| Some 70km north of Fredericton, BOIESTOWN was once a rowdy loggers'
settlement whose drunken "goings-on" inspired the region's balladeers -
"If you're longing for fun and enjoyment, or inclined to go out on a
spree, come along with me to Boiestown, on the banks of the Miramichi".
The Woodmen's Museum , beside Hwy 8 (May-Sept daily 9am-5pm; $5),
recalls these rougher days beginning with a pair of large huts jam-packed
with loggers' artefacts, from all sorts of strange-looking tools to
fascinating photographs of the men floating the logs downstream. There
are more intimate exhibits too: the loggers collected resin from spruce
trees, chewed it until it was smooth and sweet and then placed it in "gumbooks",
a couple of which are on display, to give to their kids back home. After
the huts, it only takes a few minutes to wander the rest of the site,
where there's an incidental assortment of old lumber-industry buildings,
including a sawmill, pitsaw, an earthy bunkhouse and cookhouse, and a
fire tower. For some obscure reason, an old and well-built fur-trapper's
cabin has ended up here as well, and a small train, the Whooper ($2),
runs round the edge of the museum.
DOAKTOWN , 20km further down the valley, is a favourite spot for
fishermen, who congregate here to catch the Atlantic salmon as it
struggles up the Miramichi, one of its major spawning rivers, on the
last leg of its complex life cycle. Early each spring, thousands of tiny
Atlantic salmon emerge from pea-sized orange eggs deposited in the
riverbed the previous autumn. These young fish - or fry - soon acquire
dark markings and are then known as parr . The parr remain in the river
for two to six years (determined by water temperature and the
availability of insects and other aquatic food) before a springtime
transformation when their internal systems adapt for saltwater life and
they turn silver, becoming smolt . It seems that the odours of the
smolt's native river are imprinted in its memory before it heads out to
sea, to be recalled when it returns to spawn. Some fish, the grilse ,
return to spawn after a year, but the majority, the salmon, swim back
after two years or more, entering the Miramichi between April and
November and weighing anywhere between 4kg and 20kg. Once they're back
in the fresh water, the salmon stop feeding and their bodies deteriorate
in favour of egg or sperm production, with the male developing a hooked
lower jaw or kype. After they spawn in late autumn, the adults (now
known as kelt , or black salmon) return to the ocean to begin the cycle
again - unlike their Pacific cousins, all of whom die after their first
and only spawning. Incidentally, the kelt are nowhere near as tasty as
the smolt. Doaktown's Atlantic Salmon Museum (daily: early June to Sept
9am-5pm; $4; tel 365-7787), beside Hwy 8, illustrates the salmon's
arduous life cycle, has a small aquarium, and looks at different fishing
techniques - but you're much better off having a go at fishing yourself:
there are lots of outfitters and guides in and around town; ask for
information at the museum.
|
