The Tourist's Maritime Provinces/Chapter 9
NEW BRUNSWICK AND THE GASPÉ SHORE
CHAPTER IX
ST. JOHN AND THE SOUTH COAST
The Islands of Campobello and Grand Manan.
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St. John.
St. John is accessible from the United States by more routes than any city of the Maritime Provinces. Moreover, all New Brunswick roads lead to it directly or by connection, and it is separated from Nova Scotia by a water journey of but 47 miles. Its rapid advance as a shipping port to the rank of second largest in Canada is due to its being the Atlantic terminus of two transcontinental railways, the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk System, and the Canadian terminus of more than a dozen cargo and passenger steamer lines sailing to and from every quarter of the world. As a winter port for trans-Atlantic companies, St. John is in the ascendency over Halifax. Though the latter city is two hundred and fifty miles nearer Liverpool, it is a third again further from Montreal than is the commercial centre of New Brunswick, and a much longer distance from New York and Chicago. It is authoritatively stated that the harbour of St. John is the only one north of Cape Hatteras which has never been frozen, the Fundy tides having in this case proved a beneficent agency. Once there were but three ports under the British flag where more vessels were owned than in St. John, but that was in the period before metal hulls superseded hulls of stout green-heart.
The entrance to the harbour from the Bay of Fundy is flanked by rocky arms which narrow toward the outlet of the great river discovered by Champlain and de Monts on the fête day of St. John the Baptist, June, 1604, following their voyage to the Annapolis Basin. Partridge Island frowned upon their intruding sails as it frowns still upon the labouring, steaming, drifting procession that constantly passes beneath its gloomy banks. Into this "port of heroes" sailed the ships of de la Tour and Charnisay, and gallant Villebon. Frigates battled at its mouth whose masts flew the Lion and the Fleur de Lys. The timorous craft of New England settlers and the black hulks of reckless privateers braved the tidal estuary before May, 1783, when a valiant fleet of twenty vessels bore three thousand Royalists to a place of disembarkation on the right bank of the harbour opposite old Fort Frederick. The landing was at the foot of the street which was fittingly called "King" by the Tory founders of the city. In 1784 there were more than nine thousand Loyalists on the sterile site of St. John. It was not 
A NEW BRUNSWICK RIVER IN LOGGING TIME
until a year later that the settlement first called for Governor Parr took the name of its river.
"The scenery around St. John," says an oldtime writer, "possesses nothing indicative of the fertile regions to which it leads." In truth the city is builded on rock whose acclivities have defied time and the blaster. Ecclesiastical towers crown the dun pile of buildings which rises from the harbour-front to the long rolling crest that looks off to the Bay of Fundy. Steamers land at Reed's Point at the end of Prince William Street. The latter thoroughfare, which shows an imposing row of façades belonging to commercial and government buildings, terminates in the market-place at the foot of King Street. The tram line crosses the same open space coming from the Union Station and runs up the King Street hill past the Tourist Bureau, railway ticket offices, shops, banks and the Royal and Victoria Hotels. The progress of this wide main street is interrupted at Charlotte Street by King Square. Principal stores and theatres, and many of the city's best churches and residences are within four blocks of this shady plaza. A little to the east is the plot where the Fathers of St. John buried their dead. Children roll their hoops and nursery-maids trundle perambulators down paths edged with sunken stones which present to the curious eye archaic tributes carved a century and more ago.
The Loyalist Church stood on the opposite side of King Square. All that was left of it following the fire horror of 1877 which levelled ten miles of streets and 1600 buildings was the escutcheon of the British Empire which had hung in Boston State House during the turbulent years that immediately preceded the revolt of the Colonies. The coat-of-arms is now in Trinity Church whose lofty spire rises above the site of the city's first meeting-house.
Other public structures in the vicinity of King Square are the Masonic Hall, Court House, City Market, Imperial Theatre and Opera House. Beyond the latter on Waterloo Street is the Roman Catholic Cathedral with good interior decorations and windows.
The magnates of St. John rebuilt their clubs and homes out Germain Street and about Queen Square after the fire. In Germain Street is St. Andrews Church, grandmother of all the Presbyterian congregations of New Brunswick. Even a brief tour of the city should include a sight of Queen Square and its mansions. A three-century-old French cannon hoisted from the bed of the harbour, and a life-size bronze of Champlain add historical interest. The Exhibition buildings and a new Armoury occupy prominent situations at the seaward end of the St. John peninsula. To the east is Courtenay Bay which every twelve hours becomes alternately a stretch of water and a yawning bed of ooze. The bay, and the harbour-front west of the city are the object of far-reaching plans which will materially increase St. John's terminal and manufacturing facilities.
At the top of Germain Street's aristocratic incline, looking toward the north, stands the stolid Church of St. John's with its broad stone base and old-fashioned steeple dating back ninety years. The aspect of this rising lane of substantial stone buildings capped by the sombre self-contained temple is the most typical in the city. In contrast with the ancient edifice is the domed and porticoed Library Building erected ten years ago by the bounty of the Scot whose name is chiselled over the doorway. In 1883, St. John founded the first free library in Canada. Among its 30,000 volumes is a collection presented by the British Museum from its duplicate books. The wall bears a tablet placed in honour of Samuel de Champlain and Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts,[1] on the three hundredth anniversary of the day the harbour and river were first entered by the explorers of the Bay of Fundy.
An old house in this neighbourhood offered hospitality to the Duke of Kent, and also to his grandson, Edward, Prince of Wales. A short walk west of the Library brings one to the Museum of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick which contains a creditable array of Abenaki curios and craft implements, besides specimens of native minerals and animal life. A curator is in attendance and the admission is free.
The summits of the North End of the city are ascended by tramway, motor-car or sight-seeing wagons; some for whom an unremitting climb has no terrors go on foot down into the vale and up the steeps. Ruts in the highway show rock beneath a thin stratum of earth. Almost no trees are to be seen until Rockwood Park is reached, beyond the Public Gardens. Only horse-drawn vehicles may enter this five hundred-acre recreation ground of varied delights, executed by nature and but lightly touched by the guiding hand of man. Lily Lake verges on the Drive which continues into Mount Pleasant Avenue. Above the road, beautiful homes with vine-draped walls have as their daily meed one of the superb views of the province.
Directly above Navy Island and the wide turn of the harbour is the sheer eminence from which, in 1778, the first Fort Howe watched against New England privateers, who had already ravished Fort Frederick on the Carleton shore. The existing fortification is of later construction. From this elevation one sees on a day unmisted by fog the harbour, its thronged wharves and the Bay of Fundy in the foreground, and in the rear, the islands, coves and verdant promontories of the famed Kennebecasis.
A hill-side road descends to the river from Portland Heights past Riverview Park, with its stilted memorial to South African War heroes. At a point where the high, rocky banks of the stream are contracted to a width of less than five hundred feet, two splendid bridges span a restless chasm. From this vantage-point we may observe the spectacle of a river flowing three ways at every change of tide—downward, on a level and upward. The dignified St. John having throughout its course of four hundred and fifty miles received the tribute of countless minions in Maine and New Brunswick,—having drained great lakes and wide inlets, is confronted in its augmented majesty by a tortuous channel-gate at the very jaws of the Bay of Fundy. This were complication enough for a river that had been swollen, then abruptly compressed. But the out-fall of the St. John is still further harassed by prodigious tides that rise here to a height of twenty-five feet. An engineer who in 1761 witnessed the phenomenon of a river turned back upon its course twice in every day, reported: "The current runs down till half-flood, and up till half-ebb. The falls are smooth every half tide for fifteen to twenty minutes. The greatest rise at the rapids is equal to half the rise of the tide." At low tide, the piled-up waters of the river are higher than the sea. At full tide the incoming flood of Fundy is higher than the river. Therefore the fall at the gorge is down-stream when the surge is toward the sea, and up-stream when the sea shoulders back the river. For one hour in each twenty-four' the struggle is relaxed, the strength of the forces then being equal. Small boats take advantage of the armistice to skim in or out through the twisted passage, but no vessel, little or big, ever dares the fury of the waters when in combat.
The drive through the suburb of Fairville and out the Manawagonish Road is especially enjoyable for the views of the open Bay and of inland beauty-spots. The Old Manawagonish leads back to Lancaster Heights whose landmark is the circular watch-tower built just a century ago by British regulars as a guard over the approach to the harbour. During early Italian wars such towers contained alarm bells which were struck with hammers. The name Martello may be derived from the Italian word for hammer or, what seems more plausible, it is applied out of compliment to the Corsican designer of round outlooks who was surnamed Martelli. Below the turreted sconce is the beach from whose stones it was fashioned, and further south a bay-side pleasure park.
Fort Dufferin commands the mouth of the river from the west or Carleton side of the harbour. This depressingly ugly suburb whose water-edge is faced with immense warehouses and deep water terminals is a ferry-trip distant from the foot of Princess Street, St. John. A short walk north from Nelson Slip are the remains of Fort Frederick, which the English took from the French in 1758, defended against the Indians in 1776 and lost to the Americans the year after. Though authorities do not agree as to the situation, it is commonly accepted that the Huguenot trader, Charles La Tour and his wife had their station on the Carleton shore, and that Fort Frederick stands upon the foundations of the original four bastions built in 1635. The enmity between La Tour and Charnisay, rival lords of Acadie, has received brief mention in another chapter.[2] Lady La Tour's romantic exploits have been immortalised by poet and fabulist, and extolled by historians as among the bravest deeds performed by woman in any century. During de la Tour's absence in Boston to secure assistance against de Charnisay, who was commissioned by the French court to arrest him, Marie, Lady of La Tour, stayed alone at the fort attended by a garrison of half a hundred. She had already proved her mettle by crossing to France and England in her husband's behalf and in escaping at one time under the very nose of Charnisay's ships to a relief vessel from Rochelle which had carried Charles and Marie to Massachusetts, where a fleet had been assembled formidable enough to temporarily vanquish their enemy.
In the winter of 1645 Charnisay, learning from spies that Lady La Tour was in command of the fort, attacked with a single ship. But Marie Jacqueline was possessed of resource and courage that over-matched the foe's assurance. The besieging vessel retired with two score dead and wounded, and without having brought down the flag above the stockade.
Still La Tour did not return, fearing capture by the enemy's ships, and in two months de Charnisay mustered his forces at Port Royal and made a new onset, this time from the land along the Carleton shore. He met resistance so effectual that defeat would again have been his portion at the hands of the Lady Marie but for the connivance of a sentinel, who for a bribe kept silent at the approach of the attacking party. Even then the Baron of Port Royal could not capture the garrison by force but made terms which his heroic opponent accepted to save the lives of her supporters. When he found himself in possession, he violated his word, hung the garrison man by man, and compelled Madame La Tour to look upon the execution. Even a heart staunch as hers could not surmount such accumulation of misfortune. In less than a month after the surrender of the fort so long and ardently guarded, her spirit failed and she passed away. It was six years before her husband returned in possession of patents that established him master of the trade of Acadia, his rival having been drowned in Annapolis Basin the previous year. The marriage of Madame de Charnisay and La Tour in 1653 achieved, surely at the cost of sentiment, "the peace and tranquillity of the country, and concord and union between the two families."
All that St. John lacks in personal attractiveness is compensated by the fairness of her surroundings. A week of drives, sails and walking-trips will not reveal all the nooks and vistas that await discovery. Rothesay, Loch Lomond, Millidgeville. Grand Bay, Westfield lie on good roads that pass within sight of river or lake shore through country diversified by woods and farmland. Water-trips are available by steamers that leave regularly by the River St. John for Fredericton (84 miles) and towns on its numerous auxiliary bodies.[3] A pleasant course is taken by a small steamer which leaves several times a day from Millidgeville (tram from St. John) for landings on Kennebecasis Bay. Schedules, routes and fares are conveniently outlined in a booklet issued by the Tourist Association, 23, King Street, together with information about hunting and fishing trips.
The South Coast—Campobello and Grand Manan.
The Shore Line Sub-Division of the Canadian Pacific Railway has a daily service from West St. John (Carleton). The line follows the coast to St. George (48 m.), Bonny River, and St. Stephen (84 m.) near the Maine frontier. At Brunswick Junction (69 m.) connection is made with St. Andrews over a line running from McAdam Junction (St. JohnMcAdam Jc, 84 m., on the way to Montreal, Bangor and Boston via Vanceboro, by Canadian Pacific). Schedules are so inconveniently arranged for the connection to St. Andrews at Brunswick Jc. that the route usually taken is the Canadian Pacific out of West St. John and from McAdam Jc. to the coast via Watt Jc. By this route, St. John—St. Andrews, 126 m. St. Stephen may also be reached via McAdam Jc.[4]
The Maritime Steamship Company has a small vessel in service between St. John, St. George and St. Andrews which leaves Thorne Wharf every Saturday morning.
Twice a week the Grand Manan sails from Turnbull's Wharf, St. John, and calls at Campobello Island and Eastport, Ma, on the way to the Island of Manan. The same steamer has regular sailings between St. Stephen, Campobello, Eastport and St. Andrews.
The tri-weekly Coastwise Service of the Eastern Steamship Corporation (St. John-Portland—Boston) makes its first call at Eastport, from which there are local lines to towns also served by the Grand Manan.
St. George has but a single bait for tourists and that a waterfall formed by the Magaguadavic River which a short distance from the village sweeps over a ledge and springs a hundred feet into a turbulent chasm. Bonny River, 6 miles beyond St. George on the railway, is at the entrance to the Magaguadavic Valley game district of Fredericton County, which is dotted with camps and hunting lodges.
Passamaquoddy Bay is separated from the outlet of the St. Croix River by a hilly triangle. St. Andrews occupies the tip of the wedge. Deer Island faces it, and Campobello and Grand Manan lie in the order named out in the Bay of Fundy, off the coast of Maine. Sheltered, yet cooled by breezes from every quarter, St. Andrews has long been a retreat affected by summer colonists. Within the earthworks of a dismantled fort above the town is the summer residence of Sir Thomas Shaughnessy. On Minister's Island, Sir William van Horne has erected a palace and a bevy of barns. The new Algonquin Hotel overlooks the water from rising ground. The St. Andrews Inn is near the beach. Both are under Canadian Pacific management. The Golf Course is the scene of annual tournaments which attract the best players of the Canadian Clubs. The social atmosphere is more rarefied in St. Andrews than at other Provincial resorts. The writers of pamphlets like to call it the Newport of New Brunswick. The old families of the Scotch seaport, the Pagans, Garnetts, Potes and Campbells, have much fine plate and many heirlooms in mahogany. The frames of some of the houses were brought from the United States during the Loyalist hegira. The Tories who settled here were especially reputed for the fervency of their patriotism. One Scotch father who had seven sons recognised in them an opportunity to express his zeal for the Crown. Each new arrival was baptised George in honour of the reigning sovereign.
The tourist will not fail to see the canopied pulpit in the Greenock Church. The building itself was begun in 1817 and completed a few years later by a well-to-do captain who essayed to make it a monument worthy of the town and of his generosity. He ordered a carved oak tree to be embossed upon the face of the tower in memory of his native Greenock, or Green Oak, in Scotland. To the cabinet-maker who fashioned of mahogany and bird's-eye maple "the finest pulpit in the province" he gave a free hand. No nails were used in fitting the parts. Exquisite care was expended upon joints and panels, and the cost, according to St. Andrews' tradition, was twelve thousand dollars. The first minister of the church is buried in the adjoining yard. Besides performing his clerical duties he had time and disposition to found the "St. Andrews Friendly Society" to which all the town's best-born of a hundred years ago belonged. The members bound themselves to converse only "upon Religion, Morality, Law, Physics, Geography, History and the present or past state of nations." As this curriculum would keep their meeting-hours reasonably well occupied, they agreed, Scotchmen all, to make pause for no other refreshment than "spirits and water."
The Passamaquoddy Indians, a tribe peaceable enough now, have a legend that white men planted a cross on the edge of the bay and called the spot St. André. In this way they account for the name of the town and for that of the river, St. Croix. Beneath the shadow of Chamcook Mountain, which is no mountain, but an abrupt hill 400 feet high standing back of St. Andrews, a French ship dropped anchor on a June day in 1604. From it were unloaded cannon, implements, brick and provisions upon an island which was baptised St. Croix. On the way up river by steamer from St. Andrews to St. Stephen one gets an excellent impression of this island, now called Doucet's or Dochet's. This was the location chosen by de Monts for his first colony. He, Champlain and eighty companions lived within and about the fort which was placed at the upper end of the island. Grain was planted, and other preparations were made looking toward the establishment of a fixed settlement. Then winter came down upon them with a fury undreamed-of in their native France. Hostile Indians, the ravages of an incurable scurvy, a meagre supply of fuel and water combined with the cold to make hideous this first season in the New World. With the arrival of spring all that was portable was removed to Port Royal, and St. Croix was definitely abandoned. The island is now included within the limits of the town of Calais, Maine. A boulder north of the lighthouse carries on its face a bronze tablet to keep in mind those who lived here three hundred winters ago.
Lescarbot's Chronicles describe the formation of a literary society by members of the pitiful colony "in order that the spirits might be sustained by sundry pleasantries." At intervals, a series of papers were issued under the title Maitre Guillaume, which Lescarbot called "a bulletin of mirth." There is no question that this hand-script composed by witty, brave and cultured Bretons was the avant-coureur of all the journals of our continent.
At St. Stephen one may take a trolley car into the United States. Calais is at the other end of the bridge which crosses the international boundary formed by the St. Croix River.
Campobello Island, 16 miles from St. Andrews, is separated by a narrow passage from Moose Island, on which is situated the Maine town of Eastport. From St. John, St. Andrews, St. Stephen and Eastport, Campobello is accessible by steamer. Though within the bounds of Canada this sea-blown isle with contorted shores belongs in its entirety to an American Stock Company who have erected a large hotel and annex, laid out a golf course and improved the paths and roads which dart among the woods and ride the cliffs in endless number. One might spend a year of holidays exploring this little realm composed of beaches, cliffs, glens and acres of cone-bearing trees. A Welsh grantee, William Owen, named the island in 1770 for Lord William Campbell, then Governor of Nova Scotia, of which New Brunswick was still a part. The soil being fertile, he contrived the pun—Campo-bello, a Fair Field. Before 1765, the English called it the Great Island of the Passamaquoddy. In its many Welsh place-names it reflects the nationality of the family who retained the property, two miles wide by ten miles long, for over a century. On the east shore there are sharp-pointed cliff’s, on the west arable slopes. The principal drives from the Tyn-y-Coed Hotel[5] are to Southern Head; to Bunker Hill and Eastern Head, the last-named peaks being the highest on the island; to Man-of-war Head via the hamlet of Welshpool, and to Herring Cove.
On the way from wintering on St. Croix, the remnant of de Monts' colony "took shelter over night at Menane during which night were heard the voices of the sea-wolves." Champlain said this island "six leagues in extent" was called by the Indians, Manthane. The Passamaquoddy word munaan means "the island." Petit Manan draws close to the Maine coast, but Grand Manan stands doggedly against the tides at the very portals of Fundy. Boisterous currents which catch among its scraggy reefs hurl their spray high against tall cliffs that hurl it back again in the face of old ocean.
The length of the island from north to south is under 20 miles, the extreme width 7 miles, the distance from the borders of Maine, 9 miles, and from Campobello, 12 miles. The steamer lands at North Head, the principal port of the island with unpretending hotel accommodations. Here the bluffs rear sky-ward with the vigour of Blomidon. Behind the town is a cemetery filled with graves of the ship-wrecked. The west coast opposes to the mainland a wall several hundred feet high which affords only one refuge for fleeing vessels. Dark Harbour and Money Cove are haunted by tales of treasure-trove and Captain Kidd. A road from North Head passes through half a dozen little fishing-ports and emerges upon the out-flung ledge of Southwest Head, where gulls wheeling about the light-house remind us that on this point Audubon studied these sea-birds before writing his book about them. Gannet Rock, 4 miles to the southwest, is the most isolated of the Manan group. On the fangs of its spreading shoals many a fog-blinded pilot has driven his ship to its death. Board may be obtained at small inns or private houses in North Head, Whale Cove, Grand Harbour and Sprague's Cove. For the splendour of its marine and cliff views, its unconventional villages and bracing atmosphere. Grand Manan merits high praise as a vacation island.
- ↑ Champlain was born at Brouage, Province of Saintonge, 1567 and died at Quebec on Christmas Day, 1635. De Monts also born in Saintonge, in 1560, died at Paris, 1611.
- ↑ See under Annapolis, Chapter VI.
- ↑ See Chapter X.
- ↑ Northwest from McAdam Jc. a branch of the Canadian Pacific proceeds to Woodstock, Grand Falls and Edmundston. These towns are also reached from Fredericton.
- ↑ Terms, $3.50 to $5 a day. Another hotel, the Owen, is less expensive.