ST. JOHN RIVER
1. Bluff Camp, near Fredericton 2. Westfield, St. John River 3. Willow Avenue, Rothesay
A word to the happy brides and devoted grooms who spread off over summer highways and byways from June to September, and who appreciate ideal and romantic scenery on routes that are not too crowded for comfort, and who like, at times, a little isolation. The St. John River steamers are roomy and capacious, and they have many little nooks and corners where there is just room for two, with a little squeezing, and from which the scenery may be enjoyed with that quiet and ideal environment so suited for the “two hearts that beat like one.” The little spot near the Captain’s wheelhouse deserves to be called “Bride’s Corner.” It is so used, again and again, and from this delightful coign a full view of the river may be had, and it is also a quiet point of observation for viewing life on the forward deck of the steamer.
What if it is breezy at times, so that a wisp of golden hair passes feathery fingers over the bronzed cheek of the happy groom! What if summer gusts festoon her chiffon veil so that clearer view of peachy cheeks is revealed, and what if that filmy and insubstantial shoulder-wrap is displaced by a particularly lively current that comes from the nearby valley! Surely the happy man does not object to the delightful opportunities thus given for adjusting refractory draperies, and for holding them in place with his arm around her shoulder when the gusts are heaviest. Ah! me.... “Bless you, my children,” we whisper in benediction. “May your life ever be like a voyage on the tranquil St. John.”
Here is a charming spot, Camp Bedford, only seventeen miles from St. John, and just the place for the summer homes or bungalows of those who like some social life, and who do not wish to “commune with nature” alone in some more remote spot. A number of pleasant cottages line the heights by the shore, and as the occupants throng the wharf to greet us, the enjoyment they find in life is reflected in their happy faces.
And so with the numerous choice spots that now follow quickly as our destination looms up more nearly. Here the great river widens out to large proportions; and as we pass the frowning cliffs and massive rocks that mark a way to the harbor, it is apparent that few ports have such fine approaches as this, few rivers can match this for scenery—scenery that is unique and all its own. The steamer ties up at St. John at what is locally known as Indian-town.
The St. John may fairly be termed an Imperial River, for at different times in the past it has “annexed” large portions of other great rivers, and turned their waters into her own. Both the Restigouche and Miramichi Rivers lost heavily in this way. The length of the river is nearly 450 miles, and no better trip could be planned anywhere than one up to the head waters of this great waterway.
The city of St. John was formerly called Parr Town, but was finally named from the great stream whose mouth it guards. De Monts and Champlain discovered and named the St. John River in the year 1604, or some seventy years after Jacques Cartier’s exploration of the St. Lawrence. That arm of the Atlantic in front of St. John, and known as the Bay of Fundy, was originally named La Baye Françoise by De Monts. On Dochet’s Island in Passamaquoddy Bay the exploration party under De Monts passed a severe winter. The following summer they left the neighborhood and founded a colony at Port Royal in a protected basin on the south shore of the Bay of Fundy. Nearly thirty years later a fort was built near the mouth of the St. John River by Charles La Tour, a man who had much to do with the development of the then French province of Acadia, and whose wife Frances earned undying fame by her noble defense of the St. John Fort while La Tour was absent in Boston.