Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada. The partial large island cut-off in the top left is Campobello Island, in Canada, made famous by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, just north of the peninsula, Quoddy Head State Park, Maine, USA. Grand Manan, the archipelago in the center, about the same length as Manhattan Island, is where my grandfather Lawrence G. Urquhart was from, the village of Castalia. Cheney Island is just to the west of the larger island furthest east, White Head Island (a separate free ferry goes there), between White Head and Ross Island (Ross Island is accessible over a "causeway" at low tide, among the greatest range of tides in the world, I once got stuck out there in flood in a van). Some people on Grand Manan are related to the current American Vice President, Richard "Dick" Cheney. James Audubon visited Maine, and after a few weeks grew impatient, looking for birds. He visited Grand Manan and was happier, some of drawings in the museum there in Grand Harbour. Kent Island, one of the three islands in the southeast is (or was) a bird observation center run by Bowdoin College of Maine. Arctic and sub-arctic species sometimes make it part of their "flyway" and sometimes Atlantic puffins abound. The whole "Grand Manan Parish" is under federal bird wildlife protection status. Whales have a nursery in the northern waters of island, swimming up the coast from around Florida and back. Traces of old native settlements have also been found by "Provincial" (or Federal?) archaeologists there. (NASA's World Wind 1.3)  Posted by Hello

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