Kingsclear to Shediac, New Brunswick – 23 June 2023
The day we arrived, Derek drove to Moncton and got a new toilet – hooray. Its amazing how you take simple things like a functioning toilet for granted until you dont have one. So we were able to put the water back on and have a nice long shower.
The resort we were in was quite large and had a shuttle that could transport you from one end to the other. There was a pool but it was absolutely packed with people who were vacationing with their young children. We could only assume that it is school holidays already here OR people just like coming here for the weekend. There were many permanent vacation homes/RVs so hard to tell. We will only know on Monday and we are leaving then anyway.
The following day we took a drive into Shediac. It’s very interesting to find out what each town is famous for. In this instance it was very apparent when we saw the impressive giant lobster statue in downtown Shediac who are called “The lobster capital of the world.” Shediac’s giant lobster is a concrete and reinforced steel statue sculpted by Canadian artist Winston Bronnum. The statue is 35 ft long, 16 ft wide and 16 ft high, weighing 90 tonnes. It was built as a tribute to the town’s lobster fishing industry, and took three years to complete at a cost of $170,000. The lobster attracts about 500,000 visitors per year. It was the World’s Largest Lobster until China built one that is 100 tones.
A lot of people living in Shediac and in other parts of the Atlantic provinces are Acadians. Lots of history here but in a nutshell Acadians were settlers from France who came to the Maritimes and adopted their own culture and traditions. More than 10,000 people were deported to various parts of the world in 1755 when Britain and France fought for land. Later in 1763 they were allowed to return and settled in various towns in the Martimes.
Several individuals in Shediac who are highly bilingual and have Acadian French as their mother tongue but Canadian English as their first or second language speak Chiac. This is a linguistic cross between French and English where both languages alternate dynamically in the user’s speech.
Shediac opened its first lobster-processing plant in 1861. Every July, the community hosts a lobster festival where tens of thousands of lobsters are eaten. For every lobster consumed during the festival, a juvenile lobster is released into Shediac Bay. One of the most unique things about lobsters is that they never stop growing. This is because they produce a growth inducing enzyme all their lives, so a lobster’s size is directly correlated to how old it is. The largest lobster ever caught was in Nova Scotia. It weighed a whopping 44 lbs and 6 oz as was around 100 years old.
On Sunday we did a hike around the Petitcodiac River (known as the Chocolate River because of the mud) in Riverview, Moncton. The trail runs along the riverfront then across a large vehicle bridge to the other side of the river, then along part wooden walkway and trail to another vehicle bridge where you cross back over the river again. Very enjoyable walk.
The interesting thing about this river is its Tidal Bore. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon that is caused by the surging waters from the Bay of Fundy tides which are the highest tides in the world, that roar up the Petitcodiac River twice daily during the changing tides. The Tidal Bore creates a thick wave of water as it pushes more than 100 billion tons of water up the Petitcodiac River in one wave, which can vary in height from 1-24 inch.
Before the construction of the causeway in 1968, the river had one of the world’s largest tidal bores, which ranged between 3-7 ft and moved at (3-8 miles) 5-13 km per hour.
When we started out on the hike there was hardly any water in the river, but within an hour of the arrival of the Tidal Bore, the water level rose some 25 ft filling the river to its banks. After the hike we went to one of the local breweries that had a large outside dining patio. I was craving icecream so grabbed a mcflurry from mcdonalds next door and Derek had a beer.
