch,” she said. In ten minutes, the elderly couple were sitting comfortably in the front seat of their roomy air-conditioned Buick, me in the back seat, with the missus passing me bologna sandwiches. “Isn’t this lovely,” she sighed. I believe they didn’t get out much.
By the time we caught up with Craig, he was already approaching the village. He must have been averaging about 35 miles an hour! “Key,” I called through the open car window. He passed it over. He didn’t say anything.
We were very late for supper, and had to eat in our sweaty cycling clothes at a full-to-capacity, “reservations only” restaurant that we had booked months ago. They offered only one sitting. They were mad at us. We were mad at them. Dinner, thankfully, was pretty good.
As our tour reached its end, Ade had relaxed into fluid biting sarcasm. Craig’s antics fueled her imaginative wit. I was certain she would return to New York and write a book about us immediately, though I wondered if, and doubted that, she would be kind. Traveling with her was hilarious.
Craig was okay through it all. Burt and Nora kind of babied him, and were really nice, giving him lots of slack. Occasionally Ade would pop off a line under her breath, and we’d roar. All in all, we were having a tremendous tour, enhanced by our exciting misadventures.
On the final day of cycling, before a long van transfer back to Nova Scotia, we explored Campobello Island, examining the map with gusto and deciding to go to a picturesque look-off point. The van was parked, and we were all riding. At a crossroads, we examined our options: the dirt road was boring but led to the look-off, well-signed, about eight miles. Another trail was also marked, rougher, more mountain bike style, well worn by hikers. A third trail was the most inviting: A wide grassy path bordered by large trees with shady branches rustling overhead looked lush. We examined our map: no mention of this trail. Craig had a “good feeling” about this path, and was very positive. Why did we believe him? Why did we trust him? I guess we wanted to believe he knew something instinctively that we did not. And it was sooooo inviting.
Burt and Nora said “See ya” and biked on the safe dirt road.
The rest of us took the road less traveled…
It took hours. Hours. It went up and down, through bogs, over rivers. The thorns! The mosquitoes! The exhaustion! We carried our bikes most of the way, and suffered chain ring digs in our soft, tired flesh. We tried to find the other trail. We tried lots of things. We were hungry. At one point, Ade lay on her back in mud and brush, panting: “This is so awful. I can’t believe it.” We trudged and trudged. We reached the look-off , and felt the cool ocean breeze on our swollen, dirty, sweaty bodies. No one spoke much above a murmur. We took pictures, there were lots of people around. Then we cycled down the wide open dirt road fast, loving the wind in our faces, and the speed, and the well deserved thrill of it all. We jumped in the ocean at the road’s end.
Everyone seemed happy, driving back to Nova Scotia.
We never heard from anyone again, except Robin, who wrote us years later, a beautiful letter about a new man in her life.
Craig took another job as soon as we got back, cutting trees and clearing brush from the sides of Highway 102, around Truro. I wondered why he would leave such an exciting job with us to do that dull stuff…
[circa 1993, written by Cathy Guest. Names have not been changed to protect anyone]
