Saint John–Last Day

Friday, July 5 – Day 17

Another day, another museum.  This time it was the New Brunswick Museum. It is located in the uptown area, in the converted Market Square, near the docks.  Lots of outdoor restaurants, bars and cafes here, catering to the young crowd that works in the area.

At the entrance to the museum is a tall column of water that is powered by the Fundy tides. The Column is in the centre of the staircase and rises over 30 feet high. The column is marked at at different levels and the current level coincides with the current tide experienced in the bay.   When we were there we noticed that the tide was definitely rising in the tubes.

They have done a particularly good job telling the history of whales and whaling.  A large part of their information/knowledge came from a beached Right Whale, a few years ago.  Unfortunately, Delilah the whale died, but they found out later that her calf was adopted by a pod and survived.

 

There was also a good exhibition of New Brunswick industry which included ship building and forestry, farming and mining.  The shipbuilding exhibition was very effective; showing how the keel was laid and then how it was built up from there. It demonstrated how the ship was fitted out with masts, rigging and sails and how it was finally ready for launch.

The CAA Tour Book had listed the museum as a gem and usually we agree with their assessments. Janet and I, were expecting so much more from this museum but it just didn’t seem to get us excited.

Small World Story - On our way back to Hardings Point Campground we stopped by a Cox Communication store to see if we could get a cheap “burner” cell phone.  We explained that we were from Manitoba and what we were hoping to get.  It turns out that she used to live in Winnipeg and went to Westwood collegiate.  She lived in the Heritage Park area so a great number of her friends went to Sturgeon Heights Collegiate. (Our boys went to Silver Heights Collegiate, the school that merged with Sturgeon Creek Collegiate to form Sturgeon Heights). She was a few years younger than Kevin and David so wouldn’t know any mutual people – It just seems strange that we would choose that store and that sales associate.  Anyway, we didn’t purchase the burner phone as it would only be effective in New Brunswick as each province seems to have their own provider – not like the USA where there are national networks such as Sprint and Verizon.