In Canada, it’s darker at this time of year. There are fewer waking hours and dusk and darkness are often inhabited by unexplained events and ghostly phenomena. We are not a superstitious people, not susceptable to assumptions of supernatural causation. But facts are facts, and we are a curious bunch. So every year at about this time we venture out, often by candlelight, in search of the truth that awaits us in the cold darkness…

The Haunted Stirling Mansion, home of Fright Night

European settlement in Nova Scotia dates back to the seventeenth century. In Canadian time, that’s a lot of history. @AuthenticCoast  and @travelbyterry have been tweeting me about an interesting Nova Scotia haunt. The DesBarres Manor Inn was built in 1837 in the seaside village of Guysborough on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore for Supreme Court Justice, W.F. DesBarres. Justice Debarres was the grandson of J.W.F. Desbarres, a military man and mapmaker who accompanied Major-General James Wolfe at the great battle on the Plains of Abraham. It is rumoured that Wolfe gave DesBarres his pocket watch at the moment of his death, and that it hung in the Manor for many years. Spooky!

Surrounding the Plains of Abraham is Québec City. As night falls, Ghost Tours of Québec guide visitors through the cobble stone streets and ancient buildings of the old city, regaling them with tales of murders, executions, mysterious sightings, tragedies and hauntings.

Mon Dieu! Tours are in English and French.

In Ontario (known before confederation as Upper Canada), Fort George is regarded by many as the most haunted place in Canada. It was headquarters for the British military in Niagara during the War of 1812, and the scene of much blood, death and suffering. Many soldiers and civilians alike are still buried on the grounds of the fort. Some people say that distant cries can still be heard there.

If you dare to set foot in the fort on a weekend in October, check out the Friends of Fort George Halloween ghost tour. This two-hour guided candlelit walking tour is conducted by Ghost Tours of Niagara.

In the Canadian Badlands of southeastern Alberta, ghost tours and other paranormal events are wafting through the mist. The Haunted Atlas Coal Mine has BIG BOO and LITTLE BOO tours into the darkest corners of the abandoned coal mine. The Medalta Ghost Hunt is a nocturnal tour through a 100 year old pottery factory led by the Medicine Hat Paranormal Investigation team. And in the normally peaceful village of Stirling, Alberta, the Haunted Stirling Mansion is one of the best-produced haunted houses I have seen anywhere in Canada.

On Twitter, the Stanley Park Hallowe’en Ghost Train is known as @Ghost_TrainYVR. This year’s theme is Circus of Disaster. @Ghost_TrainYVR has been tweeting little teasers about this year’s event. Example: “The 1st circus in Ancient Rome was called the ‘Circus Maximus’ & more than 200-thousand people came to watch the show” Here’s a review of this year’s ghost train from the Georgia Straight, a popular Vancouver area media outlet.

If you know of a ghost tour or spooky Canadian factoid, please share it with us in the comments below.

 It  started with  @whygocanada tweet. Julie Ovenell Carter is a well known Canadian travel writer and she tweets for WhyGoCanada.com, a Canada travel source.  Julie’s tweet read: “My favourite food souvenir from Canada? Hawkins Cheezies of course! What’s yours?…”

I discovered one on a road trip to Quebec last year.

We were with Carole and Andy,  friends from Calgary, staying at a cottage in the Laurentians. While in town shopping for groceries, we spied Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses.

Now, if you’ve ever trick or treated on Hallowe’en, you know what a Hallowe’en kiss is. Gooey, taffy-like candy and done right,  made with molasses. In my old neighbourhood, Halloween kisses were popular. They came in orange, black and yellow wrappers. They were cheap. And they were shelled out by the handful. Here’s the deal: Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses are different. They’re better, WAY better.

Bigger, softer and good.  Very good. Too good. The four of us went through an entire bag in a week. At Christmas, Glenn and I looked for a bag to send Carol and Andy thinking they’d get a good giggle. We never found the kisses

Julie’s tweet for our favourite souvenir food was my motivation to find out the story behind the kisses. My online / telephone journey took me across Canada from Vancouver all the way east to the city of  Saint John, New Brunswick and the home of the  Grandma Molasses company. Turns out it Grandma Molasses doesn’t make Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses but it does supply the molasses.

Molasses is made from 100% sugar cane juice amd has been a staple in North America for over 200 years. According to Grandma Molasses, it used to arrive in Saint John by ship in ‘puncheons’ (big wooden barrels) and was sold in bulk at local general stores. That got me to wondering if my dad’s habit of serving us toast topped with molasses on winter mornings didn’t come from his New Brunswick roots. Original Foods , a Quebec company, makes Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses. So my next call was to Original Foods, based in Montreal. Two calls later  I found out that you can’t buy Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses in Vancouver (Sorry Julie!). but Metro and Walmart sell them in stores in the  Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario.

As for Julie’s favourite, Hawkin’s Cheezies. Check this Halloween post that Julie wrote for more about them.

Le Massif overlooking the St. Lawrence River - photo: Benjamin Gagnon

Late January update: Le Massif has a 330cm base, powder and groomed ski conditions is the latest report. If you are headed to Quebec for Bonhomme Carnivale, this is a great side trip!

What do Le Massif (french for “The Massive”) and the Cirque du Soleil have in common? Le Massif, a ski hill east of Quebec City is owned by Cirque du Soleil co-founder, Daniel Gauthier. Through my volunteer work with a large Canadian travel media association, I had the pleasure of meeting Dany Gauthier in Quebec City earlier this year. He’s good looking and fit as a fiddle and I couldn’t resist asking him if he had once been an acrobat (thinking Cirque du Soleil). He chuckled and told me that no, his role with Cirque had been more as a bean counter.

Helicopter ride over the St. Lawrence River

Later, my colleagues and I flew in Dany’s private helicopter. Flying just above the icy St. Lawrence, the pilot hugged the mountainous shoreline all the way to Le Massif. It’s popular with Quebec City area skiers, but few outside of Quebec have ever heard of the place. That’s about to change. Le Massif and nearby Baie St. Paul, a picturesque town on the St. Lawrence, are about to become Canada’s next big ski destination. But not just any ski destination. With Gauthier at the helm, this one is expected to have a creative flair not seen in the ski world before. Baie St. Paul is, after all, the birthplace of the Cirque du Soleil. Gauthier and his busker buddies hatched the Cirque idea in a youth hostel here while performing at a local buskerfest. If Dany Gauthier has his way, Le Massif and Baie St. Paul will not only deliver great skiing but will be a feast for all the senses.

Town of Baie St. Paul, Quebec

93 kilometers (58 miles) from Quebec City may seem like a crazy distance to get to in the height of winter (this region gets a ton of snow) but Gauthier has negotiated a deal with a railway. A new tour train will run along a stretch of existing track that hugs that same shoreline we flew over from Quebec City to Baie St. Paul. The scenery is drop dead gorgeous and I’m willing to bet the train will become an instant hit. Other forms of transportation planned for the project include dogsleds and electric cars. The Farm, a unique resort complex being built in Baie St. Paul is lean in terms of size and that’s for a reason. Gauthier is committed to sustainable development so, the resort is slated to be low density and energy efficient with spectacular views of the St. Lawrence River and the Farm’s working fields. There will also be a spa, a Farmer’s Market selling locals’ fare year round and of course, a new, spectacular train station. The Farm opens in summer 2011 and the entire operation is expected to be fully operational by 2013.

But the Cirque du Soleil and Dany Gauthier’s connection to Baie St Paul are not the town’s only claims to fame. This was a favourite destination of Canada’s famous Group of Seven painters too. Le Massif and Baie St. Paul sit on the doorstep of Charlevoix, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The 6000 square kilometre region is Canadian Shield, the oldest rock formation on earth. 350 million years ago a 15 billion ton meteor slammed into the earth here creating a crater 56 kilometres wide. Besides its beauty, Charlevoix’s reputation as  a foodie destination was around long before everyone in the tourism business starting pitching destinations as such. The Quebecois are like their cousins across the Atlantic. Their ability to prepare great food comes naturally.

In our recent Newfoundland post I talked about how our travels across Canada always have a bit of synchronicity. We meet people who know other people we know or they are connected to the Canadian tourism industry like us. Canada is a huge country, the second largest in the world, but its population is small, so when we travel, we really notice the six degrees of separation. My recent trip to New Brunswick had more than its usual share of synchronicity.

When my dad’s youngest sister, Jean, died of old age last month, a milestone passed. She was the last direct descendant of a family that has been in New Brunswick since the 1700s. Jean was the “glue” who kept in touch with family members in Canada and the United States. By chance, a work-related trip took me to New Brunswick in early December. It was a chance for me to honour Jean and my family’s roots and to see what’s new for travelers in this great Maritime province.

Fredericton, New Brunswick was our destination. It’s on a strategic point of the St. John River central to Quebec City, Moncton, New Brunswick, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The US border is just 98 miles or 158 km away. I found this Loyalist city surprisingly vibrant given its population is only 50,000. The University of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design are here and so is the Beaverbrook Gallery. People from around the world travel to the Beaverbrook to see its famous Salvador Dali painting, the Santiago el Grande (1957).

There are several private galleries and artists’ studios in Fredericton too, and a whole lot more. edVentures are new arts and craft learning vacations taught by qualified instructors. They run for six weeks every summer in the city. 2010 dates are July 5 to August 20th. We got a taste of how the workshops work during our visit. I glazed two clay pots at New Brunswick’s College of Craft & Design and I made earrings at a dynamite little Fredericton studio. All courses are hands-on. You can take a five-day course, a two-day class or even a one-day intensive workshop. They’re part of a city-wide cultural bonanza that really heats up in the summer. Under the Stars Classic Movies attract hundreds  to the Historic Garrison District on Sunday nights. There are New Brunswick story tellers on Wednesday afternoons in the same park. Outdoor music concerts run almost everyday of the week and a Fredericton Baroque Music Festival is held every spring. Canadian Heritage recently named Fredericton one of Canada’s cultural capitals.

Another one of my trip highlights was a traditional Christmas dinner held at Kings Landing, a recreated historic village on the St. John River. Hundreds pack its village inn every year for the holiday dinners. The settlement is a half hour north of Fredericton on the T’Can. As we made our way to the inn by horse-drawn wagon, we passed the Joslin farmhouse. According to my mother, the family genealogist, the New Brunswick side of my family is connected to the Joslin family. My Aunt Jean liked genealogy too.  So does a New Brunswick cousin of mine with a big apple orchard near Kings Landing. The tourism gang in Fredericton were familiar with him, and with his orchard. He and my mother keep in touch with Christmas cards every year and on one of our family trips to New Brunswick, he took us to an old family cemetery near Kings Landing where relatives of ours, including Joslins, are buried.

My dad and Jean were both avid fishermen. I remember him telling me that Jean used to even tie her own flies. The St. John River is one they both used to fish. It flows 400 kilometres/ 700 miles through the centre of New Brunswick. Roads on both sides follow it pretty much from beginning to end. A new St. John River tourism heritage group is working hard to point travelers to interesting sites along the two river routes.

I had the pleasure of meeting another avid fisherman while I was here. His name is Brad Woodside and he’s Fredericton’s mayor.  His Honour told me that they fish Muskie in the St. John along with several other species of fish. That really surprised me. I didn’t realize Muskie were found this far east in Canada. They’re a favourite with many sport-fishing enthusiasts.

I’ve been to Quebec City twice in recent years.

View from our room high up in the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac

Our summer trip was during Quebec’s 400th anniversary celebration in 2008. Lucky for us, we got to stay in the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac thanks to a big travel media/industry event taking place at the same time. Our room high up in the hotel had walls four feet thick and deep set windows overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Glenn figured a celebrity would have loved the place. Even a long range camera lens wouldn’t have stood a chance snapping a pic of our room’s interior.

Quebec City street during July tourist season

Quebec is the only walled city in North America. Blink and you’ll swear the old town, with its four hundred year old churches, cobbled streets and colorful shops and cafes, is in France. But no, this is New France as it was called in the days of Samuel de Champlain. He was a French explorer and the celebrated founder of Quebec City.

Aftermath of a big winter storm in Quebec City

Quebec City knows how to party whether its a 400th anniversary or its February Bonhomme Carnaval. During my second trip last January, the city was setting up for it after a huge snowstorm. I am not the best flyer so, I commend the Air Canada pilot for landing us that day in a full blown blizzard.

Born and raised a Quebecker in Montreal, I love this part of Canada. My dad was in the lumber industry and worked his entire life en francais. He was always keen for us kids to learn french and I remember traveling to Quebec City in the summer of 1969 to stay with a french family. It was the week that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and I watched it all on french TV at a big outdoor party at nearby Lac Beauport. That trip was one of several Quebec forays my dad sent me on to learn french. Every one of them gave me a great appreciation for French Canadian culture and I am indebted to my dad for giving me the opportunity. Not many English Canadians are as lucky.