My dad, who is almost 75, has always loved to drive. He’s been talking about a road trip to the east coast for a few years now, but in August 2024 we finally did it: he, my step-mother and I left Ottawa on August 10th for a two-week road trip covering Quebec, New Brunswick, P.E.I., and Nova Scotia. We had done a similar trip when I was 12, but that trip included a ferry ride to Newfoundland to visit family on my mother’s side as well. Newfoundland is still very much in my father’s plans, and he hopes (as do I) to visit it in a year or two.
As usual, it was my goal to get some nature study and photography in, too, but I knew this trip would feature lots of time spent driving and visiting tourist attractions – my Dad wanted to revisit his previous trips there, including his time in the Navy when he was a youth stationed in Nova Scotia, while my step-mother had never been east before. And with neither of them in peak health anymore, we would have to limit our time on the trails, though there were plenty of national and provincial parks I was interested in visiting.
Our first day took us through Quebec. We ate dinner in La Pocatière before taking a stroll along the St. Lawrence River, and arrived at our motel in Rimouski after dark. The next morning we followed the Matapédia River south toward the New Brunswick border, which we crossed at Campbelltown. We then proceeded down the eastern coast of New Brunswick. Lunch was in Bathurst, and we stopped in Bouctouche to admire the water and fill up the car. We took a short walk through a waterside park where I found myself engulfed in a swarm of gliders (and maybe one darner), the first dragonflies observed on the trip. Dinner was in Shediac, where we stopped to take pictures of the giant lobster.
Our destination for the next two nights was Saint John, where we stayed at the Chateau Saint John, the most luxurious hotel we stayed at and one of our favourites. My Dad and step-mother had plans to drive to the southwest corner of the province the day after we arrived in the city, stopping in at the Reversing Falls, St. Stephens, and St. Andrew. I had hoped to meet an online friend for some dragon-hunting in the area; however, it turns out she was not available that day and so I went with my family instead. She did, however, mention a conservation area worth checking out, the Irving Wetland in St. George, so we added that to our itinerary.
It was here that I photographed my first odes of the trip. This conservation area, also called Little River Wetland, is a 246-acre marshland that was created in 1993 by a partnership between Ducks Unlimited Canada and Irving Oil. The path of crushed gravel runs between the Magaguadavic River and the marsh, and I thought it might be it great place to find both river and marsh odonates.
Unfortunately there wasn’t much flying, and I photographed only seven species: Slender Spreadwing, Hagen’s Bluet, Eastern Forktail, Canada Darner (which I had to catch while it was flying up and down the trail), Slaty Skimmer, Autumn Meadowhawk and Blue Dasher.
We didn’t stay long as the sun was hot and merciless, and it was a bit taxing on my Dad. The best part was when we returned back to the car and spotted a pair of river otters swimming toward the dam! They were too far and too quick to photograph, but I was happy to see them and glad for the opportunity to do my first explorations in this part of the province!
The next day was one of the ones I was most looking forward to: our journey east along the Fundy Trail Parkway, through Fundy National Park, to McGinley’s Corner near the Hopewell Rocks. I was hoping to check out a few flat and easy trails in the National Park along the way that would be good for dragonflies. The first was Caribou Plain Trail, which is heralded as a place to see boreal birds such as Black-backed Woodpecker, Boreal Chickadee, Red Crossbill, and White-winged Crossbill as well as dragonflies such as Williamson’s Emerald, Variable Darner and Crimson-ringed Whiteface. The second was the MacLaren Pond Medicine Trail with its boardwalk and two lookouts to view the pond below – species such as Azure Bluet, Ski-tipped Emerald and Saffron-winged Meadowhawk had been seen here.
The drive along the Fundy Trail Parkway was stunning. It followed the top of the cliff as it curved along the shore of the Bay of Fundy with the water on our right. There were many lookouts where we could get out and stretch our legs and take in the gorgeous view.
There were quite a few dragonflies swarming over the ridge between the parking lot and the clifftop walkways; I saw several gliders and managed to catch a Wandering Glider. I never tire of seeing these dragonflies up close.
We stopped in at the Big Salmon Interpretive Centre on the Salmon River, which looks like an 1800s logging bunkhouse from the outside. It sits just above the mouth of the Upper Salmon River which looked too low and gravelly for many odes to be flying.
In the Visitor Center we bought some ice cream and mementos to take home, then continued on our way to Fundy National Park.
We stopped for lunch at a picnic area on a lake before driving to the Caribou Plain Trail. It had some nice boardwalks that looked out into a marsh but the only wildlife we saw worth noting was a Merlin that flew from snag to snag in the marsh. I had higher hopes for the MacLaren Pond Medicine Trail but to my shock the park closed at 4:00 pm and it was already 3:30. We missed our turn and ended up heading out of the park instead – so much for that.
From there it was on to the motel in McGinley’s Corner near the Hopewell Rocks, which we visited the following day when the tide was low. That was the last chance I had to see any wildlife in New Brunswick, and there wasn’t much to see except for a cute Dark-eyed Junco preening its feathers at the edge of the parking lot. Still, I was glad to see a few different odonate species in New Brunswick; I only identified eight species altogether, but seven of them were new for the province (all but the Eastern Forktail), bringing my New Brunswick total up to 20 species!
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