♪ [Brandy Yanchyk] I'm a journalist, and I'm travelling across my home country, Canada.

On this journey I'll be experiencing some of Canada's most interesting destinations.

My next adventure takes me to eastern Canada to the maritime province of New Brunswick.

♪ ♪ (techno bass) I've come to St. John, New Brunswick.

This Atlantic province is famous for its forests and its coastline.

While I'm here, I'll be learning about the local sturgeon and caviar, and I'll be finding out how to access Indigenous tourism.

♪ waves on shoreline I've come to Carters Point just outside of St. John in New Brunswick, and I'm here with Cornel Ceapa, He owns Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar and I've come here because I hear you have delicious food on offer.

Can you give me a sense of what happens when people come to visit you?

Yes, we offer our clients, visitors the most exciting, the most different experience that they cannot experience anywhere in the world.

Basically, we have a family business that we started here in New Brunswick raising or harvesting sturgeon.

We use everything from the sturgeon nose to tail and when people come here, they are going to learn how caviar is made, where their food is coming from, what sustainable is and we are just very, very unique and people will remember this experience all their lives.

[Brandy] So Cornel, you're from Romania originally, you live in New Brunswick, you have a PhD in sturgeon biology ...

There's a lot of science happening at this property.

Can you give me a sense of what people can see when they come here at the hatchery, etc?

Our business is very unique.

Basically, we do the caviar from egg to egg.

So we raise the fish, we have our own captive brood stock mothers and fathers, that was artificially spawned.

We do baby sturgeon.

We raise them for 10 years.

It's a long time to wait for any product to be so amazing, like caviar is and then at the end, we produce amazing products.

We use the fish nose to tail, we, we educate people what sustainable, responsible aquaculture is, what wild harvest is.

And at the end, again, they'll have an amazing, amazing experience.

Wow.

Okay, so we're looking here, we have these beautiful products.

Can you describe them for me, please?

[Cornel] Yes.

So first, we have a caviar serving board.

This is kind of our innovation.

We want to bring caviar down to earth, you know, down to people, make them make it more approachable.

So we have three types of caviar.

Two of them are farm, Acadian Gold and Acadian Emerald, and the third one is wild, the only wild Caviar in the world.

If you can believe it.

[Brandy] Incredible.

[Cornel] And we take care of it, make sure it's sustainable.

On the second board.

We have a sturgeon cuterie board or a charcuterie board, made only with sturgeon products.

We have some smoked sturgeon, we have some smoked sturgeon paté like a spread, very delicious, and also some gravlax made from sturgeon.

So all of them are made by us.

For our clients.

You are making me hungry, I can't wait to try this.

So how are we going to start?

We are going to start by sabering a bubbly bottle.

Whoa, ho, ho...

Okay.

So, are you ready for this?

I'm ready!

It's very easy.

It's a very simple process.

You can feel it here - you see there is a seam.

So the bottle is basically made of two halves.

So there is a weak point right here on the top of the seam.

So we are going to angle this bottle to about 45 degrees, away from people and then use a saber which is like a specialized thing for sabering champagne bottles or sparkling bottles.

And we are going to easily tap it right here to make the top explode.

Okay.

So... ready?

I'm ready!

Okay, so we'll start... 3,2,1.

(loud pop) [Brandy] Wooo!

How exciting!

I love opening bottles like this.

Let's try some nice Canadian sparkling wine.

Okay.

Cheers to good times!

And sturgeon.

Sturgeon in New Brunswick.

[Brandy] Mmmmm... That is tasty.

I can't wait to jump into this caviar.

[Cornel] So, we're going to open a caviar tin.

For people who don't know how to open a tin, basically, you need to find it -- there is a seam here.

You use either a knife or something like an opener so you kind of pry in between the types and you open it up.

Oh, look at that color.

Beautiful.

[Cornel] Nice golden colour, shines.

You know I always love the shine of the caviar especially when you are eating outside in the sun.

[Brandy] And you call this "gold" because it's yellow?

[Cornel] It's yellow-ish, it's lighter color.

This species, if you can believe it, they have almost 10 times more chromosomes than humans.

So it's a huge variety, genetic variety on these fishes.

[Brandy] Fascinating.

For this reason, the same fish, like fish grown in the same conditions some of them they are golden some of them, they are darker colour.

[Brandy] Oh, this is called Emerald?

[Cornel] That's called the Emerald.

So basically a darker in ...

It's green.

Yes, a kind of a darker colour.. Kind of an emerald kind of color.

[Brandy] Just beautiful.

And it's my favorite colour.

[Cornel] Also the flavou between the two are very different.

Okay.

And the last one: [Brandy] Acadian Wild.

[Cornel] Acadian Wild, the onl wild caviar in the world really, really special.

[Brandy] Really, only wild caviar?

[Cornel] Yes.

[Brandy] Made from sturgeon.

[Cornel] Yes, the real caviar only comes from sturgeon.

That's kind of the rule that the FAO the Codex Alimentarius.

They say that caviar, like the name "caviar" only should come from sturgeon.

So we'll start with the mildest of the three.

Okay.

So this is the gold, the gold is the kind of the "beginner caviar".

It's a very buttery rich but kind of an easy flavor.

So the way we taste caviar we'll take a good... [Brandy] Ooh that's a lot!

That's a really good... because your taste buds need to understand what caviar is.

Okay!

So then you make like a fist, this is, this is what we call a "caviar bump" or caviar à la Royale, they call it, the French guys.

[Brandy] Ooh la la... [Cornel] So I'm going to put a nice dollop there.

This is a serious business!

It's really serious business.

We do, we can, we can do like in the pandemic- like cheers!

Yes.

Then you take the sip of the sip of the sparkling, Mmm-hmmm... Rinse well and you take all this... and you let, let your, your tastebuds enjoy it.

Rich, buttery saltiness.

Goodness.

It is so delicious.

It is so buttery!

I'm kind of shocked.

I haven't met any person yet who doesn't like butter and this is really uh, the best butter you can have.

We'll do the second one.

Are we doing another bump?

It should be exactly, it should be the second, like the next step up.

Okay bump me.

Mmm.

This one has a little bit of nuttiness, the eggs are a little bit firmer, you can see.

It's saltier.

Yeah, the salt is basically your taste buds because they already had the experience they kind of, they are adjusting right now is like you know you have you have a device that never had something you are putting a standard there, you know, but the amount of salt in all three of them actually is the same to the milligram.

Perception of salt may differ by by the way you are tasting it and if it's one after another, you know?

I like the texture... Oh, yeah, ...of those eggs.

Yeah, yeah.

I felt that one more than the first one.

Yes, it is a little bit and sometimes even between one fish and another we have a little bit of a difference.

So it's not all - we are not, it's not an industrial product to be all the exactly the same.

You know, you have little variation, which makes the product that makes the actually more interesting.

The experience, you know, [Brandy] This is so much fun.

I can't wait to try the Wild one.

Thank you.

Thank you to the sturgeon.

Thank you very much sturgeon, we love you.

We eat you.

(chuckling) All is good!

Cheers!

Wow, this is the wild one.

Whoa!

That one is really intense.

[Cornel] This is really the best seafood you can have.

There is really a lot of umami, a lot of flavour into this one.

[Brandy] There is a lot of flavor.

But you know what?

I like the other ones, too.

You like, they are all good.

They're all...

They are very different.

This one is like *boo*á the wild one.

Yes exactly.

It hits you big time.

Yep, yep.

[Brandy] It tastes like the ocean.

[Cornel] Yep, yep.

[Brandy] Right?

[Cornel] yep.

[Brandy] This one was more way more mild but I felt that kind of sea, ocean feeling, too.

The first one that is the gold one was like butter [Cornel] butter, yeah.

[Brandy] It's literally like butter.

And that's our... our philosophy into this is basically have wild and farmed together.

We farm the fish in the best conditions we can offer to the fish like the water is perfectly clean, land-based so we don't use you don't use cages or anything like that.

And we, our dream is to do a product, farm product that is as good, if not better as the wild.

And that's really something we should try with any any farm products like do the best we can do.

Because food.

Food is the essence of life, right?

That's what feeds us, keeps us alive.

Well, Cornel.

I just want to thank you for inviting me here to your beautiful property, to your hatchery.

For all the science you put into your work.

Cheers to you, New Brunswick and sturgeon.

Cheers to sturgeon.

To get to my next destination, I traveled 279 kilometers or 174 miles by car, from Carters Point to the city of Miramichi.

Famous for its salmon fishing, Miramichi is the largest city in northern New Brunswick.

I've come to the home of the Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation here on a First Nations reserve in Miramichi, New Brunswick, and I'm with Stephen and Florence Paul.

They own First Nations Tourism.

It's an Indigenous tourism company, which is helping people get to understand and learn more about the Mi'kmaq here.

Steven, can you tell me about the Mi'kmaq people?

Yeah, the Mi'kmaq people have been here on the East Coast for thousands of years, as evidenced by our archaeological finds back in the 1970s.

And now we're using some of the information we, we learned from those digs, to help further our culture and help build relationships amongst other tribes and with the non Indigenous people.

Steven, I know that Canada is on a path of reconciliation.

There's a discussion and actions that are happening to try to heal some of the hurts and the pains that are a result of Indian residential school where young children were taken from their homes, put into these Indian residential schools and stripped of their language and their culture.

Can you tell me about how those schools have impacted your community here?

Yeah, absolutely.

Our community has been impacted tremendously, where we had people go there and were stripped of their culture, their language, and our traditions from the 1890s up until the 1970s.

And now we're, over the past 30, 40 years, we're on a journey of rediscovery and we're hoping to recapture some of those lost things that we, we lost in our culture.

And Steven, when people come here, and they want to have a one on one experience with you and Florence, what can they do?

What activities can they do through your First Nations Tourism company?

Most of the activities center around the river.

And our company specializes in river tours through kayaks.

And one of the big things we'd like to do with our business Brandy is we'd like to incorporate food with all our activities.

So we do tours in the summer with kayaks.

Right now in the fall, we're doing medicine pickin' tours, and we include that, food.

Then in the winter, we include food in our snowshoe picking tours.

And we also do ice fishing as well.

Wow.

Can you give me a sense of this heritage center that's also here?

[Steven] The Metepenagiag Heritage Center was built in the 19... started out in the 1980s.

But the facility wasn't actually constructed till 2000, mid 2000s.

And that showcases all, a lot of the artifacts that were discovered in the Augustine Mound, which, which was the Mound that had our artifacts.

[Brandy] Fascinating.

So right now we're at this table, I see all these patterns.

And Florence is busy sewing and getting things read y.

What is this experience Florence that you offer when people come to visit you and your husband?

It's a mitt-making course, we offer this to the people that would like to learn how to make traditional mitts and everyone seems to enjoy it very much.

[Brandy] Is there one type of mitt you really like to make?

[Florence] The mitts take very, very long to make, anywhere from - the little ones take probably about eight hours to complete, whereas the bigger ones woul take maybe 18 hours to complete.

We start off by cutting the size of the pattern that you want, as well as the inserts.

And then when you start you have to start with the thumb.

We're gonna start putting the thumb onto the mitt.

[Brandy] Okay.

[Florence] So what I do is I put the inserts in because I just like the way that that looks.

People do them without but I prefer to put the insert.

So you put the... start on the outside of the mitt.

So you put that insert in.

And then you put your your thumb on there.

And then you put your needles through.

[Brandy] I don't wanna hurt you here.

[Florence] Yep.

No, you, you put that through.

And you might have to push it.

[Brandy] Oh, I'll let you do it first.

[Florence] Yeah.

Okay, I'll do the first one.

And you have to line them up so.

[Steven] A little blood, sweat and tears.

[Brandy] No kidding.

[Florence] Not a little, a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

[[Brandy] (chuckling) [Florence] And then you'll just start your second stitch here and then I'll let you, I'll let you continue.

Ooh.

Many pokes.

Many.

[Brandy] How about you d one more just to be safe?

[Florence] Ah, all right.

♪ [Brandy] Okay, and then I'm doing the same thing?

[Florence] Yeah.

You just continue to go around.

[Steven] So this is your first time Brandy, making a pair of mitts?

[Brandy] It is.

This is serious business.

(Steven chuckling) [Brandy] And I also think that you want to do it right, 'cause I don't wanna have to pull it all out.

(laughs) Well, I can see that this is a very long experience.

Like if you and I were going to make this mitt, Florence, we would be here for a week, maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks because I'm going really, really slow.

And Steven mentioned that there's some food here and my stomach is starting to rumble.

So tell me what we're going to eat?

Today, I believe we're going to be having cedar-planked salmon cooked over fire.

He's got some steaks and some traditional bannock bread on a stick.

{Brandy] Ooh.

{Florence] With wild blueberries.

[Brandy] I'm gettin' hungry.

Well, okay, last stitch.

And then let's head out to see that bread on the stick.

[Florence] Okay.

Thank you.

[Florence] Sounds good.

So tell me about what's inside the bread on the stick?

Yeah, I'd love to tell you.

The bread on the stick is made with flour, one cup of flour to a teaspoon and 1/2 of baking powder.

And then a little pinch of salt.

And then you take milk or water and then you moisten the mixture and swirl it around.

After you get it to a nice consistency.

You take it out and you take little handfuls out and then you roll them in your hand, makes like a snake pattern.

And then you take that and add it onto the end of the stick.

Wrap it around slowly and pinch it off at the bottom and at the top.

And slow roast it over an open fire.

You can serve it with blueberries, ice cream, cinnamon, maple syrup, whatever you choose as the topping.

[Brandy] Yummy.

Okay, well, I can't wait to have this dessert.

But first, let's start with the salmon.

[Steven] Absolutely.

It looks gorgeous.

Doesn't it?

[Steven] Salmon's good, it's got a little char on the outside.

I can taste the maple syrup.

[Steven] A steak is a good option for people.

Some people may not like fish.

So we always try to accommodate their needs.

So we're looking to get into possibly moose meat and deer meat as well.

Steak is delicious, too.

Okay, so can we try a little piece of the bread now?

[Steven] Absolutely.

[Brandy] So what do we do?

[Steven] Slide it over.

[Brandy] Sure.

[Steven] You hold the stick.

[Brandy] Okay.

[Steven] Typically you just twist it.

[Brandy] Wow!

[Steven] Now you got yourself a bread on a stick.

[Brandy] Perfect.

I can have that with a little bit of blueberries?

[Steven] And a litle bit of butter on the side.

[Brondy] Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho!

[Steven] Or in the middle!

[Brandy] Yummy.

So we got some butter.

Got some blueberries.

[Steven] Mmm.

Mmm!

That's really good.

You made this yourself too, Brandy.

Well, that is quite impressive because I am not the best cook.

Thank you so much for inviting me here.

[Steven] You are very welcome.

[Brandy] To have this experience, to learn about your culture.

Thank you Florence for sharing your food with me and your knowledge.

And how do I say thank you in Mi'kmaq?

You say it like wela'lin?

Wela'lin.

Wela'lin.

Wela'lin.

Thank you Brandy, wela'lin.

Thank you.

♪ Next, I travel west 1,048 kilometers or 651 miles to the province of Ontario to Gananoque.

The town of Gananoque is known as the gateway to the Thousand Islands.

The Thousand Islands area is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve on the St. Lawrence River between Ontario and New York State.

When people come to South Eastern Ontario, they want to see the Thousand Islands.

And I've come here and I'm with chief pilot Bill Fox.

He takes people in helicopters so they can see the Thousand Islands from the sky.

Bill, tell me what we're going to see on the tour.

Well, today Brandy, we're going to do the Two Castle tour, which is a Canadian Signature Experience.

And in a half hour flight, we're going to see two castles that exist on the Thousand Islands, the Thousand Islands Tower, the Thousand Islands Bridge, and an amazing view of two sunken ships.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Do you recommend that people come and do the tour in the summer, in the fall, in the winter, in the spring?

What's the best time?

We're open year 'round Brandy, and the summer season is particularly busy.

I love the fact that we're going to do it today in the fall because you have the added bonus of seeing the trees changing colour.

Yeah and those like leaves when the red and yellow they just pop, they're just incredible.

How long are we going to be in the air?

Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Okay, let's go Bill.

Can't wait.

(engine / rotor noise) [Bill compressed-radio voice) What I'm going to do is go up into a hover first, which means we'll be floating above the ground about a meter.

[Brandy] Wow.

[Bill] And from here I'm going to turn a little bit to the left.

And for many people, thi is the really the exciting part.

[Brandy] Why did they like this so much?

[Bill] Just the whole anticipation of what they're about to see more than anything else.

We pick up a little bit of speed and we start to climb above the trees.

[Brandy] Wow!

[Bill] All that leads to some excitement.

[Brandy] And those trees are already beautiful and we just started.

[Bill] And here I have to get out a radio call just in case there's other aircraft out here and it goes like this.

Gananoque area traffic Helicopter Foxtrot Echo Romeo Tango just departed from the heliport at Gananoque.

We're climbing out southwesterly to 1,800 feet and then east bound for Alexandria Bay.

So, as we climb straight ahead... you'll notice already that the town of Gananoque is on the left hand side of the aircraft.

It has a permanent population just over 5,000 people.

But of course, we see thousands of people that come from all over the world to have a look at what you'r seeing directly in front of you, the St. Lawrence River, opening up with a beautiful Thousand Islands region.

The total number of island in the Thousasnd Islands region is actually 1,864.

And in a few moments as we head out over the river, if you look down, you'll notice how clear the water is - the St. Lawrence River is truly amazing to have a look at from up here.

Not to mention the Thousand Islands.

[Brandy] It looks like there's a lot of boats and houses, are these cottages or do people actually live here?

[Bill] Yeah, that's a great question.

So, on the smaller islands.

The houses you see on the majority of them are their summer seasonal type cottages.

The larger islands where there's year round access by either a car ferry or a bridge, people do live on them through the four seasons.

But because winter is what it is here - very cold and the river begins to freeze usually around about January, the thickness of the ice is very unpredictable.

And so it makes it unsafe to come out by boat or even venture by foot or snowmobile out to the islands.

So that's why many of these cottages will be closed up before winter sets in.

Notice the clarity of the water.

So Canada does share the Thousand Islands with the United States.

All right?

And the border's in the river that winds left and right down through the river such that it divides the total number of sections about two thirds, a little over two thirds of the islands are in Canada, a little over 1200.

A little over 600 in the US.

This is Boldt Castle below you there, Brandy, This was built by George Boldt.

And he started building this in the year 1900 for his wife, Louise, who he loved very much.

He acquired a lot of wealth by owning a famous hotel at the time in New York City called The Waldorf Astoria.

He hired 300 men to build this castle.

One of the earliest things he had to do was to shape the island to look like a heart and named it Heart Island for his wife, Louise.

Unfortunately, she passed away in January of 1904, just shy of her 42nd birthday before the castle was completed.

[Brandy] Unbelievable.

[Bill] And once she died, he was heartbroken so he abandoned the construction of the castle.

And it sat more or less empty, subject to a lot of degradation for 73 years from 1904 to the year 1977, at which point the New York State government bought the castle and they have since restored i and completed the construction of the castle, furnished it and today we have a beautiful, lovely tourist attraction that we can visit with a great testimony of a man's love for his wife.

So great that he would build her a castle.

[Brandy] It is beautiful.

[Bill] So coming up about a kilometer in front of us slightly to the right is what's called the Sisters Island Light House.

Now this lighthouse was built in 1870,to help ships of course navigate through the St. Lawrence River.

However today we don't need any light houses.

So today it's a privately owned cottage.

What you'll notice is a gray building sitting on one island with like a sidewalk or boardwalk connected to two other islands, thus they call it the Sisters Islands and the Sisters Islands Lighthouse.

And it's just below us here on the right hand side.

♪ And just in the bay just opposite here come our two sunken vessels, the Pender and the Georges.

[Brandy] Oh my goodness!

I see it.

Okay.

What is this?

[Bill] Those are two sunken ships like side by side right below you there.

One is called the Pender and the other is called the Georges.

and they were deliberately scuttled in the 1900's.

They were commercia vessels and for whatever reaso , the owner decided to get rid of them.

And that's where he sank them.

There are more than 300 sunken vessels in the Thousand Islands area alone, which makes it an incredible diving experience combined with the visibility in the water.

[Brandy] I am really enjoying this experience.

What comes to my mind is all the stories on all these different islands.

It's just full of mystery.

I can imagine love stories, mystery stories, lots of things happening here and the shipwrecks.

It is fascinating and the colours are beautiful with all the trees.

So much fun.

And Bill is taking us on an easy smooth ride, which is really wonderful.

♪ (helicopter noise) [Brandy] Thank you so much Bill!

What an incredible ride that was, I love seeing the colours, the leaves and everything from the sky.

It was awesome.

And you're such a pro.

[Bill] Well, you're more than welcome Brandy.

I'm so glad that you enjoyed it!

So... [Brandy] Thank you!

[Bill] I hope you come back and see me again for another flight.

[Brandy] I hope so too.

♪ ♪ ♪