A fun day in the Fundy City; Saint John

The city of Saint John  on the Bay of Funday is not to be confused with St John's Newfoundland.

 

One of the many, many lighthouses on the way. Saint John was the birthplace of Robert Foulis who invented the world's first automated steam foghorn. Probably because he badly needed to

 It is known as Canada's Irish city.

In  1785 it was the first quarantine station in North America and greeted many sick and dying Irish emigrants arriving to the New World with inhospitable conditions.
                                      

The Irish Catholic community constituted Saint John's largest ethnic group by the 1850's. Over 50% of households  registered themselves as Irish natives.  And true to form, there were violent clashes  between the Catholics and the Protestants all the way through the 1840s.

                                                 
A Celtic Cross over looks the harbour.

It is rumoured that these three lamps are there to commemorate three sisters who all lost their husbands at sea.  And that is what the plaque said. The guide said that the three ladies hung about the harbour waiting for sailors for a more err... commercial reason....

Saint John is the largest city in New Brunswick. It's also known as the Fundy City as it sits on the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River.

Saint John also was home to the first clockwork time bomb  ( 1880 ), the first orchestra to accompany a silent movie  in 1907 and indeed, the first Miss Canada was a Saint John girl.

In 2006 the Saint John population reported ethnic origins of Canadian then English then Irish then  Scottish  then French then  German then Dutch, North American Indian, Welsh  and a few more. This  is a Dutchman looking over the shoulder of a statue in the main square.

Only 5% of the 70,500 population speak French as a first language. Our guide rolled her eyes at the expense of all government documentation being bilingual by law. As we do at the Scottish Government insistence that all place names, train stations etc are in Gaelic as well as English. I just think how much it costs and that the money could be put to better use.

The Seaman's Misson still does very good work - now for refugees.

The city didn't seem to be a bustling, over friendly place. It was full of folk, just going about their business and generally getting on with their day. I think two famous sons of Saint John are Walter Pidgeon and Donald Sutherland. The latter  had the scariest hairdo ever, in the film Don't look now.

Two refurbished properties sandwich one that is waiting its turn. The staining of the porous stone by industrial pollution is obvious.

Many of the  urban residential areas are undergoing gentrification, but are supposed to keep within  the style. Just like this bright white house didn't.

Saint John never freezes in the winter, it barely snows. But in the summer  the confluence of the river and the sea cause severe fogs and strong winds. High summer temp is about 80 degrees.

Saint John had Tartan Street, the Caledonian heights, Rothesay and Loch Lomond!

A salmon weathercock. The globe above is there to make the spire taller than the church of the 'other foot' as we would say.

The economy benefits from a huge growth in tourism - over 1.5 million visitors a year ( 200,000 from cruise ships) and this has created a regrowth/regeneration in the town's historic downtown. there are many small businesses moving in and large waterfront developments are in keeping with the restrained feeling of the city.

The sculpture in the pond in the central park- which used to be the graveyard.

I couldn't work out what this meant....

This is a working clock sculpture right at the harbourside.

 In 1851 Marco Polo ship was  launched from here.

It had Canada's first public museum in 1842, known originally as the Gesner Museum, named after its Nova Scotian founder Abraham Gesner who also invented kerosene. 

The Saint John River flows into the Bay of Fundy through a narrow gorge several hundred feet wide and creates  the Reversing Falls where the tide goes backwards if you see what I mean ie the flow  of the river is reversed. The difference from low to high tide is 28 feet plus, That's a fair height.

The bank, with suitable carvings-  squirrels burying their nuts!

a beautiful and typical front  door in the historic quarter.

 Our guide lamenting the fact they had locked the church doors on us.

This reminds me very much of the church I was Christened in. 

One of the two two tiered bandstands in the world.

The city market is the oldest city market in North America, with an original ship's hull roof design. It was built in 1876 and every year the local kids make decorations and hang them from the roof.

There's a moose loose aboot this hoose!!

Caro Ramsay  20/11/2015