We had a full schedule of things to see in Fredericton so we headed out early starting in Le Jardin Botanique de Fredericton (Fredericton Botanical Garden). It was a huge open park. We read the map wrong, which led us down a steep utility trail that we thought about returning without seeing any gardens. At the bottom of the hill, we discovered the south entrance and another map. Finally, we understood where we were and followed the correct path to the flowering beds.
Behind the "Ferns and Fiddleheads" was a noisy bog. After a few moments, we spotted a half dozen croaking frogs and some bonus dragonflies.
The uphill climb back to our car was not as bad as we imagined on the winding garden path as we logged about 4,000 steps before 9:30 in the morning.
Next, we toured the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, or what we would call the Capitol Building.
Our docent, Max, was a political science major finishing his degree. His first question - English or French? Three Canadians from Ontario and New Brunswick joined us and we all chose English (which I suspect was his language of choice). It was clear he enjoyed his role as a tour guide as he gave us all sorts of insight into the history of the New Brunswick government. In the lobby, he related a story of rambunctious kids who, left unsupervised, had used the painting for archery target practice when it hung in the lieutenant governor's (their dad) residence in the 1800s.
Most of the desks in the legislative chamber were original (over 200 years old.) The previous house had a fire that was confined to the second floor, so much of the furniture was saved.
Up the cantilevered staircase we reached the gallery where, if the assembly had been in session, we could have watched the proceedings.
Max gave us some history about the two chandeliers. A hand winch originally lowered each for maintenance. They were replaced by an electric winch that, on its first use, failed to stop on its way back up. The chandelier broke loose and crashed onto the desks below. Fortunately, the manufacturer still had replacements for much of the glass and they were able to rework the brass restoring it to like new condition. They reinstalled the manual winches still used today.
New Brunswick owns a complete set of 16 illustrated Audubon bird volumes worth an estimated $22 million. Nice appreciation since they bought them for $800 originally.
Directly across the street was the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. This was a nice surprise and one of the finest galleries we have visited.
Some of our favorite paintings are captioned below.
A Passing Storm (1876)
by Jacques-Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)
oil on canvas
Karen Kain (1980)
Andy Worhol (1928-1987)
screen print with diamond dust on paper
Overfalls (2023)
Michael Smith
acrylic on canvas
San Vigllio, Lake Garda (1913)
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
oil on canvas
Santiago El Grande (1967)
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
13 feet tall oil on canvas
We spent more than two hours enjoying the many rooms of the museum and this blog only includes a small fraction of the pictures we captured.
We returned to the campground where our Wagon masters and Tail gunners treated us to a fantastic dinner of salad, pulled pork, baked beans, and chocolate eclair cake for dessert, Yum!
