♪ lively mandolin and bass Brandy: I'm a journalist and I'm traveling across my home country, Canada.

On this journey, I'll be visiting some amazing Signature experiences.

The next stop begins in Canada's smallest province - Prince Edward Island.

♪ harp music I'm in Prince Edward Island.

This is one of Eastern Canada's Maritime provinces and Prince Edward Island is famous for its red soil, its sandy beaches, Anne of Green Gables and its delicious seafood.

Recently it's been called Canada's Food Island and I've come here to find out what all the fuss is about.

The first stop on my journey is visiting organic farmer Sandy MacKay.

We're here to pick our vegetables which we will be cooking and eating later.

So the difference about organic versus anything else is that I actually have a certificate so that means that a third party has audited everything that I do.

Of course they want to see all my seed before they come.

They want to see my farm plan.

They want to see everything I'm going to plant.

"Organic" guarantees non-GMO, it guarantees that no synthetic pesticides and synthetic fertilizer was used.

Everything has to be from a natural creation.

So it's a whole culture of trying to adapt to the ways of nature.

And so we're doing all of those good things.

Brandy: The red, sandy soil, rich in iron, makes ideal growing conditions for PEI's famous potatoes.

Yeah, one, two, ah, look at this, beautiful right here.

Islanders have been growing them since the late 1700's.

Today the potato industry brings in one billion dollars into the PEI economy each year.

How is this haul?

Good.

Yeah?

Looks like a turnip.

Is that it?

Yup.

How come mine is so dinky compared to this?

Whoooooo!

It's glorious.

PEI farmers are known for their environmentally sustainable farming practices.

Look at these, wow.

They follow the most stringent environmental standards in Canada.

Mmm, it is good.

Nice and big organic tomatoes.

After picking our delicious veggies, it's time to learn how to cook them with Chef Michael Bradley at the culinary studio known as The Table.

Michael: Well, we're gonna be makin' a few different dishes.

We're gonna be makin' a three course meal so we're going to start off with a creamy tomato soup.

It's going to have a basil creme reduction sauce on top.

That's gonna be our starter.

And then we're going to move on to our main and our main is going to three different components.

It's going to have a sage butter pork chop.

It's going to have a roasted vegetable pilaf and a bit of a fall salad.

And then for dessert, we're going to finish it off with a zucchini chocolate cake with a little bit of caramel butter cream and a hot caramel sauce.

Brandy: What do you think, guys?

Let's do this... Just stir it so that everything is just kind of coated in the liquid there.

Brandy: Chef Michael Bradley trained at the Culinary Institute of Canada, which is based in PEI.

The Institute has gained a reputation for its successful chefs and is contributing to the high quality of restaurant food on the island.

Michael: Wait until you see what it does to our pilaf.

♪ rapid piano Wow!

This is amazing and gigantic.

Here's to all our hard work.

(all) Cheers!

♪ piano continues Brfandy: My next stop is all about seafood.

The seafood sector employs close to 9,000 people and brings in about three hundred million dollars a year in Prince Edward Island.

Skipper Perry Gotell is a 3rd generation Lobster fisherman.

Perry retired from fishing in 2012 turning all his energy to tourism.

Today he's taking me out on a deep-sea fishing adventure.

Isaiah, do you want to get the gaff out?

Brandy is going to come back and I'm gonna get you to show her how to hook the buoy.

Yeah, right here.

I'm awesome.

And you just set that there, anywhere at all, Brandy.

OK. And where you gonna pull up this trap?

Pardon?

Just right here?

Yep, we're going to pull up a lobster trap right here.

And watch our fingers, so they don't bite us?

Yeah..

Okay, I'm going to get you to give me a hand here.

Okay, how?

You come right on in here and grab onto that rope and pull.

My goodness, it's not a joke.

OK what do I do now?

Look at them snapping.

Wow.

They are mad!

So this here - is an educational lobster trap.

Brandy: OK. We're going to set some lobsters out here for you.

You gotta be careful you don't put your finger in the wrong place here.

No kidding.

Pery: OK I'm going to show you a little bit how to measure lobsters and I'll get you right down here with me.

The way you measure a lobster is you take that gauge.

There's two sizes.

You take the lobster.

You actually set the gauge right in the eye socket.

It doesn't hurt them.

It really doesn't.

I don't want him to bite me here.

He's not going to bite you.

OK, set it right in there.

Move his eye.

That's gross.

OK... And if the back is bigger than the gauge - that means he's a keeper.

So this guy is actually a keeper.

Look - set it right in.

And if you look right there, the back is bigger so that's a keeper.

Brandy: And why would you put them back?

Because they're still babies?

If the back was shorter than this distance, they're called a "short" lobster and you have to return them to the water.

So they can grow for the future?

Exactly.

That's how we keep things sustainable.

Perry: So this is gonna be what they call a "canner" and a canner lobster is not really going in cans anymore.

It's all vac-packs.

So this guy is a "canner."

Now, this here fella here, which is a beautiful lobster.

This is about two-and-a quarter pound lobster.

You can measure that with the big size.

Well let's do the small size first.

Definitely bigger than that.

So he's a keeper.

He's a keeper and we're going to flip it and then he's a -?

Perry: It's bigger than tha so that's definitely a "market."

Brandy: That can go to a restaurant.

Exactly and that's where the word "market" comes from.

It's going to market.

So then what we have to do is put bands on the lobsters.

OK. (chuckles) Perry: So you're going to squeeze that bander.

Squeeze it hard.

Squeeze it - OK. OK. And we're going to put that under the claw, turn sideways and release.

Lovely and that's how you put the band on.

Why is that claw so much bigger?

Well this is a crusher and this is a scissor.

OK...

This guy here is apt to give you a little bit of a cut.

This guy here is going to do some damage when it comes to squeezing - it's more powerful.

Brandy: So why are you putting your finger so close to it?

I've been around lobsters all my life ever since I was a kid, so I feel pretty safe.

So that's how you put bands on.

Another thing about a lobster - like, you flip it over.

This here is a male, the first two flippers underneath the tail.

These ones here are firm, so that's a male.

Brandy: I don't want him to get me.

(chuckles) And a female, the first two flippers under the tail are soft.

So that's a female.

The female's tail is wider and deeper so she can, when she lays her eggs she has a place to protect and keep them.

Aw, cute.

Yeah.

Whoa...

He's mad, she's mad.

Sorry, she is mad.

Did you see her tail going like that?

Oh yeah.

That's how they swim when they're swimming - they torpedo backwards.

Byeeeee...

I had a great time with Perry.

We also learned about crab, mussels, fishing for mackerel and my favorite - driving the boat.

Can I beep, so the seagull gets out of the way?

Perry: B low the horn right her.

Brandy: Mr. Seagull.

(horn blasts) Perryk: There h e goes, look at him.

♪ Next we travel across the Confederation Bridge, which links Prince Edward Island with mainland New Brunswick.

The bridge is 12,900 metres long and takes about ten minutes to drive across.

The curved bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water.

It is celebrated as one of Canada's top engineering achievements of the twentieth century.

My next stop is in the maritime province of New Brunswick.

It is famous for The Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world.

At Hopewell Rocks, I meet my guide - Anna-Marie Weir.

Well Brandy, you are officially on the ocean floor right now where we have the highest tides in the world.

The formations that you see behind you are 330 million years old, formed of sandstone and conglomerate rock.

And Mother Nature has basically carved up these amazing formations that we're standing in front of, and right now, we'll be at high tide in a couple moments at 10:05.

And we'll be back, later on today, at 4:44, to see the opposing tide, when the water will be far out into the bay at that time.

The essence of what we experience and how much of it to see along the Bay of Fundy in between those two tide times is simply amazing.

Brandy: This sounds like it's right down to a science.

How serious do people take the tides here?

Well pretty, pretty serious.

it's a matter of life and death literally, at times; the tides can come in quite quickly.

The exact average in the Bay of Fundy is six hours and thirteen minutes but some days we are five and a half hours between tide times and other days we have six and a half hours.

So, without having that knowledge of the tides, if you're walking along th coastline without that knowledge it can be life threatening as in - when the tides come up, it's going to tower above your head.

So you have to be very mindful of the tide times when you are traveling around the Bay of Fundy.

Brandy: So another thing you can do here is look at a tidal bore.

Can you explain to me what that phenomenon is?

Anna-Marie: Absolutely.

OK...

So, what happens with the tidal bore and Moncton and the Petitcodiac River is the river flows out to the ocean this way and then twice daily we have the highest strongest tides in the world pushing against the output of that river.

And basically because the tides are coming in at a much faster pace, it creates an overlap of water that will extend from one bank to the other and depending on the phases of the moon it could be two to three inches in height to two or three feet in height or a few centimeters in height to about a metre in height - depending on the moon phases.

But the phenomenon is - is that once a tidal bore arrives in Moncton, you can watch that entire river basin fill up - twenty-five feet or about three meters in height in one hour and sit and have lunch and watch the tide come in, in front of your very eyes within one hour.

♪ urgent cello Brandy: There is --so much to do in New Brunswick while waiting for the tides to change.

During that time, Anna-Marie is taking me to some of her favorite places.

Anna-Marie: So, lo and behold, in front of us here Brandy, we have the oldest operational lighthouse on Mainland New Brunswick.

The name Cape Enrage was actually originally it was called Cap-en-Ragé by the French settlers which translated means "cape of rage" because of some rocks there and front of the lighthouse that when the water is coming in it is about to cover up the head of the rock - or expose it - the water will swirl around the head of the rock making it look like it's boiling or raging.

Brandy: And there's not a lighthouse keeper anymore, right?

Anna-Marie: There is not, however the, the house that we have here was preserved and there was a lighthouse keeper here at one time and years ago the way that that light would have shone was from somebody shoveling coal and the light mechanism being turned was generated by the steam from, from the coal so of course that stopped a few years ago so now is a fully automated lighthouse which means there is no necessity for lighthouse-keeper now.

Okay, let's go explore it.

Awesome.

Okay, Brandy so you are now stepping inside a fully functioning, operational lighthouse.

And not many people get to do that.

I will tell you... so, lo and behold here we are.

And just so you're aware, there's four things that every lighthouse needs.

It needs a light.

It needs a foghorn.

It needs a radio and it needs a backup generator to ensure that if the electricity goes out that we are never without the capabilities of keeping that light and foghorn going for safety reasons, of course.

So yeah, pretty cool, not too many people get to see this.

Brandy: I can't wait to get right to the top.

All right, super cool.

Let's go.

Brandy: Wow, it's so beautiful out here.

Anna-Marie: Isn't it amazing?

Bfandy: It is.

It's so cool.

I mean it's huge, the ocean and you get a different perspective up here that you just can't see from the ground.

♪ acoustic guitar Anna-Marie: O kay...

Brandy.

So voila, here we are, on the ocean floor, six and a half hours later.

All the formations are exposed now.

They look completely different than they did before.

We've got a whole bunch of really cool things going on amongst the seaweed and there's some flora and fauna stuff going on there you might want to check out.

What do you say?

Brandy: Let's do it.

This is beautiful, just incredible, a totally different atmosphere now.

Awesome.

Rock on.

Cool.

Visiting Hopewell Rocks during low tide is such a fun experience.

Walking on the ocean floor gives you a chance to see the rock formations and seaweed up close.

It was well worth the wait for the tide to go out.

The next day Anna-Marie and I kayak on the Bay of Fundy and see some beautiful covered bridges.

Then we travel to the new Fundy Trail Parkway where you can drive around and see beautiful views.

To top off my visit to New Brunswick we explore the incredible St. Martins sea caves.

The rocks of St. Martins are about 250 million years old.

The sea caves have been caused by erosion from years of waves pounding on the sandstone.

Anna-Marie: Okay the buried treasure is right at the very end.

All right, come on!

Get down there Brandy.

A little bit, squish it down.

There's nothing in here.

Get out of here, you are totally pulling my leg.

(laughing) OK, here we are, at one of the sea caves that's been adorned by all this lovely green, vibrant seaweed.

It's actually called sea lettuce and this is actually an edible type of seaweed - so.

That's about as natural as it gets right there.

Oh, my goodness.

It's good.

Eh?

Not bad.

Mmm.

Brandsy: After filling my belly from the ocean floor, I travel to the next maritime province, Nova Scotia.

I head to Cape Breton Island to check out The Celtic Colours International Festival.

♪ fiddles Every year we put on a nine day festival called Celtic Colors International Festival and it really celebrates the music and the culture of Cape Breton Island and its Scottish, Irish heritage.

The Celtic roots of music here.

This year we have forty-nine concerts during those nine days in communities all over Cape Breton Island.

And we have almost three hundred community cultural events, too.

So there's something to do day and night.

Brandy: I have the pleasure of speaking to the local band "Coig."

Rachel: There's a magic that goes on in these nine days that... We travel all over the place and we have a great time everywhere we go but there's something really special about this festival.

There's a really, special energy.

The whole time everybody's here.

It's really awesome.

Brandy: So is it like a young person's thing, or an older generation?

How would you describe it?

It's everybody, actually, which is really cool.

You would think it to be an older person's thing.

Because a lot of the older, older players, you know - that's where everybody learns from them and those are the names you remember but as you travel around and play and go to the dances and shows you realize that there's people of all ages, little kids involved.

There's us.

Brandy: C ape Breton Island's Scottish heritage is alive and well.

The Gaelic Language is still spoken here and you can see signs in Gaelic on the road.

One of the cultural experiences I am trying out is a Milling Frolic at the Highland Village.

This living history museum celebrates the Gaelic experience in Nova Scotia.

OK Brandy, so we're going to mill the cloth now and this is beating the cloth back and forth in the rhythm of songs to preshrink the cloth and it will be all ready to make a vest out of this.

So we're going to do an old country Milling song.

(speaks Gaelic) ...is the chorus... and uh...(speaks Gaelic) OK, I'll do the best I can!

(all laugh) (singing in Gaelic) Today a Milling Frolic is just a social event but in pre- industrial times in the Scottish Highlands local communities would get together to cleanse and shrink newly-woven cloth by hand.

They would share the labour and pass the time singing songs, which maintained the work rhythm, and preserved traditions.

Today some milling songs are shared with Gaelic Scotland, but quite a few were composed in Nova Scotia.

Shay: Some of the singers were so proficient they might just be composing as, you know, they might sing the eight verses that came from the old country and then add in their own.

And there might be a suggestion, “Oh young man over there.

She'd be a great match for you”" And then that young lady might come to the table and she might compose a few verses of her own, saying, “I wouldn't marry him if he was the last fella around to marry.” So I haven't got to that level where I am composing on the spot.

It's certainly a very fun art form.

♪ woodwind drone Brandy: The Migma First Nations are also an important part of the culture in Nova Scotia.

In Eskasoni on Goat Island you can learn about their lives today and from the past.

How important do you think tourism is for the Migma people here?

It is important to get us out to the other people and especially in the United States and everything.

It's good because they know more about us because I find we were, we were very isolated as people.

So we kind of want everybody to know about us.

So it is kind of a big step on here especially when we have the cruise ships in here.

So there's different people from everywhere.

So when people come to Goat Island they see all these traditional clothing and the lifestyle and the houses and the way of life.

It might be a bit confusing for people because you, you live in houses now, on reserve, right, an that's a very different reality than what you see on the tour.

Faye: Yeah.

They do actually ask us if we do live in teepees.

But we actually tell them we don't, because we do live in houses.

But when you come here, it's an experience of how we used to live and how life was for generations.

We do explain that we are more modern but when they see the regalias they ask if we were in it every day of our lives and we tell them, no we're here just on island or during a certain ceremony that's when we actually um, actually wear our regalia and we tell them a little about our today's life and from a long time ago.

And what do you think about this experience on Goat Island?

It's a great experience.

I, I love it and I've learned a lot myself because there's things that I didn't know - like I didn't know how to make four-cents cake when I first started here and now I go home and make it.

I didn't know about the trading post.

I just knew that because my mom would tell me that they sold baskets but I didn't know they made stuff from antlers or any other wood or bone.

So, it gives me that experience - everybody should experience this.

...my lunch.

Brandy: My time in Cape Breton has been wonderful.

This place is truly beautiful and learning about the Migma culture and the Celtic influence makes the place even more interesting.

The next stop on my journey is Québec City in the province of Québec.

My travels across Canada have taken me to all corners in all seasons.

To get the real feeling of the Quebec spirit - wintertime is the time to go.

Québec was founded by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain in the early 17th century.

Today it is known as the cradle of French civilization in North America.

Old Quebec is a UNESCO World Heritage treasure.

It is the only city in North America surrounded by authentic fortifications.

The locals, known as the Quebecois, embrace winter.

(whooping) The Carnaval de Québec has been running since 1955, but winter celebrations have been happening here since the 1890's.

Every year, locals and people from all around the world travel to Québec City to get involved in the winter festivities and hopefully to catch a glimpse of Bonhomme Carnival.

Bonhomme, ça va bien?

Brandy: What is the Bonhomme Carnival?

Patrick: Bonhomme?

Bonhomm Carnival is the King of Winter.

Everybody knows him and everybody wants to give him a hug.

You get involved in the festivities since the 1955 and Bonhomme is really the most famous snowman.

Patrick: Carnaval de Québec i the best way to embrace winter.

It's renowned as the world's winter carnival.

It's all about getting outside to play in the snow.

There's lots of rich tradition just like the night parades, the international snow sculpture competition, the ice canoe race, but each year we try to have tons of activities that people can get involved in.

Brandy: The Saint Lawrence River is part of the beauty of Quebec City.

The large river connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean.

During the Carnaval, spectators come out to watch ice canoers compete on the river.

Ice canoeing hasn't always been a sport.

In the 17th century, ice canoes were used to cross the St. Lawrence River in the wintertime.

Today, it's not just for athletes either.

Ice canoeing is a new sport being offered to tourists.

I'm going to go on the frozen St. Lawrence River and try ice canoeing and I'm a little bit frightened.

It looks a little scary but I'm gonna give it a go.

So what are we wearing, Ambroise?

We are wearing a ski jacket, neoprene socks, neoprene boots, pads and snowmobile studs, metal screws, aggressive on the ice, you won't slip.

I pull out my row, one hand on each side, ready to row, row, row your boat, scootering back!

Brandy: After Ambroise's lesson I'm ready to go...sort of.

The sound of the cracking ice under me makes me feel uneasy but I know I'm with professional ice canoers, so I'll be fine.

Rowing on the river is easy.

It's climbing over the ice, which is challenging.

Scootering front!

In order to push the canoe over the ice with our feet, we do what is called “scootering.” Scootering back!

My teammates make it look easy.

It takes me a while, even to get my foot out of the boat, but then... success!

Rowing front!

Ice left!

Break the ice!

Yeah....!

This sport is exhilarating.

It's fast-paced and you never know what's coming.

It's awesome, I'm lovin' it!

It's very fun!

Just gotta keep moving, keep warm.

In fact it's a great, great way to exercise and you get to go out and see this incredible nature you would never have access to, if you didn't get into a canoe... in the middle of the winter, which sounds crazy.

This has been an awesome experience.

Ambroise: Up front!

I never thought that I would have come out on the water when it's freezing like this but it's just been great.

It's really fun.

It's not that hard actually.

Thank you so much for taking me ice canoeing.

(all laughing) Thanks for coming!

Thank you very much.

That was fun.

It was a pleasure to share my passion.

♪ soft piano Brandy: My time in Quebec City has been wonderful.

It's been truly exciting.

I've learned that there's so much fun to be had outside especially when the temperatures turn chilly.

♪piano continues