These days it’s rare to find a destination that’s easy to reach (a six or so hour flight from Heathrow), is as big as Scotland, has wonderful natural sights, delicious food and interesting places to stay, yet one that few Brits have even heard of, let alone would be able to find on the map.
Welcome to New Brunswick, one of the Maritime Provinces on the eastern seaboard of Canada. I flew there a few weeks ago, accompanying a group of British travel writers (see photo!) who were keen to see just what this little known province has to offer their readers.
We flew there with Air Canada via Halifax in Nova Scotia, followed by a short hop to St John. Our first two nights were spent in the delightful seaside resort of St Andrews at the west end of the province, close to the US border with Maine. First settled by loyalists, who swore allegiance to King George III rather than the American revolutionaries, it’s long been a popular retreat from the heat for city folk - not only from Montreal and Toronto but also from Boston and New York.
We spent one night in the Fairmont Algonquin, the 120 year old, mock Tudor old railway hotel, oozing with character, another in the Rossmount, an 18-room inn owned by a Swiss chef which has, not surprisingly, a superb restaurant drawing on produce from local fishermen and farmers, plus an enormous vegetable plot.
New Brunswick is a wonderful place for soft adventures. From St Andrews we zipped off by Zodiac – hence that photo of me and the journalists swaddled in Guantanamo orange survival suits – on a whale watching trip with Fundy Tide Runners and were rewarded with sightings of two Minkes.
Day three was a cross country drive on roads described by one of the journalists as being “as quiet as a Christmas Day.” We stopped at Kings Landing, an authentic recreation of a 19th century village, complete with costumed characters going about their traditional ways and original historic buildings, and had lunch in the capital, Fredericton, famously home to Lord Beaverbrook and well stocked with historic sites and museums . Our night was spent on the thickly wooded banks of the Miramichi River, one of the best in the world for salmon (as fished by a celebrity hotlist that includes Marilyn Monroe and Prince Charles). Eight of us went a’casting and eight of us caught nothing but big fibs, but the experience – led by a guide who taught us how to cast (and pray) – was memorable. Some of us stayed in the Pond’s Resort, others in O’Donnell’s, both similar in style (rustic lodges beside the water, with log fires, kitchen facilities and a choice of one to three bedrooms), plus restaurants.
The third leg of our tour took us down the east coast of New Brunswick, which is fringed by beautiful sandy beaches, the waters as warm as southern England on a summer’s day, and spiked by huge sand spits and barrier islands inhabited by scores of seals and seabirds. We got up close and personal to both aboard an enormous voyageur canoe in the Kouchibouguac National Park, later followed by a boardwalk hike along the Dune de Bouctouche.
This French speaking part of the province is the traditional home of the Acadians who were originally thrown out of Canada by British colonialists in a shameful act of ethnic cleansing. There’s even a mock French heritage village, Le Pays de la Sagouine, showcasing New Brunswick’s Gallic roots in a lighthearted ‘ooo la la’ style with ribald humour and foot tapping bands. We stayed in Moncton at Maison Tait, a 9-room, Queen Anne style grand maison in seaside Shediac with, again, another passionate chef.
One of the all time highlights of our one week trip was a morning spent kayaking around the Hopewell Rocks which have been eroded by the sea into the shape of flower pots. The Bay of Fundy experiences the highest tides in the world, with the difference between high and low water being as much as a four story house. We then headed to Cape Enrage for incredible sea views and sea food served in a new restaurant that forms part of the historic lighthouse.
After a short hike along one of the trails in the Fundy National Park we returned to Shediac for a ‘Lobster Tails’ cruise on the Bay. The skipper, in between nautical matters, demonstrated the art of trapping these leggy crustaceans, explained how lobsters walk, mate and end up in the lobster pot, told us how they should be cooked and showed us all how we should eat the ones we were about to be served. And very delicious they were too, though we all wished we’d paid more attention to the ways of shell cracking.
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