Memories Are Made Of This ! Remember the Song ?

The ebb and flow of memories these last two months have been on even par with those of the great Fundy tides........... especially the flood tide. For example I took Fluff for a ride around the North End this morning before raiding the grocery store as a snowstorm is in the forecast for later on. We drove down Main Street to Indiantown .... my particular neck of the woods.... where she snapped the picture below showing the Saint John River .... just above the Reversing Falls.... where the old riverboats tied up in my youth. These steamers .. the Majestic and D.J. Purdy were the lifelines between the big city and rural farming communities upriver and served as pleasure boats for picknicking city folk on weekends ..... taking them out of the fog to sunnier beaches and warmer waters for swimming upstream. The electric streetcars would make a loop just below the two brick houses and return back uptown. They were retired in 1948 for busses. By the way the brick house on the left at the end of the street is called the Pidgeon House where the great Walter Pidgeon of Hollywood fame was born and raised in the early 20th century.... and the other brick building across the street housed the Mayer ( Meir ) family whose son , Louis B. , is the second M in another Hollywood institution..... MGM.... as in Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer.   

 

Then you turn right at the corner above and behold Pokiok Mountain where I was born and grew up . Our house lies just a bit below the house perched high on the cliffs..... hidden by the tall spruce. The waters below never freeze because they are tidal waters.

 

We then drove up Pokiok Road .... by the old homestead.....to dead end where I learned how to skate ..... the Twin Ponds.

From here I took Fluff out to Milledgeville ..... a bit farther upriver where two big rivers ... the Saint John and the Kennebecasis ....meet to form Grand Bay  ( see above map )........ not at all far from the Twin Ponds as the crow flies but complicated by modern roadway systems. It was here that I learned to icefish given that the Kennebecasis froze over and was not as subjected to tidal waters as the Saint John was. We could also skate for miles around during winters such as the one we are experiencing at the present moment when the river freezes up solid before the heavy snows come . I shall just add a few pics to give you some idea of the Kennebecasis at its wintry best......   a clear sheet of ice as smoothe as a bottle ! 

Goat Island above with a shear glare of ice .......and now for a few nearby icefishing shacks

And a small colony of ice fisher palaces at Renforth...

And to boot...... a small herd of deer at Ragged Point.....