Flood Zone

     Eastern Canada's longest river, the 400 km long St. John (its total length, beginning in northern Maine, is actually 672 km), runs down the western edge of New Brunswick along the border with Quebec to the Bay of Fundy where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

     
     In the vicinity of Fredericton, the city is situated in a huge river valley and through hundreds of years, various settlers have tried to control the flow of the river so that they could build close to it.  Due to its size, it was an important shipping route because it was wide and deep as it flowed through New Brunswick and in its upper sections, connections could be made through to Quebec and the St. Lawrence River.

Houses surrounded by flood water in a town in Quebec. 
Note the wall of sand bags

To reach the houses, people had to travel by boat. Luckily we were
able to drive along the roadway going through this area.

Flooding of the St. John River along the Trans-Canada Highway
in New Brunswick. The water came up to some of the off ramps
from the Highway cutting off some communities from the Highway 

I took this video to show the high, fast flowing water of
the St. John River running through Perth-Andover where
 we stayed overnight.

     However, building near any major river brings the risk of flooding. With the water flow in the spring being six times the average rate, the valley has always been prone to flooding in the spring.  Surface runoff from heavy rainfall is the main cause of flooding, and can be exacerbated by ice jams and rapid snow melt.  Floods have been documented for more than 300 years. Flooding has occurred in Edmundston, Grand Falls, Perth-Andover, Hartland, and Woodstock, and most severely around Fredericton.

These posts mark the height that past floods reached in Fredericton

Here is another view of the posts marking the flood water level over the years.
Apparently the posts are made out of some the debris from that flood year.

     Major flooding has occurred in 1923, with water 8 metres above normal winter low. In 1936 high temperatures quickened snow melt, and heavy rain raised the water level to 8.9 metres, about 7.6 metres above summer level. Similar circumstances led to the same level of high water in the 1973 flood.  In the 2008 flood, the water level reached 8.36 metres in Fredericton. Similar flooding occurred again in 2018. So with this in mind, we thought we would see some major flooding in the spring of 2020. In anticipation of the flood we took photos in September to use as a comparison for when the 2020 floods occurred.

In  September of 2019, the water level was at a low.
The photo below shows the water level in the spring of 2020.
Much higher but not a record rise in the river.

During the spring of 2019, this road and the parking lots on the
left beside the St. John River were completely covered with
flood water. Note the Fredericton Trail path on the right.

This is pretty much how far the water rose along the Fredericton trail.
The water was nowhere near the road we can see in the previous photo. 

Down the river, flood water can still be seen but no amount of dam
building by dedicated beavers can tame this river. Note the tree in the
foreground has been gnawed on by the resident beaver.

      All of the water that caused problems in Fredericton continues to flow south to Saint John and there are many small communities that are not as well prepared and suffer significant flooding too.  It has been an interesting experience to see the river at flood levels, but it must be nerve-wracking for those who live closer to it!

     We are very grateful that this year with all the other issues happening this winter and spring that the flooding was not too bad.