14 June 2026 – How better to title a blog post being written as I roll toward the St. Lawrence River, than with words from a paddling song of early voyageurs?

And I am rolling along, on board VIA Rail. Just the latest phase of several days of travel, all on the surface, and running the gamut from ferry to bus to train.

Ferry!

The MV Madeleine II at dock in Souris, PEI, after our morning crossing from Cap-aux-Meules, Magdalen Islands. She’s 124 m. long, 6 decks high, can carry 750 passengers and 200 vehicles per trip, which in a year totals some 100,00 people and 41,000 vehicles.

I have time to learn this, also time to admire the red beaches besides the terminal…

because I have a four-hour wait before my local-route bus ride on up to the capital of PEI, Charlottetown.

Bus!

It all goes well. It is the start of my pleasure in the continuing presence of inter-community busses here in the Maritimes, something we used to enjoy elsewhere in Canada but no longer do.

Sunshine throughout the stay on the Magdalens, and now — gusty, drizzly rain.

I brave it for a morning walk to Victoria Park, then — hat and hood pulled tight around my head — turn back into town. My reward is this dramatic mural en route.

At 1 pm my next bus takes off, one that (via a connection) takes me off-island to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with a little slice of New Brunswick thrown into the mix.

Until 1997, the only way off-island was to fly or take a ferry. That year, a new option opened up. Thanks to the new Confederation Bridge, vehicles could now drive a 12.9 km. link across the Abegweit Passage of Northumberland Strait between the island and New Brunswick.

We’re on the bridge. It is very foggy.

But eventually there it is: the New Brunswick shore.

We’re soon in Nova Scotia and, late afternoon, I drop off in Dartmouth, just short of the final stop, neighbouring Halifax. Next morning, I’m in Halifax, at the waterfront train station

Rail!

Not quite yet, I’ve 20 minutes to kill, so I walk a bit of the Halifax Harbour front.

It’s an important harbour, and I’ll let the signage concisely tell you why.

(Apologies if all this data causes you to resonate with the very cross little boy slapping down a very large book on the library Returns desk and complaining: “This book tells me a great deal more about penguins than I want to know!” On the other hand, I am not looking over your shoulder, so let your eyes skitter on down the page, if you wish.)

Still foggy, which somehow seems exactly the sort of weather we should be having…

… though perhaps lifting slightly. I can now, faintly, make out the lighthouse on the little island directly ahead of us.

Time to catch my train. It runs a route now named The Atlantic, but which began in 1904 as the Ocean line. That date, I later learn, makes this the longest continuous-service passenger service in North America.

I’ll be going almost all the way…

getting off in Ste-Foy for the short connecting ride to Quebec City.

Did you notice that use of the present progressive tense? (“I’ll be going…”) Yes, my friends, as promised above, I am still on board, swaying gently with the train’s motion as I type this post in the WiFi service car.

We have just pulled out of Moncton (consult your map, above)…

and I think I’ll say good-bye. I want to spend my time falling into the passing landscape.

Next post, probably, from Quebec City.

À bientôt.