Afterword: More from St. Stephen, the East Coast Greenway, and Home

Posted by Jeff, 7/3/15

St. Stephen is a company town. It didn't feel like one right off the bat, but as we learned more about its chocolate- and candy-making history, it became clear just how central Ganong has been to the local economy.

Look, for example, at the city's official website. Aside from the unimaginative, formless slogan ("The Middle of Everywhere"), one is bound to notice that the first option in the top navigational bar is "chocolate".

Being located on a major waterway, St. Stephen already has an economic and cultural advantage. It was therefore important to the Passamaquoddy Native Americans as a fishing location and burial ground. Like Belfast, Maine, the town became a shipbuilding hub in the 19th Century. The railroad's arrival in the late 1800s gave manufacturers another option for shipping goods. (Source: city website)

In 1873, two years after the town's incorporation, the Ganong "empire" had its humble beginning:

In 1873 brothers James and Gilbert Ganong opened a grocery store in St. Stephen; when it almost failed, they added candy – then a specialty item – to the list of wares for sale. Meeting with success, they started to make their own candy to sell in the store. From this modest beginning, Ganong Bros. Ltd. grew dramatically. By 1930 the company was a major corporation employing 700 people, and is still a major employer in the town.

The chocolate and candy factory was in a brownstone building in the middle of downtown, on Milltown Blvd. (St. Stephen's "front street" abutting the river), until 1990, when production moved to a larger facility on the outskirts of town.

The brownstone became The Chocolate Museum, and it is the epicenter of the annual Chocolate Fest. Wouldn't you know it? The festival was going on when we arrived. The main thing we did to celebrate was eat a lot of chocolate. There were just free plates of chocolates all over the museum!

Chocolate walking tour, in which we viewed old, stately houses where various Ganongs lived. The mansion in this photo is actually a university now, whose 2013 enrollment was something like 85.

Chocolate history

Chocolate fountain

Chocolate taste test

Not chocolate, but curling. I hear this may be a popular activity in Canada.

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The Chocolate Fest, while delicious and educational, was a little underwhelming. Attendance was more trickle than flow. The rain we had (thank you for waiting till we were done riding!) might have played a role, but it is surely something that could have been better marketed. On the other hand, the sparse crowds meant it was easier to navigate through the museum and participate in the ancillary events. And more chocolate to ourselves, haha! We bought boxes of chocolate from the museum store and shipped them to family, friends, and "major donors" to our East Coast Greenway First Giving page.

The humble festival in a modest Canadian town was proportionate to our bike ride. In the world of bike touring, 500 miles is no "epic" feat, hence the hyphenated adjective in this blog's description. Several friends of mine have ridden across the country, and the most intrepid cyclists have tackled the whole world (like Mark Beaumont). A legally blind couple even rode a tandem from the southern tip of South America to the northern tip of Alaska. Besides, "epic" is the most overused adjective today, with an adverb ("literally") claiming the overall most-overused-word title.

The bigger point is that a long-distance bike ride is really fun, and not super difficult! We averaged just under 50 miles per day, and neither of us had previously done anything more than a long day ride. Sure, there were sore knees, hands, and forearms. But a 500-mile trip is not something only reserved for the Mark Beaumonts of the world. A bike has been my main mode of transportation now for 10 years, so I have a healthy level of maneuvering ability, particularly in urban traffic. But long distance rides were a new thing, and this one went smoothly for both of us "rookies".

An East Coast Greenway trek could become even smoother in the future, to the extent that the states, counties, and cities and towns through which it runs commit to finishing the network. The more Downeast Sunrise Trails, Eastern Trails, Chester River Greenways, and even small facilities like the Androscoggin River Path and Beth Condon Pathways arise along the route, the more opportunities for healthy, explorative, outdoor recreation and touring will accrue to the tens of millions of people who live near the route.

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Speaking of home, that time eventually came. The process of boxing and shipping Eve's bike back to California was an adventure in and of itself, about which I'll write later. Through West Transportation and Concord Coach Lines, we had convenient bus transportation from Calais all the way to Boston. I was even able to stow my own bike on both buses (in the back of West Transportation's cutaway bus, and in the luggage storage area of Concord's full-size coach) without partial dismantling and boxing (phew). Eve flew back to California, and I took the train/bus back to North Carolina (with a stopover in New York City).

We went our separate ways then, for the time being. But now, in 2015, we're together again in California.