CHAPTER X
THE VALLEY OF THE RIVER ST. JOHN
St. John—Fredericton—Woodstock—Grand Falls—St.
Leonards—Edmundston.
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The rail route from St. John to Fredericton is via the Canadian Pacific (66 m.) through Grand Bay, Westfield and Fredericton Junction, where the road turns north from the main line, St. John—Montreal.
The Victoria Steamship Company and the Crystal Stream Steamship Company leave on alternate week-days from Indiantown. North End, for the capital city, 84 miles up the St. John River.
The Victoria and the D. J. Purdy are moderately good river-boats, though far inferior to those found elsewhere in the world on streams of so great importance as highways of travel. The journey to Fredericton consumes about 8 hours by the Victoria, which is somewhat faster than its competitor. The noon meal served on board is rather better than those experienced—one uses the word advisedly—on most Provincial steam-boats.
The river whose flow is deepest and broadest between St. John and Fredericton has been extolled as a superior combination of the most romantic water-ways of this and other continents. It must needs be a very prodigy of a river to merit the comparisons drawn by exaggerative visitors and by native writers over zealous for the scenic fame
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