Day 3 (May 19, 2024): More St. Andrews, as well as St. Stephen

We awoke to a rainy Sunday morning, with chilly temperatures.  We took it easy, enjoying the Algonquin's breakfast buffet, including a wonderful omelet station.  

The day involved seeing some sights in St. Andrew's, then heading to the Canada-USA border town of St. Stephen, then heading back for a walk in St. Andrew's.  We tried to build up our appetite for a five-star dinner at an inn just outside St. Andrew's.

Details are shown via the pictures below.  But all in all, it was a wonderful day!

The Algonquin has two firepits outside, which are popular spots for folks to gather.

New Brunswick is known for a spring delicacy called fiddle-heads - that is, ferns before they unfurl in the spring.  Cooked with butter and lemon juice, they are a very popular dish.  These ferns are just past the fiddle-head phase.

This is the pier in St. Andrews' harbour at maximum low-tide yesterday, and taken from the same spot today at maximum high tide.  

This is the original Ganong chocolate factory in St. Stephen.  An efficient modern factory has been built in recent years, leaving the original factory to serve as a chocolate museum and gentrified office space.  Unfortunately, the museum was closed today.

St. Stephen has a "Chocolate Drive"!  And guess what's at the end of Chocolate Drive? Yep, you guessed it:  the modern Ganong Chocolate Factory!

Border towns always fascinate me, because they are the point where the culture, politics, economy and social norms of one country literally come up against the same elements of another country.  St. Stephen is a popular crossing point between New Brunswick and Maine.  Across the St. Croix River sits Calais, Maine.  From Trudeau, loonies, Irving, Tim Horton's, Dollarama, and symbols such as the beaver and igloos on the St. Stephen side, to Biden, Dollar-Tree, Cit-Go (gas), Dunkin' Donuts, and symbols such as Uncle Sam and the American eagle on the Calais side, that river separates two very different lands.

Another view of the St. Croix River, with Canada on the left and the USA on the right. 

The bridge over the St. Croix River had a long backlog of cars waiting to enter the USA.  There was no line-up whatsoever to get into Canada!  The building on the left is the US Customs and Border Protection office in Calais.

Canada's border station at St. Stephen, operated by the Canada Border Services Agency.  Notice the warning sign not to take cannabis over the border to the USA.

Surprisingly — in fact, shockingly! -- there is no "Welcome to Canada" sign.  Irving has a “Welcome to New Brunswick” sign, and there is a New Brunswick stone marker.  But the Government of Canada has no sign whatsoever.  Very sad.

Down the street from the Canada-USA border is a lovely municipal park called "Chocolate Park", overlooking the St. Croix River, named for David Alison Ganong.

11km east of St. Stephen is the Ganong Nature Park.

On the way back to St. Andrew's, we stopped at St Croix Island National Historic Site.  That's the island sitting in the middle of the river above.  In 1604, French nobleman, Pierre Dugua, established a settlement:  the first attempt by the French at year-round colonization in the territory called l'Acadie. While it taught the French a great deal about the harsh climate and helped them establish an enduring French presence in northeastern North America, the losses were huge.  The French brought weapons, grains, utensils, tools, trade goods, and prefab frame buildings with them.  But the winter proved deadly:  cut off from the mainland by the snow and ice, lacking fresh water and firewood, 35 of the 79 men died of scurvy.  In 1605, the survivors pulled up stakes and moved to Port Royal, in Nova Scotia.

In the afternoon, we did another walk through St. Andrews' heart.  Its main street is a nonstop collection of souvenir, arts and clothing shops, as well as cafes and restaurants.  

The tide was out again as we did our downtown walk.  Notice how the fishing boats are practically sitting on the ocean floor at low tide!

This lighthouse functioned from 1833 to 1933.

Dinner was at the Rossmount Inn, just outside St. Andrews.  We were fortunate to get a reservation, even with two weeks' notice, as it is incredibly popular.

Pam had 'naked lobster'!

I had the most tender beef I have ever eatern.

The desserts were 10/10!

After getting home from dinner, we played our first-ever game of Quirkle, a tile-based game that reminded us of Scrabble, except the tiles have coloured shapes instead of letters. It was a gift to Pam from her friend, Juliet. A great game!

And dusk set in on a wonderful day in St. Andrews and area.