N.E. Wanderer: The Algonquin Resort

In 1889 Canada welcomed its first seaside resort, the stately Algonquin Resort in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. It was where we spent four nights recently on a summer vacation.

The resort sits atop a hillside about five blocks from Water Street, the main street in town. From just below the resort, a patchwork of quiet streets spread down to the waterfront with nicely kept cottages, mostly of similar age to the resort.

Looking back at the resort's red roof from the town dock

The original building houses the restaurant, lounge and spa, as well as a pleasant veranda with wooden rocking chairs and other cushioned chairs and love seats. Our room was in the Annex that was built in 2012 & 2013. To the architect's credit, it was difficult to distinguish between the Annex and the original building from the outside.

Original building on left. Annex on right.

We arrived on a Sunday night, the 2nd of July, just a day after Canada Day. Since this was the 150 Anniversary of Canada, there was a big free concert taking place by the St. Andrews Blockhouse National Historic Site in town, making for a somewhat unusual hustle and bustle to the area.

As it is, St. Andrews only has about 8 restaurants and with the added crowds, finding a place to eat proved a challenge. Finally, we opted for a takeout pizza from the only pizza place in town and we had to wait 45 minutes to get that. The next morning, we headed to Tim Horton's for breakfast and the place was absolutely packed. Outside of Tim Horton's a truck with three Goldens in the back pulled in. They were in a big crate made from lobster trap materials - very cute!

The lobster pot caught three big Goldens

On Monday, we explored the area a little and visited the Fundy Discovery Aquarium in St. Andrews. The CAA booklet indicated it was one of the "must see" attractions and suggested we allow 2 hours for visit. I suppose it you had little children and you spent a lot of time at the touch tank and if you took in the movie and stayed for the seal and seahorse feedings, you might be able to spend 2 hours, but for us, after about 30 minutes we had seen everything.

That evening we ate at the Red Herring Pub where I learned something about how Canada licenses its restaurants and bars. Apparently if you are primarily a bar, minors cannot even be in the place without an adult. We saw at least three groups of people that were asked to leave because they weren't old enough. Aside from that, they had really good pub food. I had a burger and Bethany had fried clams, both meals were delicious.

On Tuesday, we borrowed the Algonquin bikes and peddled into town to make our whale watching reservation, then continued down to the local bike path, that was maybe 3/4 of a mile long before it dead-ended at the edge of some private property. We did hop off the bikes to explore a rocky beach overlooking Minister's Island on one side and Katy's Cove on the other.

Getting ready for a ride on the resort bikes

A walk on the rocky shoreline

That afternoon we drove to St. John, which was by far the least interesting thing we did. The city was pretty industrial and didn't have much to offer. On the way back from there, we stopped at a place called Ossie's Lunch, a small roadside takeout place in the middle of nowhere that had been in business since 1957. This small place on a desolate stretch of Highway 760 in Bethel, NB had great fried take-out food and shakes. Had it not been for the bugs, we would have eaten at one of several covered picnic tables scattered about the property, but we were relegated to our car so as to keep the feasting insects at bay.

Ossie's through the windshield

The lower part of the sign makes a pretty bold statement, but the food was good

One evening, Bethany and I left Ashton at the hotel and went to the Harbour Front Restaurant and sat on the deck overlooking the bay. It was a hot day, but on the shaded deck there was a cool breeze and beautiful view, making it very relaxing.

The balance of our time at the resort was mostly enjoying either the outdoor pool or the indoor pool and water slide. Ashton really liked the three-story slide that started in the building, at the top of a spiral staircase, went through one wall to the outside and back in another wall next to the indoor pool. After a little coaxing, Ashton convinced me to give it a try. It was pretty cool and I probably took 5 or 6 runs down the slide during our entire stay. Also next to the indoor pool was a large hot tub, which also got some use from our family.

Large outdoor pool

Indoor pool with spiral staircase to waterslide

Ashton at the top of the slide

Steve and Ashton getting ready to ride the slide

Besides the pools and bikes at the Algonquin, entertainment consisted mostly of people watching. A couple nights, Bethany and I sat on the veranda and either ate dessert or just watched the world go by. I don't mind relaxing, but I can only watch the world go by a couple times before I'm looking for new worlds to explore. Unfortunately, there weren't any new world to watch.

A bite was taken out before the photo

Dessert on the veranda

The most entertaining thing that happened was watching the manager break the horse sculpture on the front lawn. The metal sculpture of a horse on its hind legs kicking its front feet in the air. It was on loan from Kingsbrae Gardens down the road from the Algonquin. When Bethany and I were sitting on the veranda one night, the manager in his suit and tie, came outside to check on a group of people sitting around one of the two gas fire pits. After that he went over a yanked on one of the horse's front legs and it broke off in his hand. Now, in his defense, the sculpture was meant to move if you gave the legs a short tug, but this guy really yanked on it and next thing you know, he was holding the leg of the sculpture in his hand. It makes one curious: Will Kingsbrae Garden ever loan anything to the Algonquin again?

On Wednesday we headed down to the town wharf for our whale watch with Fundy Tide Runners in a Zodiac inflatable boat. The nice thing about these boats is that they are fast and very maneuverable, making them perfect for whale watching. They are also rather small (12 person capacity), so you have a more intimate experience with the other passengers. We donned our survival suits and were under way. During the trip we saw one Minke whale, one Finback and a number of harbor seals.

Posing in survival suits in front of the Zodiac

My recommendation is that if you are ever on a whale watch, the Zodiac is a great way to see them. There was a more traditional whale watching boat nearby, with the covered lower deck and open upper deck, but they had to leave early since they had to chug back to base. On the Zodiac, if the whales changed direction, and suddenly popped up farther away, we could easily maneuver closer and change directions quickly. So we probably got a little closer than the bigger boats.

This was definitely the highlight of our trip. And the waters were so calm, it was like speeding across glass on the way back to the dock.

Take my word for it. It's a finback whale. They're not good at stopping to pose.

In pursuit of Moby

What we found in New Brunswick was that various guidebooks made things out to sound more interesting than the really were. You might say that claims were somewhat exaggerated.

What we discovered is that the Algonquin would be a good couples resort, particularly if you liked golf, tennis, swimming, spa treatments and sitting on the veranda and reading. It's not a family resort and in retrospect our plans may have been different had we studied this more carefully. It was a nice visit, but I'd say we were there a day too long.

Some parting shots...