Canada eh Travel & Adventure on northern tip of Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada
This week we packed up the video and camera gear, sleeping bags and tent and headed to Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick, Canada.
New Brunswick is a province with lots to offer travelers and explorers but with little money to market itself globally. This does not mean it does not have much to offer. It just means it does not have the funding to tell you about it effectively.
Because of the lack of tourism funding, misguided management and poor marketing techniques New Brunswick is a province which gets lost in the shadows of the tourism power provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
Canada tourism is funded, largely, on a provincial and territorial format. Resource rich provinces tend to contribute more to tourism marketing than the have-not provinces and territories. And Because of the large discrepancy in tourism funding many adventure destinations do not get a fair shake in marketing therefore receive less media, and favorable press. Is this right? Is this fair to the traveler? No, not at all? Is this reality in the world of monopolized tourism? Yes.
Recently we were reading up on some reviews of people who booked travels to Canada through non Canadian websites like Hotel.com and TripAdvisor.com. Big buck marketing operations with very little personal interaction with Canada. We are not big fans of either.
Viewing Platform at the Long Eddy Lighthouse on Grand Manan Island
Yes, the process of booking with them may be quick but the results we found reported online through Twitter and on Facebook are poor. Many travelers complained about miss-information, increased expenses on arrival, misplaced bookings and extra hidden costs.
How does this help grow tourism and travel in Canada in anyway. But hey… the booking was quick and easy right!
A prudent traveler will fight through the propaganda and make educated travel plans. This process of disseminating information takes allot of work and time which most travelers do not have. And because of the lack geographical knowledge of Canada the process is that much harder for many.
We believe in order to get good accurate information travelers need to eliminate the middle-man type of travel websites and deal directly with tourism business owners and managers. Who else knows more about their business and the community than the businesses themselves.
That is why we at CanadaEH.net take so much pride in being a hands-on travel website. We are a website which visits the destinations, researches the adventures and puts our travelers in direct contact with the owners and managers of accommodations, tours, guides and others. Why… because we want people who travel to Canada to enjoy a worry free experience with no unexpected expenses… hmmm… unfortunately we cannot do much about the fluctuating gas prices.
Hence our trip this weekend to Grand Manan Island in the province of New Brunswick, Canada!
Views of Cliffs at Southern Head Lighthouse on Grand Manan Island
New Brunswick’s landscape is forest rich, beautiful and dissected by backcountry gravel roads leading travelers deep into the wilderness connecting with remote lakes, rushing rivers and flowering meadows.
The coastline is home to the Bay of Fundy lined with islands, tea pot rock formations, shipwrecks and sandy beaches.
Grand Manan Island is just one of the many hidden treasures of New Brunswick. The island would make many TOP 10 List if it had the funds to market itself effectively and the people to market it properly.
To reach Grand Manan Island we boarded a 1 1/2 hour ferry to the island. We spent the entire voyage on the outer decks passing by islands with lighthouses and beacons. Alongside the ferry we watched as schools of porpoises bopped up and down out of the water and smiled as we watched whales breaching in the distance.
Cliffs & Low Tides at Red Point on Grand Manan Island
On the island we visited three lighthouses, hiked trails alongside rocky cliffs, walked beaches of wet sand, visited a farmers market and artisan studios.
In the coves and private bays we cheered as groups launched their kayaks from docks and watched as sailboats rode the winds of time and cheered as people pulled in lobster traps from the depths of the ocean.
We visited destinations with names like Seal Cove, Swallowtail, Hole-in-the-Wall, Long Eddy Point, Dark Harbour, Castalia Marsh, Grand Harbour, Red Point, Deep Cove, Southern Head Beach and Indian Beach.
During our trip we observed people sightseeing the island by car, bike and on foot. Many, like us, vowed to return to continue our discovery of the island which seems to have been lost in translation.
Grand Manan Island is just one of the many destinations in the province which, if educated, travelers would be flooding the island with praise and sharing their stories of adventures.