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Family Fun with the Trustees of Reservations: First Stop, the Berkshires

 

One of our specialties at ActiveTravels is designing the Dream Day Itinerary for trips around the globe. With the independent traveler in mind, we create what we consider a perfect day of travel, including recreational activities, cultural or historical sites, recommended restaurants, and lodging. This week, we’re delighted to partner with the nonprofit conservation organization, The Trustees of Reservations, to link together a sampling of their 113 sites in Massachusetts. We’re going to break down 5 regions in the state and focus on family travel, including as many special summer events as possible. 

Today, we’re going to focus on the Berkshires. Heading south to north, start your day with a leisurely stroll along the Housatonic River at Bartholemew’s Cobble. Walk on the Ledges Trail and you’ll find the river snaking through dairy farms. The Trustees take full advantage of the Housatonic, offering guided canoe trips on designated Saturdays and Sundays in the summer. You’ll learn about the history of the area and be on the lookout for bald eagles flying overhead. If you love birds of prey, join wildlife rehabilitator Tom Ricardi this coming Saturday, June 27, from 10 am to noon, to view the hawks, owls, falcons, eagle and turkey vulture that he cares for. On Saturday, July 18th, from 10 am to noon, you can scour the forest and field for snakes, frogs and salamanders with a naturalist guide. Over Labor Day, sign up for the family campout at Bart’s Cobble and you’ll be treated to guided hikes, scavenger hunts, a search for owls, and, of course s’mores around the campfire. Also note that if you sign up for a Family Explorer Membership at Bart’s Cobble and 4 other Trustees sites (Crane Beach, Naumkeag, World’s End, and Long Point on Martha’s Vineyard), kids will receive an Elliott the Hermit Crab stuffed animal, a Get Out and Explore Booklet featuring 12 quests or scavenger hunts, cool tattoos, and more. 

A shot walk from Bart’s Cobble and you’ll find the circa-1735 Ashley House, the oldest house still standing in Berkshire County. Colonel Ashley was a judge and patriot who supplied iron and other supplies for the Revolutionary War effort. On tours on weekend days in summer, you’ll hear the story of Elizabeth Freeman, a slave of the Ashleys who sued her way to freedom. On Saturday, August 22nd, from 1-4:30 pm, come celebrate Elizabeth Freeman’s life with performances, an art exhibit, plus house tours. 

Heading north, stop at the trailhead to Monument Mountain on Route 7. No family trip to the Berkshires is complete without a 45-minute trek to the top of this 1,642-foot peak. The gradual climb on a path through hemlocks, oaks, beech, white pines, red maples, and birches leaves you at the top with vistas of Mt. Everett to the south and New York’s Taconic Range to the west. While hiking, tell the kids this is where the writer of Moby Dick, Herman Melville, first met the author of The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The date of their hike was August 5, 1850.

A 15-minute drive from the base of Monument Mountain and you’ll reach one of the gems on the Trustees roster, Naumkeag. This 44-room Berkshires “Cottage” from the Gilded Age was designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White. But it’s the gardens that you’ll want to roam, a landscaping marvel thanks to 28 years of collaborative work by former owner, Mabel Choate, and her dear friend, Fletcher Steele, one of America’s first modern landscape architects. Naumkeag is in the fourth and final phase of a $3.3 million renovation, currently mending the retaining wall and fixing the fountains of the elaborate Chinese Garden. In the meantime, walk the iconic Blue Steps, lined with newly planted birches. Then savor the gardens while dining on a picnic lunch brought to you by the Red Lion Inn’s Oak Café. 

Thursdays in summer at Naumkeag, from 11 am to 4 pm, feature lawn games in the gardens. Games include croquet, badminton, bocce and jumbo versions of classic tabletop games such as Checkers, Jenga and Connect Four. Also on Thursday, from 2 pm to 2:45 pm, is a house tour designed for children. Or head to Naumkeag for Watermelon Wednesdays, four Wednesdays in late July and August, from 4:30 pm to 6 pm, where you not only get to chomp into fresh watermelon, but watch live theater, music, and storytelling. On July 3rd, there will be a special Free Fun Friday at Naumkeag, where families can watch performances by BerkCirque and singer/storyteller John Porcino; create art, enjoy the lawn games, and take kid-friendly tours of the mansion.   

End your day in the Berkshires at the Williamstown property Yankee Magazine recently dubbed “Best Retro Lodging” in New England, The Guest House at Field Farm. Enter the Bauhaus-era home, now a 6-bedroom inn welcome to children 12 years of age and older, and you feel you just entered the set of Mad Men, season one. Views on the back porch overlook mighty Mount Greylock, the state’s tallest peak. The inn is set on 316 acres, perfect for viewing the night sky after a day of adventure. 

 

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Top 5 Travel Experiences of 2012, A Culinary High in Caraquet, New Brunswick

Last May, I was fortunate to drive New Brunswick’s Acadian Coast for an upcoming Boston Globe story. Stretching 110 miles from Shediac to Caraquet, the northeastern coast of New Brunswick boasts the warmest waters north of Virginia, the sand dunes of Kouchibouguac National Park, lonely lighthouses on Miscou Island, and the largest lobster processing facility on the continent. Yet, the real reason folks go out of their way to venture to the Acadian Coast is to experience the French Canadian culture. Stop at any of the small towns and you’ll notice a distinctive joie de vivre, with foot-stomping fiddle music, down-home French cooking accentuating the local seafood catch, and festivals that celebrate the Acadians’ 400-year-old history in the Atlantic Maritimes.
 
Yet, it was one day in Caraquet where I experienced my greatest culinary pleasure of the year. In the morning, oysterman Gaetan Dugas took me out on the waters of Caraquet Bay to show me firsthand why these oysters are a cherished commodity in high demand from chefs around North America. Especially the petites, small oysters that are both succulent and briny. Dugas’ ancestors include a pirate who commandeered a ship against the British in the 1750s, but it’s his father who taught him how to oyster farm and his grandfather who taught him the traditional ways of the local Mi’kmaq people. 
 
Just as bountiful as the sea are the forests surrounding Caraquet, ripe with morels, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and other goodies like the foot of the cattail. Local Jean Patenaude made a name for himself scouring the countryside for edibles, bringing home laundry baskets full of wild mushrooms on ideal days in summer. In the afternoon, he took me foraging for morels. 
 
That evening, I assembled the goodies I had collected that day and brought them to chef Karen Mersereau, the mother of gastronomy in Caraquet. Mersereau was a food marketing rep in Toronto when she met Gerard Paulin, the third-generation hotelier of Hotel Paulin, a Victorian-era gem perched on a hill above the water of Caraquet Bay. A dozen years later, the couple are parents of a boy, Jules, and Karen is firmly entrenched at the helm of the hotel’s kitchen. She has wisely aligned herself with both Dugas and Patenaude. 
 
Mersereau took my day’s bounty and created a memorable wild mushroom oyster bisque. To ensure that every spoonful was chockful of meat, she throws in the native palourdes clam, similar to a quahaug. Her bevy of local supplies would make most chefs weep with joy. In addition to oysters and mushrooms, there’s snow crabs, tuna, Atlantic salmon, shrimp, and halibut right off the boat, goat cheese and spring-fed lamb found in nearby farms, and blueberries and cloudberries that grow wild along the coast, perfect for making a sublime pie. At Hotel Paulin, the locavore movement has reached its crescendo.
 
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My Grandfather’s Sketchbooks Still Inspire Me to Travel

Guest Post and Photo by Amy Perry Basseches

My grandparents were inveterate world travelers — and Grandpa, an architect, was always sketching and painting wherever they went. Framed examples of his watercolors have graced every place I’ve lived. In Boston, our home displayed Pisa (1955), Nara (1959), Crete (1960), and Florida (1977). Now, in Toronto, Josh and I have Venice’s Rialto Bridge on the wall (1954). It was not only the sketchbooks, but gifts from afar that entertained me as a child. With Grandma and Grandpa’s help, I gathered a large collection of dolls from other countries, learning early on that the world was a big, diverse place that I wanted to understand more. I suppose you could say my love of travel and exploration was instilled by them. 
 
Recently, in September, I was looking through a pile of Grandpa’s sketchbooks which I hold for all relatives as part of the family archives. Believe it or not, I found pencil drawings and watercolors of places to which I would travel a month later: Grandpa’s "Newfoundland, 1977." Indeed, in early October, I saw the Bonavista Lighthouse he depicted. Further, I found a notebook entitled "Japan, 1959," and, after pausing to wonder what led my grandparents to Japan at that particular time, I decided to ask my niece whether she had been to any of the named sites. She and her partner were on a 2-week trip to Japan last summer when they became engaged. All seven of the great-grandchildren should have Grandpa’s artwork on their walls, I thought, to inspire even more generations to experience the larger world.
 
Grandma and Grandpa were first generation Americans (born to immigrants from Russia and Lithuania as the 1800s turned to the 1900s), and raised in New York City. Grandpa was the youngest of eight. Amazingly, both went on to college and graduate school. 100 years later, their curiosity, pluck, and sense of adventure still motivates me, and lives on through Grandpa’s sketches and watercolors. 
 
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Isiolo International Airport Set to Open Soon in Samburu Region of Kenya

On the northern frontier of Kenya, the parched desert landscape is home to one of the most cherished stops on an African safari tour, the Samburu National Reserve. Mention Samburu to any avid African traveler, like I recently did at dinner with Rob Barbour, Director of East African Travels for Epic Private Journeys, and their eyes light up. Here, the wilderness experience is savored by a select few, enhanced by the chance to meet the indigenous cattle-herding Nilotes and Turkana clans. It’s also home to one of our favorite properties in the country, Sasaab, owned by the same group who run the Giraffe Manor in Nairobi. The problem with Samburu was accessibility, a good 4-hour drive from the Lewa Wilderness or prohibitively expensive flights to a nearby airport. That will change when the new Isiolo International Airport opens by the end of the year. I’m hoping the new airport doesn’t make it too easy to visit Samburu, but I would get here sooner rather than later. 
 
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New Jersey Woman First Female to Paddle 740-Mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail Solo

This past Monday, Cathy Mumford of Colts Neck, New Jersey, became the first woman to paddle the entire Northern Forest Canoe Trail solo. The 50-year old mother of two started at Old Forge, New York, on June 19th, and finished her trip in Fort Kent, Maine, at the northern terminus of the 740-mile route. She paddled across Lake Champlain on her 50th birthday, made several wrong turns on the route to add to the mileage, yet still achieved her goal of completing this Appalachian Trail of the water in her trusty 9-foot kayak. And she only started kayaking several years ago in Tennessee. Talk about a quick learner!
 

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Cruise Alaska with AdventureSmith Explorations

Adventure cruising might sound like an oxymoron, but more and more cruise lines are jumping on the active lifestyle bandwagon as the demand grows. A younger clientele and athletic baby boomers have helped transform an industry best known for its all-you-can-eat buffets and cozy chaise lounge chairs to one where a weeklong itinerary might include sea kayaking, biking, hiking, scuba diving, ziplining, and rock climbing. Leading the way is Todd Smith and his small ship cruises at AdventureSmith Explorations. New next summer in Alaska is the Glacier Country Cruise, with a full slate of sea kayaking, hiking, and paddleboarding options. It’s the best of both worlds, because after a day of adventure, you’ll get to return to the 86-passenger yacht and relax in the hot tubs, get a massage, or down a glass of wine from their extensive wine list. Then there’s the Glacier Bay and Islands excursion that is run by members of the Tlingit Kaagwaantaan Clan and focuses on First Nations culture and indigenous flora and fauna. You’ll never think of cruising in the same way again. 

 

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Nova Scotia to Restart Ferry Service from Maine Next Summer

Great news out of Nova Scotia yesterday with the announcement that the province of Nova Scotia has signed an agreement with Nova Star Cruises to re-establish round-trip ferry service between Portland, Maine, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, starting May 2014. The ferry service ended in 2009, forcing New Englanders to drive through New Brunswick to reach Nova Scotia, making the trip far more arduous. As part of the agreement, the Province of Nova Scotia will provide Nova Star Cruises with up to CDN $21 million of financial support over seven years to assist the company with re-establishing the ferry service. Nova Star will leave Portland each evening at 8 pm EST and arrive in Yarmouth at 7 am AST the next morning. The ship will depart two hours later and arrive back in Portland at 5 p.m. local time. If you’re considering visiting Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, this might be the summer. 

 

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