Traveling North: New Brunswick

We have eaten a lot of lobster in Maine and I am sure we will have more as we continue into Canada. It seems strange now that lobster were once considered trash and used to fertilize fields when a lot washed ashore after storms. Servants complained if they had to eat lobster too often.

We have had wild blueberries in Maine and there are wild blueberries in Canada. We pass Wild Blueberry Land on the highway.

Wild Blueberry Land

We cross into Canada to Campobello Island.

Herring Cove

Herring Cove Selfie

After spending the night at Herring Cove Provincial Park we tour Roosevelt Campobello International Park. I did not realize that the Roosevelt's summer cottage was in Canada.

Roosevelt Cottage

In the 1880's and 90's wealthy families fled the heat of the east coast to points north. In 1883 FDR's parents visited Campobello Island and decided to buy land for a cottage. Cottage was just what you called your summer house regardless of the size. So after Franklin and Eleanor married they came here also. His mother, Sara, bought them the house next door and that is the cottage that remains. With a large family and 6 to 8 servants plus help hired from town they needed a big house. With the addition the house grew to 10 thousand square feet. Although the house always had running water from water pumped to a tank on the third floor, there was no electricity while it was owned by the Roosevelts. FDR contracted polio here in 1921 when he was 39. He made only 3 more brief visits to the island after that, preferring to spend most of his free time in therapy at Warm Springs, Georgia. Although the family still came here.

Hubbard Cottage

We toured the house and had a “Tea with Eleanor” at the neighboring Hubbard Cottage that is also part of the park.

Back over the bridge and back into the USA. Such a hassle, filling out customs forms, etc. We were on a little island for one day.

For the night we went back into Canada and stayed at New River Provincial Park on the Bay of Fundy.

The tide is low

Our guide book said that the Provincial Parks were open until the middle of October. Wrong. Most of them are already closed and this one was closing the next night. They had already closed up all but one bathroom.

Sunday in St John we first went to the reversing rapids.

bay is right and river at left

Painting of the Reversing Rapids

The Bay of Fundy has very high tides. About 28 feet right here. When the tide is low the St. John River flows down in rapids to the bay. When it is right in between high and low the water is flat and the river water and the bay water just meet under the bridge. At high tide the rapids go up river and the tide flows up the St. John River. We watch the water go up the river at high tide.

The Queens Square Farmer's Market is still open for the season. So we buy a few vegetables.

Queen Square Market 

Then on to the New Brunswick Museum.

Outside the museum

This museum is a bit confusingly laid out. It is obvious that the war of 1812 was very important to the locals because it comes first. On the second floor we get a bit of an idea why. After the revolutionary war in the USA there were about 500,000 Americans who had supported and fought on the losing side, for the British. A lot of these people were not comfortable staying with the revolutionaries. Many of them packed up and moved north to New Brunswick which really did not exist then as a settled land. The British helped them move and much to the chagrin of the local natives, parceled off land for farms to the new settlers. The Loyalists said they came because they were tired of war and wanted peace and the security of the British. This is why the importance of the war of 1812, which they portray as a war of American aggression. It is also characterized as a war that both sides claim to have won. Just what anyone won I am not clear.

We hoped to learn more about the Loyalists, which is what those Tory Traitors were called here, at the Loyalist House Museum. But after huffing up a steep city block, it was closed.

No one is home

Built on a rock

So we hit the road again. I spot a sign on a telephone pole advertising Shack Jackers. Move your house for you.

I watch for moose in the Musquash Marsh.

There is a covered bridge visible from the highway.

We are spending the night at the Fundy National Park. Very small park. We are camped up on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Fundy and the town of Alma. It is low tide right now. In Canada they are fond of having kitchen huts. There are two kitchen huts and one bathroom house in our row of campsites. The kitchen huts are meant for group parties with two big wood cooking stoves and many tables.

We are going to look at the town of Alma and go look at the Hopewell Rocks.