new-brunswick – ON THE ROAD with Maria + Stephen

As we swung back westward through New Brunswick (NB) inorder to ultimately re-enter the U.S. through Northern Maine, we decided to pay a visit to Fredericton aka the “Freddy”. Freddy appeared to meet our usual city selection criteria — small to medium in size, coffee options, art, live music, bike trails and a city waterfront.

***St. John River, Fredericton, New Brunswick***

We thought we would need two days but the weather was excellent and so much was happening that we ended up staying four nights; before departing on our wood lands ramble into remote northern New Brunswick (Wood Lands Ramble post coming soon).

Bicycling

A coalition of volunteers (Fredericton Trail Coalition) began to mobilize after the Canadian Northern Railway abandoned a number of lines in New Brunswick in 1989. The first trail was opened in 1993. In 1996, 377 additional kilometers of abandoned railway was donated to the province by the Irving Family allowing Freddy to connect a number of trails and create today’s connected network of over 120 kilometers of trail. A key aspect of the donation was the inclusion of the 906 foot railway bridge that spans the St. John River — connecting the trail systems on both side of the river.

As a result, folks in Fredericton have a plethora of riding and walking trail options. It is not surprising that Fredericton was named Canada’s 6th most-walkable city in 2019, one of 5 “Great Canadian Bike Cities” in 2021 by People for Bikes, and was #9 on Canada’s Best Small Cities as ranked by World’s Best Cities.com in 2022. We took advantage of the trail system and delightful weather to explore a number of the trails during our stay in Freddy.

fika

Combining biking with coffee is a double delight. Mill Town Coffee Roasters is conveniently located on one of the trails and we were able to take a coffee break on our way out and back during each ride. Pretty good, eh!

Street Art

In our humble opinion, public art adds a great deal to a city’s environment. We were glad to find that Freddy has several notable street murals in the downtown area, although we would have loved to find more during our walks through town.

Fine art

Freddy is very fortunate to have, in our opinion, a very impressive art museum, especially in light of the fact that the city population is barely 60,000. Much of the good fortune is owed to the generosity of one Lord Beaverbrook — who in 1959 gifted the museum building and 300 valuable works of art to a museum foundation he created for the benefit of the public. Did we mention that the museum is named the Beaverbrook Art Gallery?

The son of a Presbyterian minister in Miramichi, New Brunswick, the future Lord Beaverbrook, Max Aitken, enjoyed early success in Canadian business. In 1910, he left Canada for England, where he was knighted and elected a Member of Parliament, eventually serving as Minister of Aircraft Production in Churchill’s wartime government. No slouch Sir Max!

The museum is noted for it’s collection of renowned Canadian artists but also has works by Dali (not fans but still impressive to see a gallery of Dali paintings in Freddy) and Gainsborough and as well as other internationally acclaimed painters. The Beaverbrook became the official provincial gallery of New Brunswick in 1996.

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989)
La Turbie: Sir James Dunn, 1949 oil on canvas
On Loan from the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation

Medrie MacPhee (Canadian / Canadienne, b./n. 1953)
Locke (1987)
oil on canvas / huile sur toile

Carol Hoorn Fraser (Canadian / Canadienne, 1930 – 1991)
The Guardians, 1976
oil on canvas / huile sur toile

Lucy Jarvis (Canadian / Canadienne, 1896 – 1985)
Iris Swamp (1961)
oil on board / huile sur panneau

Montreal-based painter Michael Smith (directly above and below) is known for his fluid and impasto surfaces as well as his ability to strike a poetic balance between representation and abstraction. Inspired by art history as well as historic and current events, Smith pulls from various sources to create his energetic landscapes and seascapes. His Sea of Change series includes massive canvases exploding with colour and energy, as well as smaller studies on paper. These were inspired by a serendipitous encounter with a 19th-century painting of the Arctic expedition ship H.M.S. Terror during his time as artist-in-residence at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 2018. Layering texture and colour, the familiar with the unfamiliar, Smith’s paintings convey (as the artist writes) “a mix of excitement and anxiety of a land [that] although at times bucolic, is riddled with shadows.” Curated by John Leroux

A little bit of history

We often find that the early history of a city is intertwined with the creation of the dominate religion of the ruling class. Fredericton is no exception to that pattern. The city was named for Prince Frederick,son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Subsequently, Queen Charlotte declared Fredericton a Cathedral City (even though its population was too small) so Christ Church Cathedral could be built. The Anglican Church at that time was utilized as a way to impose British custom and law (and to counter Acadian Catholicism) on the inhabitants be they British, Acadian or First Nations.

***Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick***

The Cathedral sits on its own park like island of green at the edge of downtown. The surrounding neighborhoods consist of stately and beautifully maintained homes. By many accounts the movers and shakers in Fredericton were members of this parish and much business was conducted and deals made between the businessmen and politicians who belonged here.

We always seem compelled to add a little bit of history (and an opinion or two) when we report on our travels — oh well!

Music

We closed out our stay in Freddy with an afternoon and evening of food and music. The River Jam Music Festival was taking place all around us at our hotel with four or five music acts performing in different areas of the facility simultaneously. We took in a couple of acts, had dinner and camped at the bar (surprised?) to take in the performances in the lobby which ran to midnight. We were treated to primarily traditional music from the Maritimes and the local crowd was up singing along and dancing. So good!

That’s it from Freddy! We had a great visit and look forward to sharing more of our travels soon.

Be seeing you!

After our night in Bangor we set out for Calais (Cal-liss) and our first visit to Canada since the pandemic. This crossing experience was quite a bit different than our previous crossings. In the past we showed our passports, answered a few questions and we were on our way.

It was a very different experience this time. After showing our passports and answering a few questions we were asked to go inside the station and wait while two Canada Border Officers thoroughly searched the van. While we did not have any contraband on board it was still a bit unsettling having the van and all of our possessions searched. The frosting on the cake was our realization after driving away from the station that our passports had not been returned! One of the officers that had searched the van had our passports in his pocket — oh boy!

After retreiving our passports, we traveled east to camp at Mouth of the Magaguadavic. This is a privately owned tract of land that sits at the mouth of the river and the Passamaquoddy Bay. We were able to pull our van up to the edge of the bluff to have an unimpeded view of the gorgeous bay. Unfortunately, that evening a thick mist had settled over the bay and were not able to enjoy the full view. We sat by the campfire until the mist overwhelmed our fire and we retreated into the Beast.

In the morning we awoke to a much different view than the previous evening’s shroud of mist and fog. We enjoyed our breakfast as we sat outside transfixed by the pristine bay.

We pulled ourselves away from the view eventually and began our trek east along the coast and the Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fundy has a beautiful and rugged coastline and an impressive 40 foot tide occuring twice daily.

We stopped for lunch in the tiny fishing village of St.Martins. We walked out to caves which are accesible when the massive tide is out and then lunched at a seafood restaurant perched on the beach. To say the seafood is fresh and delicous is an understatement.

After our delicous lunch we continued along the coast to Fundy National Park where we would spend a couple of days hiking and exploring the area.

Big Salmon River, Fundy NP

About ten miles southeast of our campsite at Fundy NP sits the village of Alma. The village is another quaint fishing town with great fresh seafood and quite impressively a specialty coffee shop — The Buddah Bear.

We enjoyed our stay at Fundy NP — beautiful scenery, moderate hiking and specialty coffee nearby (what could be better?). We are off to Prince Edward Island.

Be seeing you!