We are cruising on the Viking Octantis, had a stop in Sydney, then Woody Point, and on to Havre-St. Pierre on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where begins the St. Lawrence Seaway. Along the way to the southwest are Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and into the Great Lakes. In August, we will board the Azamara Journey from Reykjavik, Iceand, to watch the total eclipse of the sun. The ship will have three stops in Greenland, then St. John's, Newfoundland, and Quebec, arriving in Montreal. So we will again be on the St. Lawrence River in four months. This is also called the St. Lawrence Waterway because there are 15 locks between Montreal and Lake Erie to overcome a 551 feet elevation change. After a week on the Octantis, we have determined that this ship has had the finest cuisine of any cruiseliner we've been on. We were on the Oceania Riviera last year. Many consider this cruise line to have the best food. Here is a video confirming ...
The Viking Octantis spent two nights in Halifax. We took a bus tour of the city and nearby Peggy's Cove. Peggy's Cove. Back to Halifax, and story of the Acadians. This final minute of where the Acadians came from provides a satisfying conclusion to the origin of Cajuns in Louisiana. We went down the Mississippi River from Memphis to New Orleans on the American Melody, and learned about the Cajuns. The British conquest of Acadia happened in 1710. In 1755, Acadians living in Port Royal, Acadia, in the portion of Canada that is now Nova Scotia, were kicked out of their homes by the British. An estimated 10,000 to 11,500 of them began settling mostly along the Atlantic coast of the U.S., but some kept moving on, perhaps 2,500 to 3,000 ending up in southwestern Louisiana between 1764 and the 1780s. In 1863, when the Union conquered what is now Lafayette, the hub of Cajun county, Cajun was used to describe the region's inhabitants. Cajun is a rural pronunciation of Aca...