bringing you to grand manan an idyllic island in new brunswick

canada set in the bay of fundy quite close to the border with maine

this was a family road trip we planned with sam's parents george and debbie and

some of their best friends joan and gary there are so many things

to do in grand manan new brunswick canada and together we spent four days road tripping across the

island visiting lighthouses feasting on fresh lobster and fish and

chips exploring the historic smoke sheds in seal cove

bird watching in castelia marsh taking a side trip to whitehead island and

catching some spectacular cliff top sunsets

our trip to grand manan was laid back with lots of time outdoors in nature

and now we want to share it with you we think this is a must visit island in

atlanta canada and we'll show you why in this grand manan travel guide

all right guys so we are all aboard the ferry ready to go

ready to go supposed to be about a 90-minute ride yes

and we have beautiful weather for this so we've come up to the top deck

blue skies nice breeze how do we get so lucky seriously i know

i mean there's some times where there's even apparently fairy delays or it could

be foggy and so to get a day like this couldn't

get any better perfect summer day so yeah ready to go

we'll show you the journey

if you're planning a trip to grand man and in the summer we'd suggest going on

the grandman and coastal transport website and booking your ticket for the

crossing ahead of time this is a popular summer destination in

new brunswick so the ferry can get very busy

as for costs you have to pay for the vehicle plus each individual passenger

it was 35.80 for the car and an additional 12 dollars per passenger when

we traveled

as you know audrey and i like to eat so it wasn't long before we found ourselves

in the cafeteria sampling some of the seafood

we got the fish chowder and an order of fried scallops with french fries

a little taste of what was to come once we reached grand man

sam says laughs the beach our very our very first stop in grand

man we're here at the beach yeah

picture-perfect weather the sun is out it's actually quite a bit warmer than it

normally is here on the island we were expecting maybe

five to ten degrees cooler than fredericton nope it is nice and hot and

i don't know why you're wearing a sweater

because this with a is on i i feel great in my uh and my

t-shirt anyway yeah just a beautiful beach within what

two minute walk from where we're staying yeah so we're staying in seal cove and

our cottage isn't ready yet we've got another

hour before check-in so we just walked over to the beach

going to enjoy this lovely day go for a little stroll

yeah and then we'll take you to our herring

smoke shed converted cottage and i'll show you what that looks like

indeed

so we got pretty lucky with dinner that evening because shortly after checking

in the owners of the cottage brian and

brenda asked us if we'd be interested in buying some fresh lobster

of course we jumped at the opportunity because can you think of a better

welcome meal to grand manan new brunswick canada since we didn't really know how to cook

the lobster they offered to prepare it for us and we got

quite the cooking lesson in the process talk about hospitality

just want to make sure that's good it's boiling yeah okay so you got your live

lobster in here okay and they'll already put them in

upside down so they're passed out falling asleep more or less

and here we go they go right in water oh look at that not in the water they're

just above the water and they're gonna get steamed

and they're in there it's about 17 minutes yeah between 15 and 17 minutes

depending on you know the size and how many you're putting in the pot

right there you go thank you so we're putting the rest of the lobsters here

into the fridge and they'll keep like three four or five days

okay as long as you cool them down they got so much moisture inside of

their shell that they can live in their own salt water in there for days

wow when you want a fresh one you just open the fridge steam up some water and

good to go good to go fresh lobster rolls

yeah they've been steaming never touch the water you're gonna get the hundred

percent the yeah the flavor the real flavor of the

bay of fundy lobster the best lobster in the world

it's like cooking baking a cake it's precise

for safe you

and the moment of truth is coming up all right here we go

look at that and that's not water they were sitting in that's water from the

ocean that was inside the lobster shell that's what the

lobster lives in it's like they have their own little

cocoon of ocean water in there see the rocks

yeah rocks okay the the water is below the top of the rock so the lobster never

touched the water see so that's that's the exact amount you

want there's like not even two inches of water in there

wow there they are there they are oh i think a beauty

look at that you don't get colors like that

ta-da lo and behold our dinner i seriously don't think we could have

asked for a better first meal on this

island

yeah i believe it take two comes home tail comes off

yeah you don't get that yep

nice and juicy and then put your finger in there and slip it out

slip it out oh i see oh here it comes look at that

oh wow want to do mine too sam that was very easy that was easy

no those dangly bits all these dangly bits okay just pull it

back like that yeah because there's a green stuff in there

okay fine sam you just bathed yourself and locked

lobster juice on my own all over your shirt like it looks like someone puked

on you well i got it you got it i got it i

earned it there you go i can't believe how much juice i spilled

that was legendary you bathed yourself sam

not graceful but then you take this one off

oh look at that

now before we forget let's give you a quick tour of the smokeshed cottages in

sealcove beach which is where we stayed for the

duration of our trip to grandma and the smoke sheds and seal cove were

designated a national historic site in 1994

and they encompassed 54 wooden buildings that were built between 1870

and 1930. these structures were part of the leading center of herring production

in canada the smokeshed cottage we stayed in was

lovingly restored by its owners brian and brenda mclaughlin who now have a few

different places to rent we stayed in their two-bedroom cottage

and it proved to be the perfect base for exploring the island

plus we love being so close to the beach one bit of advice

cottages on this island get booked up months and sometimes a year in advance

so it's good to start planning your trip early

on our quest to book a cottage anywhere on the island we also discovered that

hardly anyone uses websites like booking or airbnb

so we had to do things the old-fashioned way and call in email places to check

availability just so you know

later that evening we drove down to southwest head lighthouse so that we

could catch the sunset this part of the island is known for its

cliffs and it felt like a little slice of ireland

we walked along the trail and stopped to enjoy the views while we waited for the

sun to dip in the horizon

oh no those are seals they're two heads

the next morning before meeting up with the whole gang sam and i went out to

explore our neighborhood of seal cove

all right guys so good morning from seal cove

it is day two here on grand banana island

we had a great sleep so peaceful out here

and yeah this morning we're just going for a little walk

to show you around these sheds these were former

herring smoke sheds they used to smoke the fish here

but nowadays they've kind of been repurposed

so we're seeing in one that's been turned into a cottage some people

actually live in them they've turned them into homes

some of them are storage units for fishermen who have their lobster traps

and their fishing gear and their boats so it's really cool it's just like a

small little area so you can walk around explore on foot and yeah just a historic

part of the island so we're gonna give you

a little tour let's go check it out

we were walking around snapping photos of the herring smoke sheds

buoys and lobster traps when someone invited us to come and see what the

inside of one of these sheds looks like now let me just say that coming from a

big city i normally don't go around following

strangers into dark sheds but everyone we met on grand manan was

so friendly and so kind that we didn't even hesitate so cool so this was

at one point in smoke shack yeah and then they they used it

they would uh we salt bait or whatever so like we'll take a ton of bait of hair

and then we'll put salt in with it and it pickles it

yeah yeah wow so that's what these cups were used for at one point those are the

saltine cups those are salting tops here

and how far out do you have to go to set the lobster traps

at this time of the year uh we got to go quite a ways we have to go almost the

whole way be about a three hour steam on the end

oh that's quite a waste

later that morning we met up with a new friend sharon and we went to check out

some of the boats in ingles head two of our favorites were debatable and

senile we had some good laughs over that

we eventually drove up to castelia marsh which is a prime birding spot on grandma

and island

all right guys so we have now made it to castelia marsh this is our next stop

today but yeah apparently this is a really

good place to come bird watching it's all marshland and you

have little trails some different lookout points

they also have huts where you can kind of like hide and

bring out your binoculars do a little bit of bird watching there

so it's a really cool spot we're down by the water right now

the tide's going out so you can see all the

seaweed on the rocks but yeah we're just enjoying

a nice relaxing morning walk over here and then we are going to continue our

tour of the island have you seen any birds

um just from a distance from a distance yeah you've got the zoom lens

yeah so i've grabbed a few shots like that but um

yeah they're kind of on the opposite end of the marsh but yeah we are seeing a

few out here by the by the beach yeah it's pretty cool

then it was time for lunch we went to food for thought in woodward's cove

where we enjoyed some tasty sandwiches and homemade chocolate chip and

gingerbread cookies just a quick bite because we had another

ferry to catch

all right we are going on a little trip to another island

our grandma and island adventures continue by going to another island

whitehead island ferry service yeah we're going to be leaving on this one

from grand manan new brunswick and coming back on this one yeah 1 30

and 4 30. and if we don't catch that then we we

have a seven o'clock stay until seven o'clock

we're just really excited it's a free ferry we should mention we didn't

mention that so you think we like free things so we're gonna we're

gonna enjoy our time and one last little bit of information guys

is that the ferry crossing is only 28 minutes each way so it's a nice short

ride nice short ride yep

well hello hello we made it to whitehead we are yeah

somewhere on the shores of the island we've been scrambling over rocks yeah

doing a bit of hiking a bit of an adventurous path to be

honest yes there's a tiny bit that's kind of marked

and the rest we've just been kind of climbing over rocks

and doing it ourselves yeah this is like a really nice place to come enjoy a

picnic have a nap on the warm rocks there's

seagulls flying around we think we've seen a seal like its

little head pop out of the water and whoop back down yeah we were at a bit of

a further vantage point and now that we're where

we thought the seal was it hasn't reappeared

yeah we're hoping to see it again yeah it's a little bit windy here so i hope

you can hear us okay but it's really nice it's such a relaxed

island like it's even smaller than yamana and even less people living here

yeah so if gram and in is chillaxing this is super duper chillaxing

love it out here

so

we also made it down to the beach on whitehead island we dipped our feet in

the waters and they were so numbingly glacial which explains why no one there

was swimming

later that afternoon back on gram and end we decided to tackle another hike

our family friends were staying at anchorage provincial park so we walk the

red point trail which is a coastal trail that starts off

with a forest boardwalk and then leads down to the beach

that night sam and i went out for dinner at isla cocina

the name translates to island kitchen and it's a food truck serving up mexican

food and seal cove we placed our order and then befriended

the cute little pup who lives there

guys the food is here i am so hungry i've been looking forward to this

all day long first up fish tacos they look delicious they come with a little

bit of fried rice beans then i'm really glad sam decided

to order a little side dish a little snack coconut shrimp

looks so good and then your quesadilla let's just dig on

in shall we cherry

so how is it so good real corn tortillas i'm just so hungry you can feed me

anything right now look at that