Woke up this morning to sunny skies! We have had horseshoes with us as far as weather goes. The rain we’ve had so far has been either at the end of the day or during the night but the days have been good!
We had the whole day to spend in St. John which is a rare luxury for us as we don’t often stay in one place for more than one night. We spoke with Todd, one of the staff at the hotel who also happens to tour guide in the city and he gave us some great tips.
The first was to stop off at Reversing Rapids. This is a unique natural phenomenon in this area that is affected by the high tides of the Bay of Fundy. Here, when the tide comes in, the water pushes inland and up a river and the rapids run in that direction. When the tide changes, the rapids change direction as well as the river pushes back into the Bay. The Reversing Rapids are in a bit of gorge so the water pressure makes for some good white water when the water moves at it’s peak at each turn of the tide. So - we went in the morning to see it move in one direction and then went back later to see it go in the other.
There are a couple of other interesting facts about the Reversing Rapids. Over the years, they had a terrible time of bridging the gorge. In fact, footings from three different bridges still remain. There were several bridge collapsing disasters for various reasons until they finally got it right with the current bridge. The other very interesting thing about the gorge is that it was a seam where the continents joined many millions of years ago so, from a geological perspective, it is a significant spot because it has rock that is now only otherwise found in Africa and stone that originates in current day South America. The gorge was a seam where all three of these continents (Africa, South America and North America) once joined. Very cool (I thought!) This whole area around St. John is called Stonehammer which is a UNESCO Global Geopark. It was created by the collision of the continents and the associated volcanoes, earthquakes, ice ages and other climate change phenomena so the geology in this area is significant as far as understanding the overall evolution of the planet and life itself. There are a lot of fossils in this area as well and quite a bit of research is done here. Some of the geological information is over a billion years old.
From the Reversing Rapids, we wandered down to the Irving Nature Park. The Irving family own most of New Brunswick and one of the park attendants told us they are also one of the biggest land owners in the state of Maine as well. They own Irving oil and out here (in the East) Irving gas stations are ubiquitous. They also have the pulp mill here, huge forestry sector industries and much more.
The Nature Park in St John was a gift from the Irving family to the City and it’s a spectacular land reserve. It’s maintained and staffed by Irving and free to the public. It’s 600 acres and includes the stunning Saints Rest Beach which stretches along the bay. It’s on the Bay of Fundy and is one of New Brunswick’s richest marine ecosystems that is home to migratory and marine birds, many of which stop en route to and from the Arctic and South America. There are over 250 species of birds that come here over the course of a year. The park includes a peninsula that you can drive around but there are also many maintained walking and hiking paths as well. Irving maintains the park and provides interpretive park staff during the summer. It’s a gorgeous park and something well worth seeing when here.
We finished the day down town - or, rather, what they call Uptown in St. John. We visited the City Market which is on King’s Square. St. John is one of Canada’s oldest cities and this part of the city has some very old buildings still in use, many going back to the mid-1700s. The City Market hosts local craftspeople and food producers in an open market setting. It is housed in an old ship building and when you look up into the rafters, you can see that it was built in the same fashion as the inside of a boat. It was similar to the Market in Granville Island in Vancouver. We also had dinner there, at Billy’s Seafood Company which is in the same building. After dinner, we wandered through King’s Park and the downtown core a bit, marvelling at the old buildings and the beautiful architecture. It was a great day!
Finally a beer that gets me!
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