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If I had trouble last week describing Dog Mountain, how will I ever do justice to Dog Chapel.

Folk artist and furniture craftsman Stephen Huneck built the chapel to celebrate the spiritual bond between people and dogs. Dogs have always been welcome there, as are people of all faiths and beliefs.

I knew those things when I arrived at Dog Mountain, having stumbled across some literature while planning our trip to Vermont this summer. I’m always looking for dog-friendly places and I couldn’t have found a dog-friendlier place than Dog Mountain. I wish I’d dug a little deeper. Maybe I could have prepared myself a little better.

There is an air about Dog Mountain, a sense of peace and serenity, but also a sense of something spiritual. But walking into Dog Chapel was almost like walking into a wall for me. Within seconds, I was hit hard with the feeling of the place. To me, it felt almost like a shrine.

There are thousands of small, brightly-coloured pieces of paper tacked on the walls, along with hundreds of photographs, covering every available bit of space. After reading just one, I realized each commemorated someone’s love for their pet and I was completely overwhelmed. Maybe because I had Jake in my arms (it was after all a chapel and I hadn’t yet quite grasped the concept), or maybe it wasn’t, but I had a meltdown. I’m not a big crier, but I just burst into tears, utterly overcome with emotion.

After going outside to catch my breath and calm down, I ventured back into the chapel to take a closer look. I wandered around reading some of the tributes and really looked at the chapel itself. What a totally amazing place.

Stephen Huneck built the chapel after surviving a near-fatal illness. He told people he had a “wild idea” one day to build the chapel, styled like a small village church. It has stained glass windows depicting his artwork and dog carvings everywhere. He called it the largest and most personal artwork of his life and you can feel that when you are there. It’s an intensely personal place, a place where people come to pour out their emotions and those emotions seem to hang in the air.

I wrote a note for our first dog, Nicki, and found a tiny available spot to hang it. I hugged Jake a little tighter and went outside, even gladder than usual for the bond we share with our beloved Cairn and the wonderful experiences we have with him.

Everyone who has ever loved a dog should have the chance to visit that chapel.

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We visited an amazing place while in Vermont this summer and I am so glad we found it.

Anyone who has ever loved a dog — I mean really loved a dog, not just as a pet, but as a member of their family — must some day visit Dog Mountain. It is almost impossible to describe and I’m afraid whatever I write here simply won’t come close to explaining what this place is all about. It feels a bit like trying to describe love or happiness — you can feel it, but you can’t necessarily put words to it.

Dog Mountain is a 150-acre property outside St. Johnsbury in northeastern Vermont. It all started with artist Stephen Huneck who made the property where his home, studio and gallery were located open to the public as a beautiful place to walk and play with their dogs. But it is so much more than that.

This man loved his dogs, I mean really loved his dogs. He obviously understood the bond between human and dog in a wonderful way, so much so that he built Dog Chapel on the property. I’ll tell you more about the chapel in next week’s post. It really deserves an entry all its own.

Stephen Huneck’s works depict dogs — dogs doing typical things, dogs doing wonderful and whimsical things, dogs with wings, just dogs, dogs, dogs, in prints, sculptures, wooden carvings, even furniture. I’ve read that his paintings and sculptures are showcased in the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the Dog Museum of America.

Dog Mountain has trails to walk, places to sit and admire the views of the Vermont countryside, even ponds for dogs to take a swim. Dotted throughout the landscape and in strategic locations are his wonderful sculptures of dogs.

We spent an amazing few hours there with Jake, just enjoying the place and what it stands for, meeting other dogs and people doing the same thing. Despite being on bikes, we bought (and carefully packed and protected) a wonderful print to commemorate the day and the place. I’m happy to say it arrived home without so much as a wrinkled corner.

The visit was all the more poignant because Stephen Huneck died earlier this year. I’m sorry I never met him. Visiting Dog Mountain felt not only like a commemoration of the bond between human and dog, but also like a tribute to a man who understood it.

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Jake discovered a new reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving weekend.

Our fruit and vegetable loving Cairn is now madly in love with gourds. He’s crazy for squash and for pumpkin pie.

We knew he liked pumpkin pie, so that’s nothing new. We’ve occasionally given him a tiny bit on special days such as Thanksgiving and he’s always gobbled it up and looked for more. That’s nothing new with Jake. Whatever he eats he usually comes back looking for more.

I always thought it was the pie that got him excited — the sugar, the sweetness — but now I’m not so sure. He’s also mad for squash, just plain raw squash. I mean crazy about it. I made butternut squash soup last week and I wasn’t sure he was going to leave me enough squash to make the soup. He kept barking at my feet for more and when I wasn’t quick enough he’d nudge me on the back of my leg with his nose. Patience is not one of Jake’s greatest virtues.

Then when we ate the soup, he sat and stared at us. There was just no way I was going to give him butternut squash soup. I can only imagine how messy that would be. I can picture it dripping off his hairy face. He didn’t seem to see things the same way, so he just sat and stared.

He sat and stared the same way at Thanksgiving dinner. He’d already had some carrots and squash, but somehow I swear he knew we were eating pumpkin pie. He knew for sure when we gave him a tiny bit. I just can’t always say no to that hairy face.

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This year, one of the stops on our bike club’s grand tour was Fort Beausejour.

I’ve written before about the grand tour, organized each year by one of our club members, where we get a list of locations to go to photograph our bikes and then submit the photos at the end of the season. It always takes us to interesting places and this year was no different.

Steve and I had never been to Fort Beausejour before. I admit I’d noticed the road signs lots of times over the years as we sped between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, often with a mild curiosity, sort of that someday-we-should-go-there attitude. This was the year. We stopped there in August on our way home from New England, intending more or less to take a couple of quick photos and get back on the road. We ended up staying for nearly two hours.

The national historic site offers a peak into the struggle between France and England for supremacy in Acadia. Much of the original construction remains and the three of us, particularly Jake, enjoyed exploring it all — the old stone walls and what remains of some of the rooms. Steve spent some time in the main exhibit area, while I walked around outside with Jake, and said it was really interesting. I know the outside information panels offered a lot of insight into the fort and its history.

The site is also breathtakingly beautiful. We were lucky enough to stop there on a clear, sunny day when there was a breeze blowing off the Bay of Fundy. You can see for miles in all directions, no surprise given the fort’s strategic location. There is something untouched about the fields and marshes that almost takes you back a couple of centuries. I really enjoyed just walking around enjoying the views and feeling the history.

And Jake, well there are lots of grassy lawns and rock walls to explore, so our RoadDog had a good time too.

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