Day Fifty Three
It’s interesting when you look at the population densities across Canada. Alberta is approximately the size of 661,000 square km, and has a population of 4.4 million people. Calgary occupies about 825 square km of land and has a population of 1.3 million. New Brunswick has a land mass of 72,908 square kilometres and has a population of 775,000 people. In comparison, Calgary’s 825 square kilometres has more people than all of New Brunswick.
The morning showed lots of promise for fantastic day of hot weather. Lori and I coated ourselves with suntan lotion, and then bug spray for the day, better living through chemicals!…. I wonder if we will have environmental suits some day that we can just zip on instead of putting chemicals all over our bodies.
Our first stop of the day was the Wilson’s Point Historic Site. The site was above our campground, and right on the point where the Miramichi and Oxbow rivers joined. It is believed the site is one of the first English settlements in Canada, dating back to the 1790’s, nothing remains of the town now. Today the Scottish society manages the historical site and have erected a replica of the church that was once there. There is a small wharf where the original ferry dock was constructed. This ferry was the primary gateway the both banks of the river. Further down the trail, you came the the towns original cemetery. The cemetery is approximately two hundred and forty years old. The trails around the cemetery were well maintained and taken care of. The trail lead to the bank of the river, at one point a large eagle swooped out of the tree above us and glided our over the river, below the tree, it had left us a snack.
From there, we headed north to Miramichi to explore the town and walk along the Ritchie Wharf. The smell of the river had the distinct fishy scent of the ocean and was the colour of beef broth. A sign on the wharf said no swimming! I agreed with it. By mid afternoon we headed home to the puppies.
