Day 16 - Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada

Sometimes place names can be confusing. In Canada they have Saint John, New Brunswick and St. Johns, Newfoundland. And you better not spell them wrong or the natives will really get after you. Saint John, NB is a delightful community of about 175,000 on the Bay of Fundy.
In the morning we got to do a little shopping as our tour didn't begin until 11 AM. Mom was thrilled as she was able to add to our Christmas tree ornament collection. (She never did get to shop in Boston and was bummed about that.)
Saint John was originally settled during the Revolutionary War by Loyalists that chose to leave the American colonies and move here this statue depicts these Loyalists.

While we were shopping Grandma found one of her granddaughters who was lost and needed a love. Can't tell by this picture if it is Hannah, Emma, Madelynn, or Jillian. I am pretty sure by the built it couldn't have been Macee.

Here is a picture of us while shopping. I think it is my favorite shot of me drom the entire trip.

Real or fake? That "statue" is a real person. He gave some tourist a real start when he would move. We saw one of these later in Quebec City.

If you are a tourist and you go to the Bay of Fundy there has to be one thing you want to experience - tides. This place has the most phenominal tides on earth. The tides here average about 8 feet at the mouth of the Bay and up to 50 feet at the head end of the bay. The Bay of Fundy is shaped like a funnel and you can see what happens if you try to poor water through a funnel. Lots more water can go in than can come out. Reversing Falls are actually on the Saint John River. We went by this location twice on our tour - the first time was to see the falls at low tide with the River running downhill (like it should) from right to left in this picture. We will see this same spot some 4 hours later as the tide begins to rise.

After running out to Reversing Falls we reversed directions and went back into town to see the sites including City Market - which is in design in the shape of a hull of an upside down sailing vessel. It was really crowded - 10,000 tourists in town on 3 cruise ships. Thankfully we only were allowed 30 minutes to shop.

I think every city that has existed since the early 1800's has burned to the ground at least once. This happened in Saint John in 1877. Because of the devistation of that fire the city made some rules. All buildings in the downtown had to be built of stone or brick, every family was issued a wooden bucket that they had to put their name on and if there was a fire all families were to send someone with the bucket to fight the fire. After the fire was out they were to leave the bucket - this way the fire fighters would know who got out safely. Also on all buildings over one story - a room was designated on the third floor (ladders could reach that high?) and a white cross was painted on the window frame. This was the room all people in the upper floors were to meet in so they could be evacuated. White crosses still exist on many buildings.

Our next stop was the fishing community of St. Martins about an hour up the Bay. It is a fishing village and that means lobster traps in this area. The shops on the land prepare the traps and the fishermen ret them when they go out. Each trap is prepared and read to go - you drop in some bait and throw it out - the line, float, etc. are all ready to go.

The guide said this is the only place you can see two covered bridges in one place. I don't know if that is true or not but I haven't seen many covered bridges anywhere.

Tides - the tide was rising and I personally saw it rise up the beach a good 18 inches in just 5 minutes or so. High tide from the day before is marked by the little smudge of sea weed you can see at the lower left corner of the picture. The tide would be there in 3 hours or less from when this picture was taken. The cliff in the background has a bunch of natural caves created by waves of the bay. At low tide there is a beach in front of them and you can walk out around the point to a beautiful beach. Where is it now - underwater. Quite a place for tides.

Remember Reversing Falls? Well four hours later we went back by there as the tide was rising. Now the river has been stopped and sea water is flowing fron the left (foreground) to the right up the river. In fact as the tides rise there are no longer any falls here. This is a must see place.