Eight-year-old Kelsey Grieve clutched her small camera and watched anxiously from behind a rope barrier as the royal handlers ushered media photographers past the Queen on a walkabout in Fredericton yesterday.
Then the girl slipped up to the rope and -- unlike the media -- she politely asked the Queen for permission to take a photograph. "I said, 'Will you let me take your picture?' She said, 'Sure,' and she just smiled and I took the picture. She's the Queen and it's really not polite to just go and take a picture of her -- plus I wanted to talk to her," Kelsey said, her eyes shining from the brief royal encounter.
She was one of several thousand children who were part of the crowd of close to 8,000 people who thronged to the lawns of Old Government House in downtown Fredericton to catch a glimpse of, or exchange greetings with, the Queen, who is in Canada celebrating her Golden Jubilee.
While older people reminisced about other royal visits or reveled in the military pomp and ceremony that follows the monarch, the children cheered the 76-year-old Queen as if she were a rock star.
Their shouts mixed with the skirl of bagpipes and the boom of a military gun salute as the Queen, dressed in a coral-coloured dress and hat, began a tour of the province where many people proudly trace their roots to the United Empire Loyalists.
Before her arrival, children in an art class at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery put together a book of their portraits of the Queen -- and enclosed personal messages for her. "You are the best Queen in the world," Lillie Coolen wrote in her card.
Many of the children waved Canadian flags or Union Jacks or offered flowers to try to get her attention. When she did stop to exchange words, the youngsters were often tongue-tied.
Scott MacDonald, 12, stepped forward to congratulate her on her 50-year reign and marveled that the Queen stopped to accept a bunch of carnations and thank him for his best wishes.
"I think it's very important that one person would come to a little town in a little province just to see us," Scott said in an interview.
His mother, Kim MacDonald, said it is important for young people to see the Queen and understand the monarchy -- especially with current controversy about the future of the institution.
"She's part of our heritage and it's an institution that is held in high honour," she said. "There have been a few inappropriate statements made, but let's face it -- this is a woman who has done an impeccable job for 50 years and who else could have done it? Today she's just gleaming."
The tour began without a hitch under sunny skies on the bank of the Saint John River where trees are glowing with autumn colours.
There were no protests from Acadians, who have formally demanded royal recognition of the suffering caused by the expulsion of their ancestors in the 1700s.
Doug Parr of Fredericton came to the royal show yesterday with a sign telling the Queen not to believe Deputy Prime Minister John Manley or some Acadians who have questioned the relevancy of the monarchy.
The Queen stopped to look at his collection of photos of past royal visits but didn't comment on the sign.
Mr. Parr said there is not much opposition to the monarchy in New Brunswick.
"I don't think there is much of that as long as John Manley stays out of town. He can think what he wants but I don't agree with him and I don't think the majority of Canadians agree with him."
The Queen also met with the first nine recipients of the Order of New Brunswick, a group of people recognized for their contributions to the province.
The award was given posthumously to former New Brunswick premier Richard Hatfield, who achieved widespread notoriety when marijuana was found in his luggage during a royal tour in 1984. Mr. Hatfield, the longest-serving premier in the province's history, was acquitted of possession of marijuana at a widely publicized trial.
Yesterday Mr. Hatfield, who died in 1991, was hailed as a statesman and a leader.
His brother Frederick said his sibling would have relished the opportunity to receive an honour from the Queen.
"My brother had a great love of the Queen. He really was a monarchist," Mr. Hatfield said in a brief interview.