Fredericton

Fredericton was laid out as a garrison town in the 1780s and the Historic Garrison District keeps the officers' quarters, barracks and parade square in the middle of the city, with a changing of the guard in summer. Lord Beaverbrook, the New Brunswick-born press baron, gave the city a gallery in 1959 and stocked it with British art including Turner, Gainsborough and Freud, plus Salvador Dali's Santiago El Grande, a canvas over four metres tall showing a horse leaping into a vaulted sky, which he bought and gave to the province. The Saint John River runs through with a rail trail bridge crossing it.

History

There is archaeological evidence of a camp here 12,000 years ago, and the Wolastoqiyik farmed several kilometres upriver; French colonists built Fort Nashwaak across the river in the late 1600s as the capital of Acadia, and Acadians settled the site as Pointe Ste-Anne in 1713. Modern Fredericton began with the arrival of the Loyalists from New England in 1783: the next year New Brunswick became its own colony and the renamed Fredericstown, after Frederick, second son of George III, became its capital, laid out on a grid of streets named Charlotte, Brunswick, George, King and Queen, and it was a British garrison town from 1784 to 1869 (Wikipedia, Fredericton).

What you'll find

• Santiago El Grande - a monumental Dali canvas in the Beaverbrook gallery.
• The Garrison District - barracks, guardhouse and parade square in the centre.
• The Beaverbrook collection - Turner, Gainsborough, Freud and British art.
• The river trail - a walking and cycling bridge over the Saint John.

When to go

May to October for the garrison programme and the outdoor life; the gallery is open year-round and closes Mondays in low season. The Harvest music festival is in September.

Good to know

The changing of the guard and garrison programming are summer only. The gallery is modest in size though strong in quality. The city is small and quiet.

Nearby

Kings Landing lies west; Hartland is northwest.

Key facts