Further to our blog entry of yesterday, here are a few more pictures of St. Andrews, our trip to the Kingsbrae Garden, the International St. Croix Island Historic Site, and the St. Andrews Blockhouse National Historic Site. Kingsbrae Garden is 27 acres and has some 45,000 flowers, shrubs and trees including perennial, knot, wildflower and scent gardens. Not quite Butchart Gardens, but very lovely for all sorts of good reasons.
Our next stop is the Blockhouse National Historic Site. It was built in 1812 by the citizens of St. Andrews (strong United Empire Loyalists) to protect the town from American privateers or invasion. That war of 1812 seems to have played a huge role in the development of our historic sites!
A short drive out of town brings one to the International St. Croix Island Historic Site … you can’t go to the island but the site looks out to it and all the interpretation is at this site. In 1605 this island was selected by Samuel de Champlain and Sieur de Monts (a French lord and leader of the expedition) as the first settlement in l’Acadia.
Oh, and we wanted to go to Minister’s Island to see the home of the Transcontinental Railway builder and first president of CP Rail, Sir William Van Horne. But that didn’t happen because they had an electrical problem at the house (a 50 room villa) on the island and tours were canceled.
