Saint John River, New Brunswick Ca.

W

Will-C

New member
Hello,
We are planning a trip to go up the Saint John river in New Brunswick, Ca. from the city of Saint John which is on the Bay of Fundy to Grand Lake, Fredrickton the provincial capital and maybe beyond. Have any C-Brats traveled this river? I wondered about what recommended services where available along the route. They say it's like the Rhine of North America. I know they have a set of reversing falls you have to wait to go thru at slack tide. I wondered if anyone had any info on the area. I don't think that Active Captain covers this area yet. I will probably spring for a C-map chart CD so I use it with our Coastal Explorer software. I did not see any guide books covering this river. Thank you in advance.
D.D.
 
Looks interesting. I just viewed it on both Google maps and on Active Captain. Active Captain has quite a few "flags" showing, but it may not give you the information you need for the reversing tides. I emailed Active Captain one time asking when they were going to get some information on an area. They pointed out that the info comes from the users like us, not from them. So, do it and earn some points.

Chuck
 
This is some of the info on the area. I think the Bay Of Fundy has 60' tides. We have a customer in St. John so we can get info from them, but I wondered why more folks are not familar with this river as it looks like it might be more fun then some of the Canadian canal trips. They say you cans see it pretty well in a weeks time. It is protected so not much rough water to be seen. And no speed restrictions as are in the canals. It looks like somewhere above or beyond Fredrickton there is a power plant that separates the upper and lower river sections. Here is some more info on the river. Current exchange rate 1.0414 100 dollars U.S. equals 104.14 in Canadian dollars. :thup

The Saint John River (French: Fleuve Saint-Jean) is a river, approximately 418 miles (673 km) long, located principally in the Canadian province of New Brunswick but also in, and arising from the province of Quebec and the U.S. state of Maine. It forms part of the Canada – United States border in two different places along its length. The river drains an area of approximately 55,000 square kilometres (21,000 sq mi), of which slightly more than half is located in New Brunswick. Along that portion of the Atlantic shoreline of North America that lies between the St. Lawrence River and the Mississippi River, the Saint John River is the second longest waterway; only the Susquehanna is longer. The lower section of the Saint John River (extending from Fredericton to the City of Saint John) is nicknamed the "Rhine of North America" in reference to its popularity for recreational boating. The head pond of the river is located in Mactaquac, New Brunswick and is very popular for boating, water skiing and swimming.
D.D.
 
I checked Active Captain and when I zoom in on the river, no data is displayed for the river (No maps for this area message) but great map detail for the Bay

Does this happen on your PC?
 
I must have done something different today as I went on Active captain today and it showed markers from the city of Saint John all the way up to Fredrickton. I can get a C-Map charts thru Coastal Explorer or other vendors which will include the river's charts and tide tables for the river along with current weather etc. as long as I have internet up there. Which is bummer as I know Verizon will give me a real good deal on my cell modem use in Canada. :amgry
D.D.
 
DD,
Rick and I were looking at this trip a year or so ago and had started to do some prliminary planning until the regional group decided to do Moosehead Lake and Jonesport. Any thing I have is at home (working now) but you might try contacting Rick. The reversing falls give you about 30 min of enough slack to go through and are in a definitely deep canyon on each side. There are various marinas and yacht clubs and anchorages in Active Captain. Fredericton is the upper limit unless you pull out and put back in above the damn. It's a long tow up there but then you've got the rig for that! Have been jealous of your Florida adventures! Don't forget your passports.
 
I have a long time customer in Saint John that I have never met. We started dealing with him in Clinton years as they relaxed trade barriers with products going into Canada NAFTA. He has a business in Saint John and and is a boater owning both a sail boat and a Boston Whaler.I can probably write off some of the expenses as a business trip. :roll: He recommended that we do the trip so that's what started me poking around. I think he can arrange rig storage etc. I did not want to be totally reliant on him for all needed information. Our dance card is full at the moment for this year and the western or gulf side of Florida calls us for early next year probably in April. I promised Ginny a trip from Vancouver down the California coast so next year looks bleak also for a Candian trip. We had a really nice trip to Florida this year spending some of the time with Mike and Jess. Dun and Becky had taken a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale and grabbed a rental car and came down to visit with us in our slips in Key Largo after they returned. One of these days I'm going to head up to the Saint John as it looks like a great place for a cruise. Good to hear from you. We will let you and Rick know if we put anything together for a Saint John's river cruise.
D.D.
 
DD if you want any info on attractions, accommodations, services, etc. you can contact TOURISMNEWBRUNSWICK.CA they will be happy to mail you a ton of info.
I was down there in 2000 - but not with my boat. The farthest east i've been with it is the St. Lawrence River around Gananoque.
Some areas of New Brunswick are predominately French - a few places (restaurants, etc.) we had to resort to pointing at the menu! :lol:
Anyway whenever you decide to make the trip - welcome to Canada.
Regards, Rob
 
The main issue is that the Canadian government won't allow us to display Canadian charts without a large fee. When I negotiated with CHS they wanted $60,000 upfront and $200 per user who accessed their charts. That's a pretty hard license to swallow when the website is free.

There is data up there - we could use more. There's even a hazard about the reversing falls with some local knowledge about getting through it:
https://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=45.258357&lon=-66.085553&t=h&z=13

In general, stay in Hybrid, Map, and Satellite modes to view the background map data under our markers. I noticed that we have a smattering of marinas and some anchorages further up the river:
https://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=45.556223&lon=-65.977947&t=h&z=11

It could definitely use more eyes/props/handwriting to fill get some real local knowledge there.
 
Thanks for the replies, After some discussion we hope to try and do this trip next summer in July or August. I'd like to make a couple weeks of it. Hopefully Jeff we can add a lot of new info about the area to the Active Captain data base and score on a free active captain hat. I'll take along a French /English phrase book. It looks like according to Mapquest it's 700 miles from our house to the city of Saint John. :idea I guess will will have to stop in Portland for some chowdah on the way up. It appears that a C-Map chart M NA M0 26.14 covers the Great lakes and the Bay of Fundy with parts north that include the Saint John river.
D.D.
 
The C map chart for the area has been updated to a new chart number M NA MO 26.20
it covers some of the northern east coast Great Lakes and the bay of Fundy area.
D.D.
 
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