Had it not been for the Century Travelers Club neither of us would have heard of this little slice of France in the northern Atlantic. Listed under the North American countries/ territories heading this turned out to be the last of our places to visit within that geographical area, and probably the most time consuming to get to. With it’s location a mere 25 kilometers from the Newfoundland coastal town of Fortune surely it would be easy to get to right – wrong! Fortune is at the end of the Burin Peninsula, around 360 kilometers from the Province capital of St. John’s. Turns out that almost everything in Newfoundland is a couple of hundred kilometers or more down a moose infested peninsula!

Up until the day prior to our anticipated Saturday departure we were never sure that we would actually get to make the 24 hour excursion, concerned mainly by the extremely temperamental weather throughout the Maritimes, and somewhat due to the fact that we may love St. John’s and not want to leave so soon. Neither occurred and after a night spent camping at the nearby and picturesque Frenchman’s Cove we found ourselves sitting on the dock, fatbikes, passports, and a few clothes in hand. An hour later and we would be sipping coffee, eating pastries and paying in Euros at one of the towns delicatessens. The fast catamaran was passenger only and with a 93 CAD return price tag fairly reasonable, especially with bikes traveling for free. It is possible to take vehicles to the islands by freight, but unless you’re a local there’s very little reason to need one – we cycled every paved and dirt road in a few hours!

Although the weather was calm the ocean swell still ensured that the ferry staff were super busy handing out puke bags, leaving many passengers green faced and far from excited about the return journey, for some, occurring later that same day! Saint-Pierre, the town and the island, is home to ninety percent of the small island chains 6,000 population, with the remainder on the neighboring and larger island of Miquelon-Langlade. Neither of us felt inclined to add more transportation into the mix so decided to skip the additional inter island ferry. With little information for things to do on line we had our doubts as to what SP&M had to offer two worldly travelers who had seen and been through a lot, I mean won’t this be just like a suburb of Nice? Not sure about that as it’s been a long time since visiting Nice, but definitely turned out to be a good decision bringing bikes with us as the actual town had little to keep us occupied, then throw in strange European opening hours and we would have gone stir crazy very quickly.

The morning began with a lingering fog, something that is not uncommon in the Maritimes, allowing us time to check in to Hotel Robert, devour pastries, and get kitted up to discover island life beyond the town. There were only a couple of roads leading from town, mostly hugging the waters edge, meandering past colorful houses complete with amazing views of the ocean – everywhere the roads went we went. Uphill, downhill, dirt, paved, an old lighthouse, hilltop lookouts, viewpoints, all made for a fun afternoon of discovery and a pretty good workout.

As well as being a great place to cycle there were many hiking opportunities, probably even enough that when combined with the larger islands trails could take an avid hiker to some great off the beaten path places. With our time constraints anything beyond a road was off-limits but we did see hikers with backpacks come wandering off a few trails.

Sunday arrived before we knew it and with it came the start of the “Route Halifax Saint-Pierre” 350 mile yacht race, an event we unfortunately would not get to see. It typically takes the boats 2-3 days to make it to Saint-Pierre. Limited entertainment had been provided for the race duration so we did get to have overpriced lunch somewhere different than all of our other meals!

The return ferry ride was uneventful and with the thirty minute time difference got us back into Fortune a short thirty minutes after our departure.

Despite our fears most expenses on the island were only slightly over our budget, with the delicatessen coming in well under. Hotel Robert was around a hundred Dollars and meals were no more than an average meal in neighboring Canada. As we mentioned earlier we had never heard of this archipelago, a fact that with them relying so much on tourism Euros surprised us. For what it’s worth our expert opinion is better promotion, quaint waterfront cafes, and a boycotting of the usual French opening hours – maybe the latter is asking too much!

July 9th – July 10th 2016