Cruising up the river.......

Grand Falls.

An early start this morning took us on the River Route, a scenic drive from Fredericton up to Edmunston, some 150 miles. We followed the St John River all the way, avoiding the freeway, and our first stop was at Nackawic. Here they boast the largest axe in the world, standing 50 ft high on the banks of the river. It must be a reminder of their lumberjacking past, as you can see, it's blooming big!

As has become the norm this trip, it rained again, off and on, and it was cold. But the visibility was quite good, enabling us to see the river well as we went along. There were a couple of dams controlling the river, obviously not navigable up here, one in particular quite big with a 50 metre drop, and a large lake behind. I would think this would be the drinking water for the area.

This seems to be the place for superlatives: a little later we came to the 'longest covered bridge in the world'.  Built in 1901, at the time it was regarded as an engineering wonder with a length of 1282ft. It was closed for maintenance when we were there, It has been declared a national historic site, and cost about $33000.

I couldn't believe the sign above, after all we invented chips, not the north Americans! They even had the cheek to register the trademark! Anyway, we looked for somewhere to sample them, with no luck. We did however come across the corporate headquarters and main factory of McCain, the frozen food people, maybe they had something to do with it.

From there on up there were acres and acres of potato fields, presumably for the chips, we'll have to try them sometime.

Later the weather improved a little, a bit warmer, and dry. Still no sunshine though. Just in time as we arrived a the spectacular Grand Falls, ( See above) . We were told that it often almost dries up in the summer, so we were lucky that the river was so full.

Tomorrow we leave New Brunswick, crossing into Quebec Province, where I will have to dust off my French!

 

The Gorge below the falls.

Th Hartland 'New' Bridge. Note the Union Flag.

One of the dams. A lot of hydro power is generated along the river.

Fredericton, New Brunswick.

New Brunswick's legislative assembly building. ( Parliament).

Yesterday was another long drive day- some 300 miles from Cape Breton to Fredericton, the capital city of New Brunswick. This is the next state west  to Nova Scotia, and at one time was part of it.

Off and on for over 100 years, the French and British fought over the state, but in 1768 the British prevailed. In 1783 many loyalists came over the nearby border from the USA during the American Revolution, and settled the area. Shortly afterwards the Loyalists requested that New Brunswick became a separate state, and named their capital after the second son of King George 111, Frederick.

It wasn't until 1845 that Queen Victoria granted the right to build a cathedral here, and granted city status, although the town was not big enough officially. This is thought to be the first Cathedral in North America built in the mid 19th century Gothic Revival style. It was modelled after a medieval parish church in the south of England, and in 1983 it was declared a National Historical Site.

                                                                                                                            Not too far away is City Hall, where the elected mayor has been in office for 30 years. He must be doing a good job. Built in 1876 it includes the council offices, the council chamber as well as a tourist information office. There is an unusual clock in the tower, built by a company from Croydon. the movement is on view on the first floor, but the pendulum goes through to the foyer below.

Within the council chamber itself are 27 tapestries depicting Fredericton's history,  produced in 1985 to honour the town's 200th anniversary. Some are reproduced below.

With it's history as a military town, Fredericton has a Barracks Square nearby. The Guard house is preserved much as it was when it was built in 1829, home to the 12 man guard. There were also 7 cells inside, windowless stone cubicles with a tiny air hole high up in the wall. Next door is the four storey  barracks which at one time house over 200 soldiers, 19 to a room. One of the other buildings is still in use by the local Army Cadets, who we saw parading on the Quadrangle this morning. This afternoon we attended a concert, two hours of extremely talented youngsters performing in the local arts centre. Vivian Ni is an accomplished pianist and violinist who has received many accolades, and has played in Carnegie Hall. We heard 16 artists altogether , some as young as ten years old, playing piano, violin, cello and flute. They performed Bach, Schubert, Chopin and Beethoven, among other less well known composers. It was an afternoon to remember.

The Barracks

View of the City from the river St John, navigable right down to the Bay of Funday.

The lighthouse-  maybe 80 miles from the sea!!

Beavers: I'm desperate to see them live but so far no joy!

An unusual house close to the cathedral.

An unusual pedestrian bridge, which we suspect may have been a rail bridge. It's not far short of 800 yards long.

Cape Breton- wild and wonderful.

Neils Harbour, Cape Breton

Cape Breton is an island just a couple of hundred yards over the Conso Causeway from the mainland of Nova Scotia, sticking out north eastwards into the Atlantic ocean. Around 130 miles long and almost as wide, most of it is National Park. And when the sun shines, as it did most of today for us, it is truly beautiful. It took us a full day yesterday to get here, and last night we stayed just over the causeway in Port Hastings, overlooking a ship loading gravel from a quarry on the opposite shore.

When we awoke this morning the first thing we saw was an eagle roosting in a tree just outside our window. a little far to get a good shot of it and slightly hidden by the tree, but unmistakable when it stretched it's wings.
Today we set out to explore the island, driving north to Baddock initially, to the National Historic Site devoted to Alaxander Graham Bell.
I think everyone knows that Bell invented the telephone, but not many know that he also was a pioneer of flight here, experimented with kites and built the fastest hydrofoil of the age in the early part of the last century. Bell lived here for a lot of his life.

Bell's early aircraft.

We carried on north up the east coast of the island taking in the wonderful views of lakes, forests and bays.  The weather was the best we have had since we arrived last week, with sunshine most of the day. However in the late afternoon the mist closed in.
Tonight we are staying in a motel in Cheticamp, about two thirds round the loop on the west side of the island. We have a great view of the river from our window, we are hoping to see a moose or two coming down to drink!

The river view from the motel. (No mooses!)

A rugged coastline of Cape Breton

Lakes and forests everywhere

Cape Breton is approached across the Canso causeway

Our Rav4 Chariot

Lights along the coastline.

What a lovely area is Nova Scotia! Yesterday we took a trip East along the coast past beautiful bays, through forests just coming into leaf. Most of the day was dry. but as the day went on the rain came, and it got very cold. But then we are in the Maritimes- the extreme east coast of Canada which sticks right out into the ocean.
Last evening we had decided to go out to a restaurant called the Bicycle thief, a shabby-chic restaurant arguably the best in Halifax, with Italian Cuisine. Anne was very pleased, I was a little less keen on the menu, but ces't la vie!.
(Everything here is in two languages, French as well as English, so my French is improving.(Very Gradually).

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Today we left Halifax and travelled South West along the Lighthouse route, taking in Peggy's Cove on the way. A very attractive fishing village, where for the first time we came across tourists, two coachloads of Chinese or Japanese. This lighthouse is reputedly one of the most photographed in the world, I can't imagine how many photos were taken in the fifteen minutes we were there! It is one of the oldest on the coast, going back a couple of hundred years, and many of the 45 residents of the village still fish for a living, if they aren't catering for the tourists.

Just a little further along the coast is a town called Liverpool, and like it's namesake is famous for shipbuilding over the centuries. They also have a very unusual lighthouse, which for obvious reasons is called the hunchback. Liverpool has a river running through called the Mersey, I can't imagine where that name came from!

We took off inland from there, to the Kejimkulic National Park. Just a small park of 380 square kms, it consists of rolling hills and waterways, including the aforementioned Mersey.

 We took a walk in the park, crossing this pontoon bridge which swayed alarmingly. If you look closely it dips a bit where Anne is standing! (Must be a leak in one of the pontoons!) We took a walk through the forest, and came across a waterfall where we saw trout trying to leap up it to their breeding grounds.

Tonight we are staying in a town called Digby, on the northern coast of Nova Scotia, and from our room we can look across Funday bay to St John, a city in an adjoining state that we will be visiting in a few days. It's only a mile across, but by road it is around four hundred miles!

Digby is famous for it's scallops, the boats go out for maybe ten days at a time and they re exported all over Canada and beyond. We met a young lady whose husband is a fisherman, at present he is out on the Grand Banks and will not be home for a week or so. We watched as the lobster boats came home as we ate dinner, of course Anne had to have to scallops, she loves seafood.

Digby harbour

An extra large portion of scallops!

More of the Mersey

Canoe built in the same way as the Indians made them, with birch bark

A great place to start

An immigrant arrives.

A very friendly welcome from everyone we meet in this really beautiful place, nothing is too much trouble for them. It started at the airport where we picked up our car, carried on to the hotel, and continued to the Tourist information kiosk.

But the icing on the cake was our visit to the Immigration Museum, where many thousands of people first arrived in Canada over many centuries.

A guy there sat down at a computer and within a few minutes brought up a record of Grandfather Bob Bailey's arrival in Quebec in June 1913, and quickly followed by a record of Sarah Jane's arrival a year later. Details of the ships they arrived on followed, and then original entries of the census of 1922, which showed the names of  my father John B, my Uncle Robert S, and my Aunt Isobel, showing their respective ages, 6,4,and 2. At that time they lived at 55 Garden Ave, Toronto, where Grandfather was employed as a rubber worker. They even had a lodger called Victor Wright.

I have copies of all of these documents, and I shall make them available to all the family who wishes to see them.

While we are here we will try to get a few more documents, like birth and baptism certificates, and visit Robertsville where they lived for w while.

The Citadel gates, firmly closed to us!

It was marathon day here so we decided to leave the car at the hotel and walk the city, starting at the citadel, a very large fort on the top of a hill overlooking the harbour. Unfortunately although our guide book showed it opening at 7am, it didn't, so we had to satisfy ourselves with walking round the outside.

Halifax has the second largest deep water harbour in the world, after Sydney. It was here that the Carpathia brought the survivors of the Titanic disaster, and that most of the dead were brought, many of whom are buried here. A great maritime museum has artifacts from the ship, as well as film and photos of the Halifax disaster in 1917, when a munitions ship blew up in the harbour killing 1600, and injuring 9000.

Unfortunately the rain set in in the afternoon, we must buy a brolly when we can!

Typical homes in Halifax

The old clock tower, below the citadel

The Acadia, one of the ships that recovered bodies from the Titanic