Is it Saint John or St. John’s?
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis, and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts, and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting
On a weekday evening in Saint John in early September, I went for a trail run with a local group and then joined Janet and my daughter Ella for a swim in a nearby lake. It was a nice evening and the water was still warm after a series of hot, sunny days. As we towelled off after a quick dip, a friend who happened to be there told us about a conversation he’d overheard on the beach. It was a man on the phone talking to a friend back in Toronto.
“I’m at this lake a few minutes from my hotel and there’s a restaurant in the water!” he gushed into the phone.
Honestly, we were pretty impressed ourselves, even though we’re from Saint John and knew the lake (with the restaurant on the shore’s edge) and the Rockwood Park trail system where I did my run were just minutes from the city centre – where we live, and the man was staying.
I was standing on the beach, reflecting on the fact that I had just run five miles through a forest and finished with a swim on one of the many lakes in the area – in the middle of the city.
As longtime residents, even we must remind ourselves this rural-like amenity was close by. Saint John has the reputation for being an industrial city – even amongst people who live here – but it has many large urban parks and nearby coastal trails that make it unique, even by Atlantic Canadian standards.
I love to explore places I visit on foot, doing short and long runs around cities and towns and nearby rural areas. This summer, I travelled around New Brunswick for weekend baseball games with my son’s team and did pre-game runs in places like Miramichi (up and over the Centennial Bridge on the Miramichi River), Fredericton (exploring the back roads on the north side past cool brewpubs I had to resist), Moncton, Dieppe, and Riverview (the trails on both sides along the Petitcodiac River).
And then there’s St. John’s, Newfoundland, where I was last weekend for Jack’s final baseball tournament of the season, the Atlantic championships for his age group.
It’s the second time I’ve been there and I gushed about what makes it a great city in the same way as the man from Toronto was effusive in his praise about the Lily Lake area of Saint John.
The hills that surround St. John’s downtown core feel like a hug and the view from Signal Hill is spectacular. In the hour before each game, I ran through leafy neighbourhoods, a pedestrian and bike trail system, Quidi Vidi Lake (in the middle of the city like Lily Lake), the historic streets of the downtown core with its jellybean rowhouses, and Signal Hill twice, because the views from the top were worth the steep climbs.
On one of the car rides back to the hotel I was so excited I said, “This has to be the best city in Atlantic Canada, hands down.” Amused by my declaration, one of the parents said “they should get you to write the tourism brochure.”
Of course, I’m like the man from Toronto in Saint John, a visitor caught up in my enthusiasm. This is not meant to be a piece about which city is better than the rest. To my mind, they all have relative strengths, even the large ones in central and western Canada.
Though it could be argued that small- and medium-sized cities across the country are more attractive places to live these days with rising costs and the desire of many people to live in smaller places with easier access to natural settings.
Related: Comin’ Back Up The Road? People From Ontario Move East
From 2020 to 2021, all of the Atlantic provinces had more people moving in from other provinces than people moving out. New Brunswick had a net gain of 3,900. Apart from B.C., the provinces with larger cities lost more people and they gained.
This has the cities in Atlantic Canada in competition for people that want to move to the region.
So which would be the better choice for people looking to make the move – Saint John or St. John’s? Neither, I’d say. They’re both pretty great places to live and visit.