Begin forwarded message:
From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>Subject: ST JOHN RIVER VALLEY BEFORE DAM BUILT AND AFTER 1961Date: December 19, 2022 at 7:28:31 AM ESTTo: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
EPISODE 600 Take me back to the SAINT JOHN RIVER VALLEY 1961alan skeochDec. 19,2022
Sometimes change is not such a good thing. That is what I thought
when Avul Mousuf and I ran a seismic survey up the St John River
Valley in 1961. Old farms dating back far deeper in Canadian history
than I ever thought possible. Barns filled with wooden machines that
in their time were designed to make farming easier. United Empire
Loyalits settled the valley after they were driven out of the new United
Ststes of Smeircs. Or that happened to some of them. I speculated.
Not all Loyalists. The upper part of the valley around Grand Falls
was French Canadian. The valley was not easily explained but it
was very Canadian. And it would never be the same once the
water drowned the valley.
That is what was happening when we were there. Slowly snd
steadily the river was getting wider snd deeper…becoming a lake.
This is how the St. John River Valley above Fredericton appeared to me in that summer of 1961. Like a picture postcard.Stunning in its beauty. We were agents of change.
The whole valley from Fredericton to Grand Falls was destined to become a huge lake held in place by the Mactsquak Dam.King’s Landing. Many of the historic buildings in the Valley were moved to King;s Landing which remains a mecca for tourists.That job was done a few years earlier around 1961. Actually the job was depressing because the St. John River Valley was absolutelybeautiful. To imagine it being flooded made me sad. But progress is progress. Loyalist farms had been expropriated. Their antiquetreasures were so vast that a huge historic village called King’s Landing was being constructed while we were assessing the future lake bottom. Some of these farms werestill in operation others had been demolished. One farm I remember particularly. We had rented cabins at a doomed resort near Pokiok Falls, also doomed. The weatherwas turning cool, early September, and each of us had a small wood burning stove beside our beds. In my mindI can still smell that wood fire.The barns on that farm were filled with ancient farm machines like a wooden tread mill for a horse to deliver power to a florally decorated flat to the floor threshing machine.At the time I wished I could rescue some of these implements. I hoped they would end up at King’s Landing for future tourists.alan skeoch
Dec. 22, 2022