Tuesday, May 11th
Back into the Sun
The weather is changing and breaking my stride
I know I know I know, it’s just this day— Tegan & Sara, I know I know I know
Oh-oh, this promises to become a long one. But it all starts with another overcast day. I take off into southerly direction. It is rather cold, the heater is running on full for quite some time. But the landscape is rolling hills decked out in loveliest spring colors.
The first town is St. Martins. Here you can turn off for the Fundy Trail Parkway, the first road I find specifically marked as a scenic drive in my map. Right after the turnoff, one has to cross Vaughan Creek by means of a covered bridge. Another covered bridge is a bit further up the creek. On the other side, the ocean is working to remove the ground under some buildings. It is about halfway done. Not sure I could sleep quietly in these buildings.
Ten kilometers on the big surprise: The scenic road is closed. Could have guessed. So I just return to the highway and continue west. A sign indicates that vehicles over sixteen tones should use a detour along the coast instead of taking the direct highway. I take the detour, too, just to be on the safe side. Or maybe because it looks the nicer route anyhow.
After returning to the direct highway, a sign indicates that we are at the city limits of Saint John, even though downtown is still a good twenty kilometres away. The road goes by the airport and various suburbs before finally approaching Saint John proper. Ahead in the west the skies are blue. Is this over America?
We come by the Catholic church of St. Joachim, the first modern church I see in Canada and, unsurprisingly, quite ugly. Outside a hospital, the electric sign announces Nurse Week and thanks all the nurses. They would probably appreciate a monthly thank-you by means of a proper paycheck more.
Waiting at a traffic light, I spot Liquidation World, featuring the slogan ‘Great stuff, great deals, great times.’ Yeah, right.
I turn off the main road to have a look at downtown Saint John. I park right next to a book store, but it only sells used paperbacks which I am not really interested in. I must remember to check Google Maps for a book store before taking off tomorrow.
Downtown itself is a curious mix of apartment and office buildings and parking lots. For my taste, there are too many of the latter. The heart is King’s Square which is a park about two blocks in size. This morning, it is virtually deserted. At its west end is the screaming red building of The Bargain! Store, ruining the place. But the decoration was probably a bargain. Right next to it is the City Market, a charming old building carefully restored and now housing a multitude of stands and stores. Most buildings have red brick facades. Even some of the newer ones have been designed to match. But the Delta is sticking out ugly again.
I move on west. The road signs point to an attraction called Reversing Falls. The guide book is decidedly unenthusiastic about it. Apparently, there are some rapids where the water rushes up when the high tide comes in. No waterfall and, so the guide book author, no excitement. I shall believe him.
Instead I come across a police road block. Two civil cars with lights flashing are parked in the middle of the road and two police officers are checking every car. They couldn’t care less for me.
Picking the wrong road, I also come across the Moosehead Brewery. It seems to be doing a bit of a show. The slogan is ‘The beer that build a brewery’ which sounds a bit upside down to me. But they have a gift store. The town ends, much as it started, with St. Columba Presbyterian Church, another new and ugly church.
Unfortunately, there is no other reasonable road west, so I have to take the expressway. About twenty kilometres in the sun comes out. We rush by the town of St. George, which looks nice from the highway. There are some more tourist attractions in this area, but frankly, I have seen enough beaches. Also, I am not a tourist, damnit.
The landscape resembles the calmer parts of Western Norway now. (I should probably stop comparing everything with Norway. Readers may get the impression that I am secretly in love with the place. Which I am. There, the secret is out. Feeling better now.)
The road and also the country end at St. Stephen, which styles itself Canada’s Chocolate Town. Apparently Canada’s oldest candy factory is located here. There even is a chocolate museum. Good thing I only found that out now while writing the notes.
Downtown St. Stephen lies by the St. Croix river. It has an old train station, now the visitor information centre (and, of course, closed) and a lot of green. There are three bridges over the river forming border crossings since the other side is Calais, Maine in the good old U.S. of A.
The only way to continue now is north. On the map this looks rather a lot less populated, so I stop quickly and fill up the car. The fuel pump is most picky and switches off every other second unless you only trickle the fuel in.
Now that the sun is out, the drive north along a deserted highway is inspiring. If you can, put on Mark Knopfler’s ‘Border Reiver’ now, then close your eyes and imagine you drive along a road lazily winding through a landscape raveling in spring. The cruise control set to a hundred klicks or so, you glide through an ocean of myriads of different greens. Most dominant is a very light, young green of the leaves that have just come out. The bushes down by the roadside have been out for a bit longer, their green is beaming and full. Some conifers here and there with a more reddish green, except for the pines who are almost black. Some trees haven’t gotten far enough, their buds are still dark red.
Yellow spots from buttercups by the roadside. And white from the bark of the birches and some cheeky trees that started to blossom already. Overhead the sky is very blue, ever so more lighter near the horizon. A couple of clouds are stuck to it, very white with dark blue edges. Sometimes, a pond swirls by. Black, muddy waters with the trunks of some dead trees sticking out of it.
Miles fly by. The road turns into another road and into another. Outside McAdam, a group of kids is busy cleaning up the roadsides. They are wearing orange caps which sounds like a good idea for their safety. But they don’t seem to be all too eager. There are still plenty of bottles and cans left between all the garbage bags they filled up.
McAdam is a typical railway town out nowhere. It started life as a lumber town and later became an important railway junction. The railway, connecting Saint John with Maine, has since declined and is now owned by NB Southern Railway. The station building is quite impressive and nowadays houses the tourist information.
The direct road north is an unpaved road and, while it is dry and thus probably safe, it is about forty kilometres long and I can’t quite get myself to take it. So I detour east again and then north to the Saint John River. At Prince William Station the road crosses the railway again. I stop to make a few pictures and am immediately attacked by hordes of little black flies. Must be fun in summer up here.
At the river, I turn west again. This is the first spot where my trusty ‘Canada Back Road Atlas’ is wrong. It has highway 102 as an unnumbered county road and the alignment a bit wrong. The river forms a lake here and the road runs along its shores. It is windy enough that waves on the lake have crests.
At the entrance of the lake lies Nackawic, Home of the World’s Largest Axe. The latter is an example of overly large items being erected along the highways of Canada as some sort of sport. I am hoping to see a few more of them. The axe is located in the most lovely little garden, Nackawic International Garden Riverside Walk. It has some trees, properly labeled, a tiny beach, about twenty metres of sand. It also has a plaque in memory of Dr. Margaret Corey who is remembered as ‘a world traveller blessed with wit and wisdom.’
Beyond Nackawic, I take the road along the right side of the river (in direction of travel, as the German railways are fond of saying). This is the best road yet. Because of the motorway on the other side of the river, there is hardly any traffic. It just winds in and out of sight of the river, up and down.
Of Woodstock on the other side I see two churches, one with one and one with two spires, lots of red brick buildings and a shiny roof on top a big white building the sun is reflecting off. A small dog is running along the road, looking confused at me as I try to pass it.
Sometimes, you come across someone or something so beautiful that you feel your heart strangely aching; Heart’s Delight, I suppose. Florenceville on this shiny spring day is such a thing. The road swings back to the river shore, running right beside it. The wall of the river’s valley moves back, leaving a space about a thousand feet wide. It is filled with meadows and, closer to the road, white houses, separated from it with little parks full of old trees. Beyond, at the valley wall starts a light forest. On the other side of the river, the wall is right there and home to a dark, gloomy forest. The description on the dictaphone trails off at this point and all that is left is ‘God, this is awesome.’
The town centre starts with the school building, new but carefully designed to fit in and surrounded by a large park. Next is the Library and Gallery building in old, dark bricks. The river side of the road has a black metal railing. Even the Irving petrol station with its white, red, and blue fits perfectly. The Bargain! Store wasn’t quite necessary, though, but it can’t destroy this either.
Beyond, separated from town by the bridge of the highway, lie first the middle school and then the corporate headquarters of McCain Foods, the world’s largest producer of french fries and second largest privately held company in Canada. Someone claim again that you have to have your headquarters in some big city.
I think about stopping and spending the night here, but decide against it. There is a risk that I find some flaws that spoil the place. By driving on and never coming back, I will forever remember it as the World’s most perfect place.
After Perth-Andover, the next town and also nice, but obviously not nice enough, the road starts to follow the wrong river, then corrects its fault and returns over the mountains and through the lands of the Torbique First Nation back to the right one. A sign indicates a side road to New Denmark.
In 1872, several Danish families settled in the hills east of the Saint John river. Over the years, they build a thriving village, the largest Danish community in Canada. Even today, Danish is spoken here and Dannebrog, the red and white flag of Denmark, that so perfectly complements the Canadian flag, is still flying over some houses. The barns look strangely Danish, especially if painted red. But they do play bingo here as well.
On the way to Grand Falls or Grand-Sault, the clouds form the distinct pattern known, at least to me, as the Simpsons’ Clouds. They look exactly like those from the credits of the cartoon. You sort of expect ‘The Simpsons’ to be written over the sky.
In Grand Falls, I search for a motel options for a bit, but eventually choose the one right by the grand falls. A quick trip to the shopping centre for some supplies. The special parking reserved for Mothers To Be is directly outside the entrance to the liquor store. Over the Hart store (you perhaps remember the Canadian shopping experience), a crow is doing aerial acrobatics. Seems there is a very strong updraft. She dives down and is ripped upwards just before crashing into the building. Seems she is having a lot of fun, too.
Beer of the day: Garrison’s Sugar Moon Maple (a strong ale brewed with maple syrup, surprisingly good)