Some Very Nice Things About Fredericton

I spent the morning walking around downtown Fredericton. You can pretty much walk around downtown Fredericton in a morning, but there is a nifty Saturday market, full of terribly enticing baked goods, and sweaters, and fresh meats, and cured meats, and homemade cheese, and things made out of wood that you didn't know you needed until you saw them.

I sold almost all my books, and was planning to fly back light, but I will be taking back some smoked mackerel. Nice to fly without going over a border and wondering whether you're supposed to declare your sandwich.

Good call on the market, Gia! And Ralph, where did you go? I turned to buy cheese and you were gone!

The Lord Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a surprise. It has a really good collection. The pièce de résistance is a Rembrandt by Hogarth. Yep, it's a painting of one of Hogarth's friends, John Pine, in the style of Rembrandt. (Irritatingly I can't find a good color image of it on the net.) It turns out that Rembrandt was all the rage in London that year, and Hogarth thought, well, I can do that, and did. He made such a good Rembrandt out of his friend John that the painting has been sold twice as a Rembrandt. Pine's expression is a little hard to read, but once you know the story, it sure looks like he's smirking.

There are also some superb lithos by Inuit artists downstairs. I think I want to buy some Inuit lithos now.

I came out of the gallery to find the Remembrance Day parade. Fredericton was founded by Loyalist veterans of the American Revolution, settled in New Brunswick after they were kicked out of Maryland and New Jersey and New York by outraged American patriots. They take their Armistice Day seriously. We had a very moving two minutes of silence at the airport just now.

Whoops! We're boarding. Did I mention Fredericton has townwide free wireless internet?