Fwd: EPISODE 700 ST JOHN RIVER VALLEY BEFORE DAM BUILT AND AFTER 1961

ERROR…THIS IS EPISODE 700

(hard to believe…700 stories since Covid 19 hit us)

EPISODE    700    Take me back to the SAINT JOHN RIVER VALLEY 1961

alan skeoch

Dec. 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 absolutely 

beautiful.   To imagine it being flooded made me sad.  But progress is  progress.   Loyalist  farms had been expropriated. Their antique 

treasures 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 were 

still 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 weather 

was 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