New Brunswick

Administrative division of Canada
Also known as Nouveau-Brunswick
Total area: 73,440 square kilometres (28,355 square miles)
Population: 723,900 (1991)
Maximum elevation: 820 metres (2,690 feet)
 
 

New Brunswick, one of the three Maritime provinces, and included as one of the four Atlantic provinces, of Canada, bounded on the north by Quebec and Chaleur Bay, on the east by the Gulf of St Lawrence and Northumberland Strait, on the south-east by Nova Scotia, on the south by the Bay of Fundy, and on the west by the American state of Maine. The province is joined to Nova Scotia by the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto.
New Brunswick entered the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, as one of the four original provinces. The province has traditionally had an economy based on the exploitation of its natural resources. In the early 1990s forestry and mineral industries remained important, but services and manufacturing were the dominant sectors. The province is named after the British royal family of Brunswick-Lüneburg (the House of Hanover).
 

Land and Resources

New Brunswick, with an area of 73,440 sq km (28,355 sq mi), is the eighth largest province in Canada; approximately 2 per cent of the land area is owned by the federal government. The province is roughly elliptical in shape, and its extreme dimensions are about 370 km (230 mi) from north to south and about 305 km (190 mi) from east to west. Elevations range from sea level to 820 m (2,690 ft) at the top of Mount Carleton. The province has a total shoreline of 2,269 km (1,410 mi).
 

Physical Geography

Most of the prominent physical features of New Brunswick are aligned in a south-western to north-eastern direction. The Maritime Plain, a triangular region with its base along the Northumberland Strait, covers about one-third of the province. This region is flat to gently undulating and lies mostly below 152 m (500 ft) in elevation. The New Brunswick Highlands region extends from Chaleur Bay south-west and then along the coast of the Bay of Fundy. This region is highest in the north, where the average elevation exceeds 610 m (2,000 ft); the province's highest peak, Mount Carleton, is here. The area along the Bay of Fundy has elevations that range from about 305 to 425 m (1,000 to 1,400 ft). Much of the highland region is underlain by hard granitic rocks and has thin, stony soils. The lower Saint John River cuts through this region, and its narrow lowlands contain fertile alluvial soils. To the north-west lies the Chaleur Uplands, a plateau-like region with an average elevation of about 305 m (1,000 ft). A small portion of the Notre Dame Mountains is in the extreme north-west.

The province's major rivers and its many smaller streams radiate outwards from the interior highlands. The most important stream, the Saint John River, rises in Maine and flows south-east to the Bay of Fundy. The extremely high tides of the Bay of Fundy flow upstream, causing the famous phenomenon known as the reversing falls of Saint John. Many small lakes and a few larger ones occur in the glaciated upland regions. The largest natural lake is Grand Lake, which is only 2 m (7 ft) above sea level, even though it is more than 70 km (43 mi) from the open sea.
 

Climate

The northern half of New Brunswick has a distinctly continental climate, with cold winters and warm summers. The southern half has a more moderate maritime climate, with milder winters and slightly cooler summers. The average annual temperature ranges from 2.8° C (37° F) in the north to 5° C (41° F) in the south. The average annual precipitation ranges from 889 mm (35 in) in the north to 1,143 mm (45 in) in the south.
 

Plants and Animals

Forests cover nearly 90 per cent of the total land area of New Brunswick. The only unforested areas are the rocky glaciated highlands, the agricultural areas, and the boglands of the Maritime Plain. Most of the forestland contains both deciduous and coniferous trees. In the highland regions the principal species are sugar maple, yellow birch, hemlock, spruce, and pine. The Maritime Plain has a mixture dominated by red spruce, balsam fir, hemlock, pine, maple, and birch. Insect infestation, particularly by the spruce budworm, has resulted in substantial losses of commercial timber.

Wildlife in the forest regions is diverse. White-tailed deer, moose, and black bear are common. Furbearing animals such as the beaver, muskrat, mink, red fox, squirrel, chipmunk, and rabbit are also plentiful. Migratory birds, such as the blue heron, nest in the area in summer. Waders include the gull, tern, cormorant, and puffin. Among freshwater fish are trout, pike, bass, and Atlantic salmon.
 

Resources, Products, and Industries

Forest products have been New Brunswick's economic mainstay throughout its history, while fishing and agriculture have declined in significance. Since the discovery of extensive base metal ore deposits in the 1950s, mineral production has increased dramatically. The most important mineral resources are found near Bathurst. Ores here contain zinc, lead, copper, cadmium, bismuth, gold, and silver.

Only 5 per cent of the land in New Brunswick is cultivated, with potatoes the leading crop, generating more than half of the total crop income. The province provides about 5 per cent of Canada's total timber cut, nearly three-quarters of this is used to produce pulp.
Industrial actitivity is dominated by the processing of natural resources. The leading manufactures are dairy items, fish, meat, and other foods and beverages; paper, especially newsprint; and paper and wood products.
 

Population

According to the 1991 census, New Brunswick had 723,900 inhabitants, an increase of 2 per cent over 1986. The overall population density in 1991 was about 10 people per sq km (26 per sq mi). English was the sole mother tongue of about 64 per cent of the people; about 33 per cent had French as their sole first language, a larger proportion than in any province other than Quebec. About 9,400 Native Americans lived in the province.
 

Education and Cultural Institutions

In 1816 the New Brunswick colonial legislature passed a law providing for the establishment of primary schools in all counties. The province's modern public school system was established in 1871. In the early 1990s New Brunswick had 450 elementary and secondary schools with a combined annual enrolment of 141,650 students. In the same period the province had 13 institutions of higher education, with about 22,450 students. Leading higher education institutions in New Brunswick include Candada's oldest university, the University of New Brunswick (1785) at Fredericton; Mount Allison University (1840) at Sackville; and the French-language Université de Moncton (1864) at Moncton.

New Brunswick's cultural institutions are concentrated in Fredericton and Saint John. Major museums include the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and the Provincial Archives, both at Fredericton; the New Brunswick Museum, with historical collections, at Saint John; and the Musée Acadien at the Université de Moncton. Symphony New Brunswick is based in Saint John, and Theatre New Brunswick has its headquarters at the Playhouse in Fredericton.
 

Places of Interest

Fort Beauséjour National Historic Park, east of Sackville, is the site of an 18th-century French fort. Remains of British defensive sites include the Martello Tower west of Saint John and the St Andrews Blockhouse, dating from the early 19th century.
 

Sports and Recreation

The scenic forests and rivers of New Brunswick furnish excellent opportunities for hunting, fishing, and boating. The province's salmon streams are particularly well known and winter sports are also popular.
 

Government and Politics

New Brunswick has a parliamentary form of government. The lieutenant-governor, the nominal head of government, is appointed, usually for five years, by the federal government. Actual power is held by the premier, who typically leads the strongest party in the legislature. The unicameral Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick consists of 58 members popularly elected for a maximum of five years. New Brunswick is represented in the Parliament of Canada by ten senators, appointed for life by the federal government, and ten elected members of the House of Commons.
 

History

The French mariner Jacques Cartier visited the east coast of the region constituting present-day New Brunswick in 1534. He and other early explorers found two Native American tribes in the region, the Malecite and the Micmac.

In 1604 the French explorers Samuel de Champlain and Pierre du Guast, sieur de Monts, established the first French settlement on an island at the mouth of the St Croix River. The settlement was abandoned the next year, but after 1631, when the French constructed Fort La Tour on the site of modern Saint John, colonists moved into the coastal area along the Bay of Fundy. The New Brunswick region then formed part of the French province of Acadia. Warfare between the French and British flared intermittently between 1689 and 1763. Great Britain obtained possession of mainland Acadia in 1713 under the terms of the Peace of Utrecht, the agreement ending the War of the Spanish Succession, but the French insisted that New Brunswick was not included.

In 1755 the British defeated French forces at Fort Beauséjour and extended effective British rule to New Brunswick. In the same year, when the British expelled the Acadians from Nova Scotia, some 500 of the deportees settled in New Brunswick. In 1762 the first British settlement in New Brunswick was established at Saint John. British Loyalists fled there from the American colonies during and after the American War of Independence, and in 1784 New Brunswick, which had been administered as a part of Nova Scotia, became a separate colony. After the Napoleonic Wars many British immigrants came to New Brunswick. In 1867 New Brunswick joined with Nova Scotia, Lower Canada (Quebec), and Upper Canada (Ontario) to form the Dominion of Canada under the terms of the British North America Act.

Railway building followed confederation. The Intercolonial Railway (now the Canadian National Railway), linking New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with Montreal, was completed in 1876.

Agriculture and the timber trade declined in the late 19th century. Contributory causes were the opening up of the western grain country, the industrialization of central Canada, and tariff restrictions that cut New Brunswick off from its natural trade channels to the United States and Europe.
The provincial economy slowly recovered during the 20th century. The introduction of the pulp and paper industry brought new life and a more stable character to timber production. Agriculture gained greatly. The fishing industry expanded, and methods of fishing were improved. New industries appeared, particularly those aimed at supplying provincial needs. The exploitation of hydroelectric resources, mining discoveries, and the general growth of Canada as a whole helped to improve economic conditions.

Liberal Premier Louis J. Robichaud, an Acadian, took office in 1960 and carried forward a number of key reforms designed to provide equal opportunity to all citizens. His administration established the official equality of the French and English languages in recognition of the growth in the Acadian segment to about 39 per cent of the population by 1961.

His Progressive Conservative party successor, Richard Bennett Hatfield, premier from 1970 to 1987, continued Robichaud's policies of development, despite stalled economic progress. At the same time, construction of a new container facility made Saint John the rival to Halifax as Canada's year-round port in the east.

In the 1987 election the Liberals, led by Frank McKenna, swept all 58 seats in the legislature. McKenna was a leading opponent of the Meech Lake accord (calling for the recognition of Quebec as a "distinct society" within the Dominion); he eventually modified his stand to avoid alienating Quebec. He won another massive majority in 1991.