Fredericton

For anyone visiting Fredericton, the Beaverbrook Museum is a must see and after a late start (we are getting pretty tired after six weeks on the road) that is where we began. Like Harvard’s Fogg Museum, the collection reflects one man’s tastes. He collected some basic early European art (there is a stunning portrait of a woman by Cranach), and a much better collection of late 19th century, early 20th century mostly English and American art and Canadian art. Apparently this was all gathered with the idea of leaving it to his hometown, where, today, he is a hero.

After that we spent much of the rest of day wandering through Fredericton’s historic district and along the Saint John River.

Christ Church Cathedral. Unfortunately this neo-Gothic revival gem was not open for viewing

A few images:

A rather lovely house across the street

Provincial building

Garrison

The garrison in the background, Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken) to the left. I liked the cannon in the foreground since one historian puts responsibility for British entry into World War I on him.

When knighted, Aitken took as his title Beaverbrook to honor his homeland and the brooks he played in as a child in Canada.

When I first took this image I did so because I rather liked the French Second Empire building, only as I edited the picture did I realize that this is a textbook case of how NOT to add on to an historic building.