22 - Campbellton, New Brunswick

Wednesday, August 2nd - Yesterday we left PEI and headed to Quebec City.  However, it is too far to drive in one day so we stopped in Campbellton, NB which is at the top of New Brunswick and just across the river from Quebec Provence.  We are spending 2 nights here, that will give us a day to relax, do a little bit of grocery shopping and do some laundry before hitting the big cities of Quebec, Montreal and Toronto which are next on our agenda.

This is a great campground.  This is only its second year of operation so everything is squeaky clean and works like it is supposed to.  We are right on the Restigouche river which is the border between Quebec and New Brunswick and also forms the southern boundary of Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula.  Right across the river is the village of Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec.

The Restigouche River is world-renowned for its Atlantic Salmon fishery and fish weighing 20 - 30 pounds are common with 40 pound fish caught occasionally.  It is limited to fly-fishing only and there are a number of very exclusive and expensive fishing lodges located along the river.  Among the VIPs who have been guests at the river's fishing lodges include the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, Hubert Humphrey, Ted Williams, Bing Crosby, Norman Schwarzkopf and George H. W. Bush, to name but a few.

One thing that was curious is that the city and most of its main streets have Scottish names yet just about everyone we ran into spoke French.  Turns out that the area was settled around 1700 by French traders and then a lot of Acadians moved here after the loss of Fort Louisbourg in 1758.  It was also here that the Battle of Restigouche took place in 1760 .  This was the final naval battle of the Seven Years' War and sealed the loss of North America for the French.  Starting in 1769, Scottish fishermen, traders and businessmen settled in the area.  From 1760 to 1833 the settlement went through a series of names such as; Pointe-des-Sauvages, Pointe-Rochelle and Martin's Point before Scottish businessman Robert Ferguson provided it with its present name, Campbellton, in honor of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Archibald Campbell.

Another curious thing I ran into was that even though Canada is on the metric system, all of the pricing of groceries in the local supermarket was in dollars per pound not dollars per kilogram.

Here is a photo of our rig set up at this campground.

And a photo of the campground.

Here is a photo of the river and the bridge that crosses over to Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec.

And the church in that town.

We looked west-north-west across the river so we got to see some really nice sunsets like this one.

Tomorrow we continue on our way to Quebec City.