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Reversing Falls: This name is believed to have been given by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts who wrote a description of the river's reversible character in 1882.
In an 1867 plan the place is shown as Upper Falls and Lower Falls. In an 1892 guidebook they are shown as Reversible Cataract and in a 1903 Book of Saint John, they are listed as Reversing Falls.
In Micmac lore it was Glooscap who created the falls when he cleared away a dam built by enemies.
Non-believers can still see a piece of the dam, now called Partridge Island, at the mouth of the harbour.
The phenomenon happens twice daily when the rising tide in the Bay of Fundy, which is the highest in the world, forces through a narrow section of the St. John River, and reverses the normal flow of the river.

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Home of Leonard Percy DeWolfe Tilley (1870-1947) who served as premier from 1933 to 1935.
He was born in Ottawa, the son of Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley (1818-1896), premier of New Brunswick from 1861 to 1865 and 1866-1867.

Sir Samuel was a leading Father of Confederation and a federal cabinet minister from 1867-1873.



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John Babington Macaulay Baxter Sr. (1868-1946) was born in West Saint John and served as premier from 1925-1931.
He was Chief Justice from 1935 until his death.



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Birthplace of George Edwin King (1839-1901), premier from 1870-71 and 1872-78.
At age 30 he was New Brunswick's youngest premier and the only first minister to be premier on two separate occasions.



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Stompin' Tom Connors was born in Saint John in 1936 to an unwed teenager and grew up in a succession of PEI orphanages and foster homes until he ran away at the age of 15 to live the life of a drifter, working odd jobs around the country.
At the age of 28, so the story goes, a cash strapped Tom Connors walked into a bar in Timmins, Ont., and asked if he could sing for his beers.

The patrons loved his songs. The foot stomping wasn't originally a gimmick: it was so Tom could maintain a strong tempo for his guitar in the very noisy bars and beer joints where he often performed.

St. Thomas University has conferred an honourary Doctorate of Laws degree on the high school dropout.



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Dr. William Francis Ganong HISTORIAN. PROVINCIAL EXPLORER
William Ganong (1864-1941) was born in West Saint John and educated at UNB, Harvard, University of Munich and Smith College in Massachusetts.

His passion was exploring New Brunswick and keeping photos and detailed notes ofthe waterways and forests he traversed.

As frequently noted in this book, he also had a keen interest in toponymy and is credited with many place name translations to English from native languages and dialects.



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Bob Nolan MUSICAL PIONEER, MOVIE STAR
Bob Nolan (1908-1980) of Saint John formed the Sons of The Pioneers, one of country music's most enduring bands.

Nolan teamed up with Leonard Slye, better known as Roy Rogers, and in the early days of radio they had hits like Tumbling Tumbleweeds and Cool Waters.

When Rogers left the band 10 make movies with wife Dale Evans, Nolan became leader of the band but also teamed up with Rogers in 60 western movies.

In 1977 the Smithsonian Institute designated the band a "national treasure" and in 1980 it was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.



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"Silver Bill" Phillips CANADIAN BASEBALL FIRST
Bill "Silver Bill" Phillips from Saint John was the first Canadian to play Major League Baseball.

The 22-year-old made his debut in 1879 at Kennard Street Park in Cleveland playing for the Cleveland Blues, averaging .296 and leading all team regulars in his rookie season.

In 1,038 games during his 10-year career he made the league's top 10 three times for games played and had a .266 batting average.



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Walter Pidgeon BIG-TIME MOVIE STAR
Walter Pidgeon (1897-1984) was the first major motion picture star from Canada's East coast.

Starting in the early 1920s he made several silent films and then appeared in some of the first musicals, but his career didn't really catch fire until 1937 when he went to work for fellow Saint John native Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM Studios.

He received Academy Award nominations for best actor for his roles in Madame Curie and Mrs. Minniver, but is probably best remembered for his role as a crazed scientist playing opposite fellow Canadian Leslie Neilson in 1956 in Forbidden Planet.



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Harry Saltzman INTRODUCED JAMES BOND
Larry Saltzman (1915-1994) grew up in Saint John and moved to England to become a film producer.

He and his partner Albert "Cubby" Broccoli are best known for their 1962 film Dr. No which introduced James Bond to the world.

The pair co-produced eight more Bond films before Saltzman sold his share of the franchise to United Artists in 1975.

Among others, Saltzman also produced Look Back In Anger, The Ipcress File and Chilly Chitty Bang Bang


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Donald McNichol Sutherland MAJOR MOVIE STAR
So far he's appeared in more than 100 films, making him one of Canada's most recognized movie stars.

Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John in 1935 but was raised in Bridgewater, N.S.

He studied engineering and drama at the University of Toronto and then moved to England to spend several years on the London stage before making his TV debut in the spy series The Saint.

His big break came when he was cast as Hawkeye Pierce in the 1970 anti-war classic M.A.S.H. .

He's an Officer of the Order of Canada and has won an Emmy for Citizen X, a Golden Globe for Path To War and a Genie for Threshold. From 1966-1970 he was married to Shirley Douglas, daughter of Medicare's Tommy Douglas.

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Saint John City Market
at 47 Charlotte St. is a national historic site.

It's Canada's oldest continuing farmers' market, in operation since 1876. The roof is built like the inverted hull of a ship, legacy of the city's shipbuilding past.

The market is open Mon.-Sat. There's a glassed-in eating area where you can sample local and international dishes.



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The 600-acre Irving Nature Park
is minutes from the town centre town at the end of Sand Cove Road W.

The oasis of forest and marsh, beaches and trails, contains six ecosystems and a great diversity of flora and fauna.

The park contains the pre-glacial outlet of the St. John River and marine clay containing 12,000-year-old clam shells.

There are eight walking trails and a roadway that encircles the park. A boardwalk extends into the salt marsh for bird watching and harbour seals may be observed from a Seal Observation Deck.

Park staff members offer guided tours and there are picnic areas with propane barbecues.



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The New Brunswick Museum Hall of Great Whales and three-storey Tidal Tower
are only two of many attractions at 1 Market Square, open year-round. The museum, opened in 1842, is Canada's oldest museum.



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Carleton Martello Tower
at 454 Whipple St. W. was built for the War of 1812.



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Barbour's General Store at Market Slip
at Market Slip on the waterfront is a 19th-century country store stocked with 2,000 artifacts.



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Hayward China Museum
at 85 Princess St. preserves the history of the earthenware and china industry of Saint John and the development of Hayward & Warwick Co. Ltd., one of Saint John's oldest family-owned businesses.



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Loyalist House
Loyalist House at 120 Union St. is the restored 1810 home of a Loyalist family.



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Saint John Firefighters' Museum
at 24 Sydney St. is in the 2 Engine House that was built in 1840 and survived the Great Fire of 1877.



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Saint John Jewish Historical Museum at 29 Wellington Row was created in 1986 and is the only Jewish museum in Atlantic Canada.



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Cherry Brook Zoo and Vanished Kingdom Park has over 100 endangered and exotic animals and is accredited by the Canadian Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums.

The main entrance is at 901 Foster Thurston Drive in the N section of Rockwood Park, or Exit 128 from Route. 1 West or Exit 129 from Route. 1 East.

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St. John River: The Maliseet called this river Wolastoq, "the good river," and its present-day sobriquet is "Rhine of North America."
Its present name was given by the Du Gua-Champlain expedition after the date of its discovery, June 24, 1604, the feast of St. John the Baptist.

"We came upon a fine bay, running into the land, and at its head lie three islands and a rock. One of the islands was at the mouth of the largest and deepest river we had yet seen."

In 1693, Antoine Laumet a.k.a. de Lamothe Cadillac (1658-1730) made a canoe trip of "100 leagues up the St. John River."

He described it as: "the most navigable, the most favoured and the most beautiful river in all of Acadia."

The river which is 673 km long, the longest river on the eastern seaboard, rises in the State of Maine and flows NE into Madawaska C., to Edmundston, where it is joined by the Madawaska R. For the next 110 kms the river forms the international boundary between Maine and New Brunswick.

Veering slightly eastward at Grand Falls the river roughly parallels the international boundary as far as Meductic where it again flows more easterly towards Fredericton and on to Grand Lake.

From there it proceeds south to Saint John. The St. John R. drains a basin of 55,000 square kms, an area larger than Switzerland, and draws water from 14 of New Brunswick's 15 counties.

In 1992 the St. John River Society was established to "foster an appreciation of the river and its tributaries as an important and distinctive watershed; and to emphasize environmental and historical stewardship."

On June 24, 1993, the bells of 60 churches along the watershed were rung to celebrate the founding of the society. Just under half of the St. John River's watershed lies outside New Brunswick in the State of Maine and in Quebec.

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The small, rectangular territory surrounding Saint John was established as Saint John County by legislation in 1786, taking its name, as did the city, from the St. John River.


Canada's only free-standing stone spiral staircase is located in the Saint John County Court building. It was built in the early 1800s and loops from the ground floor of the building to the judges' chamber at the top.


The granite stairs were hewn from stone from Scotland. The Great Fire of 1877 swept through the building destroying everything but the walls and the staircase which since has been restored to its original state.