Saint John City Market

Saint John's City Market is one of the Port City's more well-known attractions, and has been on my to-do list for almost four years. I was really excited, then, to get the opportunity to peruse it one afternoon. The Market is located in Uptown Saint John, near to most of the city's other attractions, and attached by pedways to Brunswick Square and Market Square malls. The Market itself consists of a series of stalls selling mostly food, groceries, and snacks. You'll find some good souvenirs-maple products, blueberry products, and wine, for example. There's also an assortment of snack food and restaurants where you can grab lunch. One thing you'll find a lot of in the Market is samosas-which have taken off all over New Brunswick. Overall, the Market is a perfect place to visit as part of a day in Saint John-whether for lunch, souvenirs, or just a walk through.

The New Brunswick Museum

Those of you who've been following the blog will remember that, a few weeks ago, I posted a list of places in NB I hoped to get to visit this summer. Well, as luck would have it I caught a ride to Saint John to check out a few of those places this week, giving me an opportunity to give you full reviews for several of these places. I'll start out with a review of the New Brunswick Museum, located in the Market Square Mall in Uptown Saint John. The Museum spans three floors-the main floor has several exhibits devoted to the industrial history of New Brunswick, with focuses on forestry and shipbuilding. The second floor focuses on the environment, with exhibits on geology and on whales. The third floor features art, including a painng gallery and Mi'kmaw and Wolastoq (Maliseet)pottery. Prices are affordable, staff are friendly, and the museum is centrally located. It will take about an hour to an hour and a half to see everything in detail. The New Brunswick Museum has some strong points-forestry and shipbuilding were both of high importance to New Brunswick's development, and it does a good job of demonstrating this. The art section does a good job of explaining the basics of several art movements in the Maritimes. The Museum's gift shop is also particularly good, with a wide selection of books covering a variety of New Brunswick related topics, and a selection of art, maple products etc. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed by the lack of background information-the Museum doesn't (as far as I could find, and I did look) cover the history of New Brunswick's different cultural groups, the founding of the province, or its participation in Confederation in any meaningful way, and there was very minimal acknowledgement of Aboriginal Cultures. I also found some of the exhibits a little difficult to follow, assuming that visitors already know the background information necessary to understand. Overall, the New Brunswick Museum is a good addition to a day (or half-day) spent in Uptown Saint John for anyone interested in NB's industrial history; the gift shop is also an excellent spot for people looking for a book about or craft from NB. That being said, the New Brunswick Museum by itself won't suffice for a comprehensive overview of the province's history and cultures.