Saint John, New Brunswick

Wednesday, July 3 – Day 015

Woke early this morning as we would be crossing another time zone and losing another hour. We crossed from Calais, Maine to St. Stephens, New Brunswick.  The lineup was approximately 30 minutes to get to the checkpoint.  While we were waiting in line we saw a couple of people crossing from Canada on foot and then returning a few minutes later with a loaf of bread or a jug of milk.  I suppose these border communities can take advantage of the deals on either side of the border quite easily.

The roads that greeted us in New Brunswick were the best yet.  Apparently the section of road between St. Stephens and Saint John had been resurfaced in the last couple of years so it really hasn’t experienced any frost heaving yet.  Beautiful, lush and rolling country side.

We found a campground just outside of Saint John, called Hardings Point Campground.  It sits on a peninsula in the Saint John River and is served by a local cable ferry.  A steel cable is attached to each shore and is submerged deep enough to allow boats to travel over it.  Apparently this was a Canadian invention.  The ferry pulls itself from shore to shore along this cable. We were told that the ferry runs 24/7, 365 days a year.

Our camp site was located at the top of a hill, and if we were lucky we could catch a glimpse of the Saint John River between the seasonal trailer sites. Once we were settled we went into Saint John and landed up right in the heart of their uptown area.  Intriguing way to pay for parking they collect a fee up front, and get a ticket and then when you leave you get a refund on any time left.

We had read about their historic walking tour so we found an information centre and got a map of the historic buildings.  And there are LOTS!!   Our heads were swiveling around like 'Linda Blair” in the Exorcist!  Beautiful architecture on public buildings and private dwellings.  As we were walking around the Trinity Royal area, there was a young woman who was working on her laptop on the door step of one of the walk ups.  “Where are you from?”, she asked me.  I told her that I was from Winnipeg and asked if I looked like a tourist with a camera around my neck and shooting every building as I walked and gawked.  She told me that there had been a great fire in 1877, which destroyed 1300 homes in this area.  Rebuilding was done based on many designs from Boston and hence many of the buildings are called “Boston Brownstones” and there are very strict guidelines as to what can and cannot be done to the buildings. 

As we proceeded along a man stopped me as I was taking a picture of one of the churches.  He told me that the weather vane at the top of the church was in the shape of a fish that was over 6’ long. He also pointed out another stone church at the top of the hill, which apparently was made from the ballast from old wooden ships.  When shipments of wood were sent loaded  to England the ships basically “dead headed” back.  To add ballast and keep the ships lower in the water they used stone, which became a building material here in Saint John for this entire church.  He also pointed out to me that Saint John has the prettiest women because they have to climb the hilly streets to keep in shape…I couldn’t disagree with him.