Traveling Further North on St. John River Scenic Roadways

Wednesday, May 23, 2018--Fredericton to Edmundston

Our route was shorter today, so we took our time leaving the hotel this morning.  Again, we followed riverside roadways as we continued heading northward in New Brunswick.  This time, we were following Hwy 105 most of the way.

We pulled off the road to explore the town of Woodstock, the oldest town in the province.  Then we stopped to have a picnic while facing the covered wooden bridge in Hartland--the longest covered bridge in the world.  Unfortunately, we had to eat the picnic in our car because it started raining just a few minutes before we arrived there.  Before leaving, we crossed the river on the bridge and then crossed back.

The rain only lasted about an hour, so the sun was coming out again about the time we left Hartland.  We passed another covered bridge a bit up the roadway, then we ran into another type of problem.  The roadway was under reconstruction with long stops/delays.  Rather than continuing at such a slow pace to Grand Falls where we had planned to hike the gorge and see the waterfall, we decided to backtrack to the last chance to cross the river we had passed and to continue up the expressway on the other side to Edmundston.  We figured the hiking trail through the gorge might not even be walkable with the rain that had fallen.

We are staying at another Days Inn tonight.  We rested for a couple of hours, then we drove into the city. It is right across the river from Madawaska, Maine, so we could look across to the USA.  Both towns co-exist with the same employer being the biggest employer in each town--a Canadian paper company with a pipeline that sends pulp to the mill across the river in USA that makes quality paper from it.  Together, the area has only about 20,000 residents and is losing population because it is so remote from larger metropolitan areas.