Teddy Bears

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CBC PEI, Fredericton, life, New Brunswick, pumpkin, Teddy, vacation, Weather

Well according to our local weather guy, who by the way is always wrong about the weather, we were promised a Tsunami-Hurricane Weather bomb with this Teddy thing, what was it again? Oh yes some rain and a little wind. Not impressed with CBC PEI weather Jay Scotland.

Tomorrow I give a short talk on Canada’s role in the Middle East and specifically on Palestine and Israel. I did spend 8 years in the region and worked on those issues so … I will give them an historical perspective starting with Moses and the Promise Land to today, sort of a world wind tour of the situation and how Canada is saving the day.

I like a lot of people have been suffering from anxiety and sleeping poorly, this Covid thingy is not helping at all, I have suffered from anxiety all my life but I just find now that with age it is getting worse. My doctor is going to recommend some medication to help alleviate the symtoms.

I am going on a diet because this idleness is not helping my waist line and Mr Will is a very good cook and he has been baking and cooking days on end. I will have to bring out my Italian diet that I followed successfully in Rome. Not difficult to follow simply requires some discipline on portions and some exercise, no I do not have to join a gym.

I wonder did I buy to many pumpkins for this year’s Oktoberfest? I was just going to buy one or two for the porch, I may have gotten over zealous in my shopping.

Fredericton

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Beaverbrook, Food, Fredericton, New Brunswick, PEI

This week we are travelling to Fredericton, the Capital of the Province of New Brunswick. It is about 4 hours away from Charlottetown, PEI. The Maritimes has a strong connection to Germany with nameplace and New England with the arrival of thousands of Loyalists who fled the civil war and revolution in 1776. Fredericton has a population of 60,000 people, it is the seat of the Legislature and of the Lieutenant Governor. It started as a garrison town, first under the French regime and then under the British.p

Fredericton is name for:

Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany KG GCB GCH (Frederick Augustus; 16 August 1763 – 5 January 1827) was the second son of George III , King of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Hanover, and his consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. A soldier by profession, from 1764 to 1803 he was Prince-Bishop of Osnabruck (near Munster) in the Holy Roman Empire. From the death of his father in 1820 until his own death in 1827 he was the Heir Presumptive to his elder brother, George IV, in both the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Kingdom of Hanover.

Frederick was thrust into the British Army at a very early age and was appointed to high command at the age of thirty. As Commander-in-Chief during the Napoleonic Wars, he oversaw the re-organisation of the British Army, establishing vital structural, administrative and recruiting reforms.

At one time prior to 1784, Nova Scotia comprised PEI and New Brunswick. It was one large British colony in Atlantic Canada. The territory was carved up later for administrative reasons. New Brunswick became a colony in 1784 and later a Province of Canada in 1867.

The name of the Province New Brunswick was given in 1784 to the territory in honour of King George III who was also Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg in Lower Saxony in Germany. The population of the Province is 780,000.

New Brunswick is often thought of as a place you drive through on your way to somewhere else. It borders Maine, Nova Scotia, Quebec and PEI. The original inhabitants where the Mi’k Maq and as of 1604 the French settlers arrived known as Acadians. Today New Brunswick is the only Official Bilingual (French-English) Province in Canada. The Acadians represent one third of the population. Two families dominate and control the economy, the Irvings and the McCains. The first time I drove through the province in 2016, I was coming from Ottawa, following the highway I arrived at Edmundston and started seeing on the highway signs warning of Moose crossing and giving a phone number to call if you saw any Moose on the highway. High fences were also placed on the side of the road to keep the Moose off the road. It is always better to drive in N.B. in daytime and avoid driving around sunset and at night, a crash with a moose is usually deadly.

Fredericton is known for many things, but one is the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, created by Max Aitken Lord Beaverbrook, a businessman from New Brunswick who became a close confident of Winston Churchill and owner of a chain of British newspapers. He was very influential in Britain and Canada and because of his humble origins and his willy ways was detested by some Courtiers at Buckingham Palace and some in the Government establishment. In Canada Beaverbrook is sort of a legend and so is his wife who outlived him and was every inch the Upper class doyenne. There are lots of stories about her and how people knew how demanding she could be, but Lady Beaverbrook was tenacious.

New Brunswick is also known for its good restaurants and markets, scenic spots and beautiful national parks and the famous tides of the Bay of Fundy.

So a few days in Fredericton and surrounding area to see something new.

Something I learned today

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Acadians, Cape Breton, Christmas, Holiday, Mi'k Maq, native, New Brunswick, New Year, Nova Scotia

The Maritime Provinces of Canada are part of what is the ancestral homeland of the Mi’k Maq people. CBC PEI interviewed Elder Bernie Francis who was raised in Membertou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and asked him how do you say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in the Mi’k Maq language. Elder Francis is a linguist and he explained how it came about. The two holidays are foreign to the Mi’k Maq people and in living alongside French Acadian settlers they came in contact with the celebration of Christmas and New Year. They simply used their own words to do a simple translation into their language.

Per example seeing Midnight Mass, the Mi’k Maq of Nova Scotia will say Etawey Wli Nipi Alasutman or Happy Midnight Prayer, while their cousins in New Brunswick will say Wli Newelewin based on the French saying of Joyeux Noël.

As for New Year seeing the French say to them Bonjour, Bonne Année and extending their hand to shake the Mi’k Maq simply translated it into  Pusu’l Punane. The Mi’k Maq are all around us here in the Maritime Provinces and their ancient history mixed in with the Acadians in the 17th Century.

A fun fact to learn.

The road trip

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Acadians, Edmundston, Fredericton, Highway 20, Lévis, New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec, Temiscouata

I do not do road trips, since I do not enjoy driving that much outside the City. In the city we live near shops, so we can walk. In this case with the move I had to drive to Charlottetown from Ottawa, crossing several Canadian Provinces to get there. The road all along is the Trans-Canada Highway and is an easy drive with beautiful scenery. The highway from Rivière du Loup on the Saint Lawrence river which at that point is so broad that you cannot see the other side, to Edmundston in New Brunswick is really glorious passing by Lake Temiscouata. The highway which is only a few years old passes high on the ridge so you can admire the panorama. There is also a fence all along to prevent herds of Moose from  crossing  the road, special tunnels under the road allows them to move across in safety, warnings all along to watch out at night when this is likely to occur. You should dial 511 if you see a moose who has cross the fence or is on the road. These animals weight upwards of 3 tons, you do not want to hit one. This is an area sparsely populated and with few service stations, so fuel up and keep your tank full the next gas station could be 70 Km away. I never let the tank to go pass half full and was doing 6.5 Km per litre of gas.

We stopped in Edmundston on the way to Charlottetown. Ottawa-Edmundston is about 8 hours of driving, I was very tired but had a second driver with me, an old friend who also took the wheel. I discovered while stopping at a gas station to fuel up in New Brunswick that you can buy hard liquor, beer and wine, the last time I saw that was in Texas. In Quebec you can buy beer and wine, in Ontario it is simply not allowed to sell any alcoholic drinks.

Edmundston is on the border with Maine, the border is just across the river St-John. The area is called the Republic of Madawaska, the story is about complicated negotiations between the USA Government and the British Government about the exact border between the two countries which were established in the latter part of the 19th century. In the end the population led by an American by the name of Baker established in name this Republic.

Edmundston is a small town of 16,000 people with pulp and paper mill and lots of cross-border trade with the USA. We found a good pub and had a nice meal.  Edmundston is named after Governor General Edmund Walker Head who was the Head of the Royal Government in Canada prior to Confederation in 1867. The population is 95% French speaking Acadians.

The ride to Charlottetown the next day to PEI is 5 hours, easy ride by-passing  Fredericton, the Capital of New Brunswick and then Moncton to the sea bridge to PEI. Once the bridge is crossed you are minutes away from Charlottetown.

I always have to remember once in Charlottetown to slow down to 30Km or less, you cannot drive fast because you will overshoot your destination easily, also pedestrians have priority always.

The ride back was uneventful, we drove to Lévis which is across the Saint-Lawrence from Quebec City. My ancestors settled there around 1662 in the St-Romuald area. Had not been there in many decades and was surprised to see how affluent and developed it has become, no longer a farming community.

The driving portion of the Trans-Canada Highway 20 between Drummondville and Montreal is unpleasant on week days because of all the big transport trucks, dozens of them in the right lane, you have to be vigilant. Lots of police patrol also to check on speeding.

All in all a good trip to open up the apartment and organize things. Oh, did I mention I manage to get invited to two cocktail parties while in Charlottetown, loads of fun.

At the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre of the Arts, late night party