CP Rail's McAdam Train Station
The current station was built in 1900 when CP completed their "short route" from Montreal to St John, NB. Passing through Maine, this was CP Rail's only access into the Maritimes. Originally a component of the New Brunswick Railway, it became part of the CP Rail empire. In its heyday, McAdam saw 14 passenger trains and 36 freight trains every day. As it was a division point where crews changed, there was a slight delay. This allowed passengers to get a bite to eat in the station restaurant(s).
If you were staying overnight, or were waiting between trains (and you were important enough), you could eat in the private dining room.
And if you only had 30 minutes while your train was serviced, you could grab a soup and sandwich on the fly. With the changing times, the large dining room was converted to a 1950s "W-shaped" lunch counter which allowed the largest amount of seating with the easiest access to the customers by the waitresses. This dining room had been restored to its 1950s decor, complete with the old Wurlitzer juke box.
In 1996 the Town of McAdam took over the ownership of the station which was ultimately transferred to a non-profit corporation with charitable tax status. Room by room, the ground floor of the station has been restored to what you see in these photos.
The community has raised over $350,000 with matching grants of $1.3 million! Their most recent grant was in 2010 when the McAdam Station Historical Commission obtained a grant of $760,000 under "Canada's Economic Action Plan" program.
During our visit, the various rooms were occupied by a meeting of teachers who were there for orientation and training sessions. The station is open from March to December with major events at least twice a month. These range from "Railway Pie" nights, roast beef dinners, bus tours, Christmas dinners, and other events. Up to that point, they had had about 10,000 visitors. At $5.00 admission, that's $50,000 in admission revenues alone! The person in the black shirt sitting in the midst of us is no less than the mayor of McAdam, Frank Carroll, who talked to us for at least 30 minutes about the history and stories of the station.
Trains still run on both sides of the station as parts of CP Rail's network and "short route" are owned by New Brunswick Southern Railway and other railway subsidiaries of the Irving group of companies.
On To St Andrew's And A Spring Tide Tour
We left McAdam after lunch and made our way towards St Andrew's and the St Croix River. It was here in 1604 on the Island of St Croix that Pierre Dugas Sieur Des Monts, along with Samuel De Champlain, established the first white settlement in Canada. Unfortunately it was a very bad experience as the island was too small, didn't have enough fire wood or game to eat, and there were large ice jams in the river which kept them trapped on the island. Of the 79 men who landed on the island, 35 died of scurvy before the winter was ended and a further 20 were near death. The following year, the settlement was moved to Port Royal in the Annapolis Basin of Nova Scotia.
We next toured St Andrew's going out onto the boat dock and then sitting down in a restaurant overlooking the water where I sucked back a couple of diet Coke's.
We then trekked our way down to the blockhouse to the picnic tables on the deck of the restaurant where Gordon and his friend, Melanie, joined us for nice leisurely dinner after a difficult afternoon of taking in the scenery on this hot (but breezy) sunshiny day. (Life is tuff, eh!)
We were in for a special treat this evening as it was the day of the monthly Spring tide - the lowest tide of the month in the Bay of Fundy. Tides in the Bay of Fundy are world-renowned for their dramatic heights and depths. This tide would uncover an addition 40'-50' of seabed - well below the rockweed which is where the tides usually stop for the other 30 days of the month.
Mel is a young marine biologist at Mount Allison University who was just finishing up her Masters of Science, having completed a most interesting thesis on shellfish predators right in St Andrews. Right after the tide hit its lowest point at 18:58, we were on the beach at 19:15 walking down to the water's edge.
As we walked towards the rockweed (large boulders covered in seaweed), Mel quickly raced ahead and rapidly lifted the strands of rockweed.
As she combed the rockweed, you could hear a whole bunch of clack-clack-clacking noises. Her hand darted in quickly and came up with a beautiful prize - a large green crab tenaciously holding on to a bit of seaweed. Ain't that a beautiful specimen! You can see its two eyes glaring at us in anger at being disturbed.
Soon we were lifting up the edges of the rock weed (..... well...... some of us were......) seeking out the green crabs.
It was then on to the next marine specimen - some mussels, all in a bed of sand - only you couldn't see the sand as the mussels were all over the place.
A large "tuyot de dechets" (sewer pipe) snaked down from the shoreline and out into the middle of the water like a super-sized garden hose. Underneath the pipe was a treasure trove a marine life.
I always remember the green sea urchins from our trips to Hants Harbour, Nfld, where the kids would pick up the sea urchins and the star fish from the sea bed at the end of their grandfather's "boat dock". They'd climb down the rickety "ladder" that reinforced the boat dock made out of slab-wood picked up from Len's sawmill. Reaching down into the water at low tide, they'd come up with a few sea urchins, starfish, and possibly a rock crab.
Here's a couple of nice-sized sea urchins. They move their spines to keep their predators at bay while they climb over the detruitous of the sea bed and keep it clean.
We soon noticed round circles all around us in the sand. I quickly recognized these as sand dollars. We had been stepping on them as we made our way towards the pipe. The last time I had seen sand dollars was in Florida around Tampa Bay.
A most enjoyable outing, fer shur!! This has all been very difficult to take!!
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