Moncton is the largest city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic center of the Maritime Provinces. The city has earned the nickname “Hub City” due to its central inland location in the region and its history as a railway and land transportation hub for the Maritimes. The city was named for Lt. Col. Robert Monckton, the British officer who had captured nearby Fort Beauséjour a century earlier. A significant wooden shipbuilding industry had developed in the community by the mid-1840s, allowing for the civic incorporation in 1855.
The sculpture above and below commemorates the founding of Moncton by providing a list of all the mayors from the beginning to the present.
A nearby historic building has been adapted into a museum about the founding and features of the area, and general tourist information.
In addition to this early regional transportation foundation for the community, we were attracted to see the local tidal bore, a regularly occurring wave that travels up the river on the leading edge of the incoming tide. The tidal bore has its own commemoration in the sense that the setting has been arranged so that people can watch this twice a day occurrence from this sidewalk balcony or from the stepped seating just off to the left. In this first photo the bore has not yet come around the bend of the river.
The bore is as a result of the extreme tides of the Bay of Fundy. Originally, the bore was very impressive, sometimes between 3 feet 6 feet in height and extending across the half mile width of the Petitcodiac River in this area. This wave would occur twice a day at high tide, travelling at an average speed of 8 mph and producing an audible roar. So we came back a little later when the tide arrived,
only to discover that modern life has changed things. Unsurprisingly, the original “bore” became a very popular early tourist attraction for the city, but when the Petitcodiac causeway was built in the 1960s, the river channel quickly silted in and reduced the bore so that it rarely exceeds 6 to 8 inches in height (as above). Kind of boring – but it did get us down to the river to appreciate the setting at a lovely time of day.
This view does also show the significant difference between low water (above) and the top of the bank to which the high water rises. The change is now a relatively calm process (except under unusual climatic conditions) but it’s still an impressive amount of water that moves in and out every six hours.
After all that drama we decided to walk downtown and find some dinner. Downtown buildings reflect the success of Moncton as a major regional center.
In 1871, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada had chosen Moncton to be its headquarters, and Moncton remained a railway town for well over a century until the closure of the Canadian National Railway (CNR) locomotive shops in the late 1980s.
Although the economy of Moncton was traumatized twice—by the collapse of the shipbuilding industry in the 1860s and by the closure of the CNR locomotive shops in the 1980s—the city was able to rebound strongly on both occasions. The city adopted the motto Resurgo after its rebirth as a railway town. The city’s economy is stable and diversified, primarily based on its traditional transportation, distribution, retailing, and commercial heritage, and supplemented by strength in the educational, health care, financial, information technology, and insurance sectors. The strength of Moncton’s economy has received national recognition and the local unemployment rate is consistently less than the national average. The City Hall below gives a sense of how Moncton continues to modernize and hold a strong regional presence.
But we were on a food mission and decided to give the Tide & Board a try.
It turned out to be a good choice.
Then we headed back to our B&B, a comfortable stay (hidden in the trees on the lower right) in a comfortable neighborhood of many styles.
Next: The Bay of Fundy
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