July 11, 2008

July 11, 2008

From Perce, QC, we drove most of the day around the southern half of the Gaspesie Peninsula. The sun is out today making the seaside scenery gorgeous. I have to admit Aimee and I are really sun lovers.

By 2pm we are most of the way around but needing a break so we stop at Quebec’s Miguasha Provincial Park. The park is a preservation of the sea cliff here where unique fish fossils have been found. During the late Devonian period some 380 million years ago, this area was at the bottom of a brackish water estuary containing myriad varieties of fish. Miguasha is famous for fossils of fish that developed lungs and bony fins allowing them to creep out of the water onto land; the missing link between fish and the first land animals, amphibians and reptiles! No wonder it is also a World Heritage Site. We got a guided tour of the park’s awesome museum of fish fossils. Afterwards our guide took us out to the cliff wall where paleontologists are still excavating new fossils.

From Miguasha, we skip across the border into New Brunswick finally leaving the Gaspesie and the Francophones behind. We stop at the NB tourist center to find northern NB is still mostly French and we have lost an hour going to Atlantic Time. We arrive late to a private park in Charlo, NB.