I don’t really understand the military value of a tug-of-war. Have opposing armies ever resolved a conflict by digging their heels into the dirt and pulling on a rope until the one side drags the other, in a jumble of tangled limbs over, an imaginary line? I remind myself not to overthink the game as I watch my two daughters, 10 and 8, dressed in full 19th-century British red-coat finery, pulling with all their might on a patch of grass in the centre of Fredericton’s Historic Garrison District. This is the final “test” in their cadet recruitment — all part of the creative “A Day a Soldier’s Life” program in the heart of Fredericton’s riverside downtown.
The fun turns a tad more serious that evening when the girls participate in the daily changing-of-the-guard ceremony. Brightly clad soldiers stomp and twirl in formation drills once performed by the 1883 Infantry School Corps, known today as the Royal Canadian Regiment. The evening ends with a show by one of Canada’s leading pipe bands — a nod to New Brunswick’s Scottish heritage.
The next morning, we trade soldiering for science with a visit to Science East. If you picture a lifetime of homemade high-school science projects, you won’t be far off the mark in visualizing this quirky attraction, housed in a repurposed former jail. The exhibits are low-tech but high on the fun-scale. Two hours into our visit, I have to pry one kid away from the “air canon” she’s using to blast smoke donuts around the room. Meanwhile, the other stands transfixed in front of an enlarged representation of a fly’s eye.
After a quick stop for ice cream served in a downtown lighthouse, we board a lazy cruise down the St. John River. Afterwards, we settle into the Delta Fredericton “urban resort.” It’s close to downtown, comes with indoor and outdoor pools, and has easy access to local walking trails.
As the sun sets and dusk turns to evening, we gather just off Fredericton’s main drag and crowd around a solitary lantern to be led on a tongue-in-cheek tour of the city’s ghostly past. A series of talented young actors from the Calithumpian Theatre Company manage to race one step ahead of our group, popping out of laneways and from behind trees in various costumes as our haunted hike bounces between historic houses, a spooky jail and the front steps of an ornate church.
Our final stop in the Fredericton area takes a retro turn as we pass the wooden gates of Kings Landing — a meticulously recreated 19th-century village that sprawls across the bucolic banks of the St. John River. I’m not surprised to see oxen tilling soil, but I confess to raising my eyebrows as we’re treated to demonstrations of a dog-powered butter churn and horse-powered saw. Later, we learn to cast nails in the blacksmith’s forge and bake a cobbler over the open-ember flames of the kitchen’s fires.
All too soon, we trade genuine horsepower for the combustible kind, piling back into our car and setting our sights eastward for the last stop on our epic road trip.
Keep your browser pointed here next month as The Crime Traveller makes a final stop on the summer slopes of Mont Tremblant, Quebec..
Edward Prutschi is a Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer. Follow Ed’s criminal law commentary (@prutschi) and The Crime Traveller’s adventures (@crimetraveller) on Twitter, read his Crime Traveller blog, or email ed@thecrimetraveller.com.
Travel support and assistance provided by Tourism New Brunswick and Visit Fredericton.