Because we hadn't made advance reservations, the campgrounds at Kejimkujic National Park were full for the weekend. We decided to wait it out at Five Islands Ocean Resort and it was such a great decision. This campground is beautiful!
It's location on the Bay of Fundy allowed us to experience the World's largest tides for a little longer. We explored the beach finding crabs, shells and even an 18" eel washed on shore! But the best part was meeting our camping neighbors and trying clamming for the first time!
To find Atlantic Bar Clams, you wait until low tide then walk way out onto the mud flats
looking for small holes in the mud. When you find one, dig below it and look for a clam.
We only found a few. We watched as others drove ATVs out onto the mud and just started digging a line with a short handed rake-type tool. It seems like those tools are much more appropriate for this situation than our shovel. We also learned we should have gone even farther out in the mud.
Found some Green Crabs too.
And a large eel washed up on shore!
Our neighbors returned from clamming after collecting 300 clams in 40 minutes! They boiled a pot for us. I figured we'd all try one, just to try it, but they were so tasty, it was hard to stop. Boiling makes their shells open, so you just crack them open the rest of the way, pull out the creature then remove the dark "skin". Dip in vinegar, then butter and eat. We didn't have any vinegar but they were still delicious! We ate the whole pot and the kids still wanted more. He actually cooked up a second batch for the kids just before lighting the campfire. We sat around the fire grateful for dark skies revealing the most stars we've seen in years, a couple shooting stars all while fellow campers shot off fireworks and sang together a few sites down. It was a truly lovely introduction to Nova Scotia.
On our way to Kejimkujic National Park, we stopped at Masstown Market, the busiest grocery store I've ever been inside. Then after reading about Canada's #1 rated blue cheese being made at an Amish farm along our route, we had to stop and try it for ourselves. The Dutchman's Cheese Farm makes their award winning Dragon's Breath Blue then coats it in thick wax. Cut off the top and if there's any left over, the top fits back on for later. We also grabbed a pack of waffle cookies which were different than anything we've tried before.
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