Newfoundland/Maritimes road trip photos -
Page 3 of 3
by Oscar Voss

This photo collection, from my August 2003 road trip to Newfoundland and the other Maritime Provinces of Canada, is divided into three pages. Page 1 covers Newfoundland road signs and pavement markings. Page 2 shows other sights along Newfoundland highways, plus licence plates. The photos below cover the other Maritime Provinces, as well as a little bit of northern Maine.

See also a separate site for many of the souvenirs I brought back from the Maritimes, including some for the Cabot Trail and the Confederation Bridge.

NOTE: In case you want more detail, clicking most of the photos below will call up enlarged, higher-quality (less .jpg compression) versions. Those alternate versions have larger file sizes, so please be patient while they download.

RETURN TO PAGE 2
Page 2: miscellaneous Newfoundland road photos, and licence plates

or return to Page 1: Newfoundland road signs and pavement markings
Speed limit sign -- Maximum 100 km Symbolic warning -- bridge slippery when frozen
A standard Canadian speed limit sign (in km), taking advantage of the fact that "maximum" has the same meaning in English and French, so the sign can use only one word and still be fully bilingual.
 		 A bridge freeze warning sign, here on route 101 in southwestern Nova Scotia, finesses the bilinguality requirement by using only symbols. The sign is pretty confusing at first, but drivers get the point (usually) soon enough after seeing the same sign at several bridges in a row.
 
New Brunswick route marker, with number within white provincial map on dark green background PEI route marker -- U-shaped cutout shield with trees on upper part
This is the standard provincial route marker in New Brunswick, on this primary highway east of Moncton. In New Brunswick (as well as on Prince Edward Island, but not in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland), low route numbers are reserved for major routes, with three-digit numbers (in New Brunswick, going all the way into the high 900s) reserved for secondary routes.
 		 This is what provincial route markers look like in the province of Prince Edward Island. The route signage is not as consistently bilingual in PEI as it is in New Brunswick (next door to Quebec, large French-speaking population). Bilingual road signage is also somewhat uneven in Nova Scotia, and largely absent in Newfoundland.
 
Trans-Canada Highway marker, with number inside white maple leaf on dark green background Nova Scotia arterial route 125 marker, blue U-shaped shield topped with provincial flag, all on white background
The special Trans-Canada Highway marker used in all the provinces (customized with the province name or abbreviation in the ribbon below the maple leaf). This photo was taken in the two-lane branch of the TCH in New Brunswick connecting to the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island.
 		 A route marker on one of Nova Scotia's provincial arterials, here on the freeway between the TCH and Sydney at the east end of the province. In Nova Scotia, the 100-series routes are the best ones, with many of them freeways or expressways. All are marked like this one, except for the segments (part or all of 104, 105, and 106) that are part of the Trans-Canada Highway.
 
NS 102 outbound, on a Halifax street NS 102 outbound, closeup of arterial route marker with 'Outbound' banner
 While almost all of route 102 (connecting Halifax to the TCH at Truro) is a very, very fast freeway, a few km at the southern end wind through the streets of Halifax. On this and some other numbered highways in Halifax, the usual directional banners are replaced with "inbound" and "outbound," or more simply "in" and "out."
 
Nova Scotia trunk route marker, with number in black shield outline on white background Nova Scotia collector route marker, white numbers on brown rectangle, with former route 3A trunk route marker
"Trunk" routes (which used to be the main inter-regional highways in Nova Scotia, before the 100-series routes were built) are marked with a shield very similar to that for U.S. routes. This photo was taken on a part of route 1, east of Yarmouth, that has been bypassed by the newer, parallel route 101 arterial.
 		 Nova Scotia's secondary highways have rectangular brown route markers, with numbers 200 or above. This one in particular, in Mahone Bay on the scenic Lunenburg Coast, used to be a branch of a trunk route.
Symbolic trail marker for Cabot Trail Old trunk route marker with 'Cabot Trail' in script within shield outline
Many highways in Nova Scotia, like the scenic Cabot Trail hugging the north shore of Cape Breton Island in northeastern Nova Scotia, carry supplemental scenic route markings like this, to help tourists explore various parts of the province off the main arterials.
 		 The Cabot Trail happens to be the only trunk route in the province without a route number, and so the only current marker for that route is the trail marker above left. The historic route marker above apparently is the old route marker, with the route name appearing in place of where the number would go on a standard trunk route marker. This sign, on an old bridge east of Margaree Harbour, may well soon be history, upon the opening of a parallel new bridge under construction when I drove by in August 2003.
 
Cabot Trail exit sign: 'Experience the Masterpiece'
 		 As if it weren't already well-advertised, this exit sign on TCH 105 encourages tourists to "experience the masterpiece" of the Cabot Trail. This is at the eastern junction of the Trail with the TCH; the Trail also connects to the TCH at exit 7 to the west (I don't recall a similar exit sign there). Both junctions are at-grade intersections, but they are assigned exit numbers along with all the other intersections on TCH 105.
 
Cabot Trail rolling along the west Cape Breton coast, ocean on right Cabot Trail rolling along the west Cape Breton coast, ocean on left
Two stretches of the Cabot Trail at its most scenic, both along the west side of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. (Some of the Trail outside the park is cluttered with billboards and other signs.)
 
Graceful curves of the long Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island
The west end of the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island, at Cape Jourimain in New Brunswick. This toll bridge is two lanes wide and about 12 km long, long enough to require gentle curves to be included in the bridge design so motorists won't fall asleep on the span. (No scenic views from the bridge, with a barrier about a meter high on both sides to cut down on crosswinds.) It was opened in 1997 and replaced a ferry link to PEI from Cape Tormentine to the south. That ferry no longer operates, with the former terminal on the PEI side largely converted to a go-kart track, but a second ferry link from the east end of PEI to Pictou, Nova Scotia is still open.
 
West end of NS 103, at T-intersection with Hardscratch Road
In southwestern Nova Scotia, principal arterial routes 101 along the north shore and 103 along the south shore converge on Yarmouth at the province's west end. However, for some reason both highways end at local roads about a km or two apart, with no direct connection between the two (or any indication of plans to build one) to complete the high-speed highway loop through southwestern Nova Scotia. The above shows the west end of route 103 east of Yarmouth, at Hardscratch Road heading into town.
 
One of two large oval stone markers at Flight 111 memorial, with bilingual remembrance -- In Memory Of | The 229 Men, Women, and Children | Aboard Swissair Flight 111 | Who Perished Off These Shores | September 2, 1998 | They Have Been Joined To The | Sea and The Sky | May They Rest in Peace The other stone marker at Flight 111 memorial, this one thanking the recovery teams
Peggy's Cove on the scenic Lunenburg Coast south of route 103 was being "loved to death" by tourists overwhelming what probably is otherwise a very scenic village, on the Saturday morning I stopped by. By contrast, there were few visitors at the quiet and dignified memorial west of the village to those who died in the Swissair Flight 111 crash offshore in 1998. (By coincidence, I visited a lot of air disaster sites that summer -- this one, another in Newfoundland shown on page 2, and earlier in the summer "Ground Zero" in lower Manhattan and the Flight 93 temporary memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.)
 
US 2 straight ahead through downtown Houlton ME, right turn to US 1 East end of US 2, at junction with Interstate 95
The junction of the two lowest-numbered U.S. routes, in downtown Houlton, Maine just west of the Canadian border.
 		 U.S. 2 ends here just east of Houlton, at the last exit from Interstate 95 before it ends at the Canadian border.
 
Here ends my Newfoundland/Maritimes road photos collection.

RETURN TO PAGE 2
Page 2: miscellaneous Newfoundland road photos, and licence plates

or go back to Page 1: Newfoundland road signs and pavement markings

Alaska Roads main page (under construction as of October 2007, but has some useful information and links).

Questions, comments? Please e-mail me.

© Oscar Voss 2003-2004, 2007.