Thursday

Today we woke up to the sun shining in our windows. It was absolutely perfect. We headed north along the north coast of New Brunswick and our fist stop was at Middle Island Irish Historical Park in Miramichi. This island is where Irish immigrants fled to when they were faced with the potato famine in their country. The Irish depended on the potato as a main food source. It was not uncommon for them to have potatoes three times a day.  When the potatoes became diseased, families all over Ireland were faced with famine.  With little or no money and no food they lined up at the shipyards to flee to a better land.  They were offered to bunk in the cavities of the ships hull, crammed in like cattle.  With no bedding, sanitation or fresh air a fatal fever soon took over and ravaged the journey. The ships headed to the nearest port in hopes of aid to relieve the sickness. If you want to read more about what happened to these people you can look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looshtauk

From there it's off to Bathurst the next major town along the way.  On our way to Bathurst we picked up a hitchhiker. He was so happy running up to the bus knowing he had a ride but he was quickly overcome with amazement when he saw Melkie open the door.  He happened to be heading to Bathurst.  On the way he told us some of the history of Bathurst and of the Brunswick Mines.  In 1953 they discovered the underground wealth of zinc, lead and copper.  By 1964 they had opened the Brunswick Mines mining lead and zinc but the most valuable was never mined. They closed the mine in 2013. Now I don't know if this next part is true but he told us that the next guy who bought the mine filled it with garbage. He used the mine shafts and the silos to store as much garbage as he could. Soon the local water was contaminated.  Wow! What a story! I really hope this isn't true! When we arrived in Bathurst we saw them demolishing the silos. We decided to stay the night here we just wont't drink the water!