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New Brunswick

Nouveau-Brunswick  (French)
Flag of New Brunswick
Flag
Coat of arms of New Brunswick
Coat of arms
Motto(s): 
Spem reduxit  (Latin)
("Hope restored")
NB
Canadian Provinces and Territories
Country Canada
Confederation 1 July 1867 (1st, with Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec)
Capital Fredericton
Largest city Moncton
Largest metro Greater Moncton
Government
 • Type Constitutional monarchy
 • Body Government of New Brunswick
Area
 • Total 72,907 km2 (28,150 sq mi)
 • Land 71,450 km2 (27,590 sq mi)
 • Water 1,458 km2 (563 sq mi)  2%
Area rank Ranked 11th
  0.7% of Canada
Population
 (2021)
 • Total 775,610
 • Estimate 
(Q1 2022)
797,102
 • Rank Ranked 8th
 • Density 10.86/km2 (28.1/sq mi)
Demonym(s) New Brunswicker
FR: Néo-Brunswickois(e)
Official languages
GDP
 • Rank 9th
 • Total (2017) C$36.088 billion
 • Per capita C$42,606 (11th)
HDI
 • HDI (2019) 0.898 — Very high ([[List of Canadian provinces and territories by Human Development Index|12th]])
Time zone UTC-04:00 (Atlantic)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-03:00 (Atlantic DST)
Postal abbr.
NB
Postal code prefix
E
ISO 3166 code CA-NB
Flower Purple violet
Tree Balsam fir
Bird Black-capped chickadee
Rankings include all provinces and territories

New Brunswick (French: Nouveau-Brunswick locally) is one of the ten provinces (and three territories) of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and French as its official languages.

New Brunswick is bordered by Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to the west. New Brunswick is about 83% forested and its northern half is occupied by the Appalachians. The province's climate is continental with snowy winters and temperate summers.

New Brunswick has a surface area of 72,908 km2 (28,150 sq mi) and 775,610 inhabitants (2021 census). Atypically for Canada, only about half of the population lives in urban areas. New Brunswick's largest cities are Moncton and Saint John, while its capital is Fredericton.

In 1969, New Brunswick passed the Official Languages Act which began recognizing French as an official language, along with English. New Brunswickers have the right to receive provincial government services in the official language of their choice. About 23 of the population are anglophone and 13 are francophone. New Brunswick is home to most of the cultural region of Acadia and most Acadians. New Brunswick's variety of French is called Acadian French and 7 regional accents can be found.

New Brunswick was first inhabited by First Nations like the Miꞌkmaq and Maliseet. In 1604, Acadia, the first New France colony, was founded with the creation of Port-Royal. For 150 years afterwards, Acadia changed hands a few times due to numerous conflicts between France and the United Kingdom. From 1755 to 1764, the British deported Acadians en masse, an event known as the Great Upheaval. This, along with the Treaty of Paris, solidified Acadia as British property. In 1784, following the arrival of many loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, the colony of New Brunswick was officially created, separating it from what is now Nova Scotia. In the early 1800s, New Brunswick prospered and the population grew rapidly. In 1867, New Brunswick decided to confederate with Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada (now Quebec and Ontario) to form Canada. After Confederation, shipbuilding and lumbering declined, and protectionism disrupted trade with New England.

From the mid-1900s onwards, New Brunswick was one of the poorest regions of Canada, a fact eventually mitigated by transfer payments. However, the province has seen the highest eastward migration in 45 years in both rural and urban areas, as people living in Ontario and other parts of Canada migrate to the area. As of 2002, the provincial GDP was derived as follows: services (about half being government services and public administration) 43%; construction, manufacturing, and utilities 24%; real estate rental 12%; wholesale and retail 11%; agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, mining, oil and gas extraction 5%; transportation and warehousing 5%. A powerful corporate concentration of large companies in New Brunswick, including most newspapers, are owned by the Irving Group of Companies. The province's 2019 output was CA$38.236 billion, which is 1.65% of Canada's GDP.

Tourism accounts for 9% of the labour force either directly or indirectly. Popular destinations include the Hopewell Rocks, Fundy National Park, Magnetic Hill, Kouchibouguac National Park and Roosevelt Campobello International Park.

Etymology

The province is named for the city of Braunschweig, known in English and Low German (the language originally spoken in the area) as Brunswick, located in modern-day Lower Saxony in northern Germany (and also the former duchy of the same name). The then-colony was named in 1784 to honour the reigning British monarch, George III, who was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

Braunschweig is the ancestral home of the British monarch George I and his successors (the House of Hanover).

History

The original First Nations inhabitants of New Brunswick were members of three distinct tribes. The largest tribe was the Mi'kmaq, and they occupied the eastern and coastal areas of the province. They were responsible for the Augustine Mound, a burial ground built about 800 BCE near Metepnákiaq (Red Bank First Nation). The western portion of the province was the traditional home of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) people. The smaller Passamaquoddy tribe occupied lands in the southwest of the province.

French colonial era

Although it is possible that Vikings may have reached as far south as New Brunswick, the first known European exploration of New Brunswick was that of French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534, who discovered and named the Bay of Chaleur. The next French contact was in 1604, when a party led by Pierre du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain set up camp for the winter on St. Croix Island, between New Brunswick and Maine. The colony relocated the following year across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal, Nova Scotia. Over the next 150 years, a number of other French settlements and seigneuries were founded in the area occupied by present-day New Brunswick, including along the Saint John River, the upper Bay of Fundy region, in the Tantramar Marshes at Beaubassin, and finally at St. Pierre (site of present-day Bathurst). The whole maritime region (and parts of Maine) was at that time claimed by France and was designated as the colony of Acadia.

British colonial era

One of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 was the surrender of Acadia (or Nova Scotia as it was called by the British) to Queen Anne. The bulk of the Acadian population thus found themselves residing in the new British colony of Nova Scotia. The remainder of Acadia (including the New Brunswick region) was only lightly populated and poorly defended. The Maliseet from their headquarters at Meductic on the Saint John River, participated in numerous guerilla raids and battles against New England during Father Rale's War and King William's War.

Amcolonies17th-WSC
A map of the American colonies as they stood during the 17th century. What is now New Brunswick was then known as Acadia, then a dominion of France.

About 1750, to protect his interests in New France, Louis XV caused three forts (Fort Beauséjour, Fort Menagoueche and Fort Gaspareaux) to be built along the Isthmus of Chignecto. This caused what is known to historians as Father Le Loutre's War.

A major French fortification, the Fortress of Louisbourg, was also built on Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island) after Queen Anne's War, but the function of this fort was mostly to defend the approaches to the colony of Canada, not the lost province of Acadia.

During the French and Indian War (1754–63), the British completed their displacement of the Acadians over all of present-day New Brunswick. Fort Beauséjour (near Sackville), Fort Menagoueche and Fort Gaspareaux were captured by a British force commanded by Lt. Col. Robert Monckton in 1755. Inside Fort Beauséjour, the British forces found not only French regular troops, but also Acadian irregulars. Governor Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia used the discovery of Acadian civilians helping in the defence of the fort to order the expulsion of the Acadian population from Nova Scotia. The Acadians of the recently captured Beaubassin and Petitcodiac regions were included in the expulsion order. Some of the Acadians in the Petitcodiac and Memramcook region escaped, and under the leadership of Joseph Broussard continued to conduct guerrilla action against the British forces for a couple of years. Other actions in the war included British expeditions up the Saint John River in the St. John River Campaign. Fort Anne (Fredericton) fell during the 1759 campaign, and following this, all of present-day New Brunswick came under British control.

Henry Sandham - The Coming of the Loyalists
The Coming of the Loyalists, painting by Henry Sandham showing a romanticised view of the Loyalists' arrival in New Brunswick.

After the Seven Years' War, most of present-day New Brunswick (and parts of Maine) were confirmed as part of the colony of Nova Scotia and designated as Sunbury County. New Brunswick's relatively isolated location on the Bay of Fundy, away from the Atlantic coastline proper tended to discourage settlement during the postwar period. There were exceptions however, such as the coming of New England Planters to the Sackville region and the arrival of Pennsylvania Dutch settlers in Moncton in 1766. In both these cases, many of the new settlers took up land that had originally belonged to displaced Acadians before the deportation.

There were several actions on New Brunswick soil during the American Revolutionary War: the Maugerville Rebellion (1776), the Battle of Fort Cumberland (1776), the Siege of Saint John (1777) and the Battle at Miramichi (1779). The Battle of Fort Cumberland was the largest and most significant of these conflicts. Following the war, significant population growth finally came to the area, when 14,000 Loyalists, having lost the war, came from the newly created United States, arriving on the Saint John River in 1783. Influential Loyalists such as Harvard-educated Edward Winslow saw themselves as the natural leaders of their community and that they should be recognized for their rank and that their loyalty deserved special compensation. However they were not appreciated by the pre-loyalist population in Nova Scotia. As Colonel Thomas Dundas wrote from Saint John, "They [the loyalists] have experienced every possible injury from the old inhabitants of Nova Scotia." Therefore, 55 prominent merchants and professionals petitioned for 5,000-acre (20 km2) grants each. Winslow pressed for the creation of a "Loyalist colony" – an asylum that could become "the envy of the American states".

Nova Scotia was therefore partitioned. In 1784, Britain split the colony of Nova Scotia into three separate colonies: New Brunswick, Cape Breton Island, and present-day peninsular Nova Scotia, in addition to the adjacent colonies of St. John's Island (renamed Prince Edward Island in 1798) and Newfoundland. The colony of New Brunswick was created in summer 1784; Sir Thomas Carleton was appointed as Lieutenant-Governor on 3 August 1784, and in 1785 a new legislative assembly was established with the first elections. The new colony was almost called New Ireland after a failed attempt to establish a colony of that name in Maine during the war. The province later gained control over its crown lands in 1837.

Even though the bulk of the Loyalist population was located in Parrtown (Saint John), the decision was made by the colonial authorities to place the new colonial capital at St. Anne's Point (Fredericton), about 150 km up the Saint John River as it was felt that by placing the capital inland, it would be less vulnerable to American attack. The University of New Brunswick was founded at Fredericton at the same time (1785), making it the oldest English-language university in Canada and the first public university in North America. Local government at a rural level was accomplished through a county and parish structure, and the power to tax for the purpose of primary education was first granted by the province to the parishes in 1802. Grammar schools at the parish level followed in 1805 and again in 1816.

Initial Loyalist population growth in the new colony extended along the Fundy coastline from Saint Andrews to Saint Martins and up the Kennebecasis and lower Saint John River valleys.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some of the deported Acadians from Nova Scotia found their way back to "Acadie," where they settled mostly along the eastern and northern shores of the new colony of New Brunswick. Here, they lived in relative (and in many ways, self-imposed) isolation.

Additional immigration to New Brunswick in the early part of the 19th century was from Scotland; western England; and Waterford, Ireland, often after first having come through (or having lived in) Newfoundland. A large influx of settlers arrived in New Brunswick after 1845 from Ireland as a result of the Potato Famine; many of these people settled in Saint John or Chatham. Both Saint John and the Miramichi region remain largely Irish today.

The northwestern border between Maine and New Brunswick had not been clearly defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783) that had ended the American Revolution. By the late 1830s, population growth and competing lumber interests in the upper Saint John River valley created the need for a definite boundary in the area. During the winter of 1838–39, the situation quickly deteriorated, with both Maine and New Brunswick calling out their respective militias. The "Aroostook War" was bloodless (but politically very tense), and the boundary was subsequently settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.

The New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, a means of transferring land held by the Crown to individual owners, was chartered in New Brunswick in 1831. Financed by shares sold in England, this company purchased large areas of Canadian land at low prices, promising to develop roads, mills and towns. Although the province was largely rural, the colony, prior to the middle of the century, was not self-sufficient in wheat or flour and imports were thus necessary. In fact, Governor Douglas saw a silver lining in the great 1825 Miramichi Fire; he is recorded to have declared that the fire had positive aspects, in that it cleared the forest so that residents might dedicate themselves to farming, instead of relying on the sale of timber in order to purchase imported foodstuffs.

Throughout the mid 19th century, shipbuilding on the Bay of Fundy shore, on the Petitcodiac River, at Chatham on the Miramichi River, and at Bathurst in the Bay of Chaleur, became a dominant industry in New Brunswick. The Marco Polo, a clipper ship holding the round-trip speed record between Liverpool and Australia, was launched from Saint John in 1851. The Cunard family began to flourish here at that time. Resource-based industries such as logging and farming were also important components of the New Brunswick economy during this time and railways were constructed throughout the province to serve them and link the rural communities.

Canadian province

NB new plates 2011
Current licence plate.

New Brunswick, one of the four original provinces of Canada, entered the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867. The Charlottetown Conference of 1864, which ultimately led to the confederation movement, originally had been intended to discuss only a Maritime Union, but concerns over the American Civil War as well as Fenian activity along the border led to an interest in expanding the scope of the proposed union. This interest in an expanded union arose from the Province of Canada (formerly Upper and Lower Canada, later Ontario and Quebec), and a request was made by the Canadian political leaders to the organizers of the Maritime conference to have the meeting agenda altered.

Although the Maritime leaders were swayed by the arguments of the Canadians, many ordinary residents of the Maritimes wanted no part of this larger confederation for fear that their interests and concerns would be ignored in a wider national union. Many politicians who supported confederation, such as Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley (New Brunswick's best-known Father of Confederation), found themselves without a seat after the next election; nevertheless, backers of the wider confederation eventually prevailed.

Following confederation, the fears of the anti-confederates were proven correct as new national policies and trade barriers were soon adopted by the central government, thus disrupting the historic trading relationship between the Maritime Provinces and New England. The situation in New Brunswick was exacerbated by both the Great Fire of 1877 in Saint John and the decline of the wooden shipbuilding industry; skilled workers were thus forced to move to other parts of Canada or to the United States to seek employment.

In his History of New Brunswick, Hannay observes that "The system of county government was as bad as possible, because the magistrates were not responsible to any person. The condition of the county accounts was never made public, and it was not until a comparatively late period in the history of the province that the Grand Jury obtained legislative authority to inspect the county accounts," and by 1877 an act providing for compulsory municipal incorporation was put in force.

The province entered Confederation with a Legislative Council of 40 members holding their seats for life, a Legislative Assembly of 40 members and an Executive Council of nine members. Under its powers of changing the provincial constitution the Legislative Council was abolished by an act passed on April 16, 1891.

As the 20th century dawned, the province's economy again began to expand. Manufacturing gained strength with the construction of textile mills such as the St. Croix Cotton Mill; and in the crucial forestry sector, the sawmills that had dotted inland sections of the province gave way to larger pulp and paper mills. The railway industry, meanwhile, provided for growth and prosperity in the Moncton region. Nevertheless, unemployment remained high throughout the province, and the Great Depression brought another setback. Two influential families, the Irvings and the McCains, emerged from the Depression to begin to modernise and vertically integrate the provincial economy—especially in the vital forestry, food processing, and energy sectors. In the mid-1960s, forestry practices changed from the controlled harvests of a commodity to the cultivation of the forests. New Brunswick changed from more than two-thirds rural before 1941 to predominantly urban by 1971. Education and health care were poorly funded, and in the 1940s and 1950s the rates of illiteracy and infant mortality were among the highest in Canada. During the period 1950-1980, 80% of New Brunswick's small farms disappeared, as the agroindustry took root.

The Acadians in northern New Brunswick had long been geographically and linguistically isolated from the more numerous English speakers, who lived in the south of the province. The population of French origin grew dramatically after Confederation, from about 16 per cent in 1871 to 24 per cent in 1901 and 34 per cent in 1931. Government services were often not available in French, and the infrastructure in predominantly Francophone areas was noticeably less developed than in the rest of the province; this changed with the election of Premier Louis Robichaud in 1960. He embarked on the ambitious Equal Opportunity Plan, in which education, rural road maintenance, and health care fell under the sole jurisdiction of a provincial government that insisted on equal coverage throughout the province. County councils were abolished, and the rural areas came under direct provincial jurisdiction. The 1969 Official Languages Act made French an official language.

Geography

New Brunswick map general
Map of the province, showing major cities.

New Brunswick is bordered on the north by Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula and by Chaleur Bay. The eastern boundary is formed by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Northumberland Strait. The southeast corner of the province is connected to the Nova Scotia peninsula by the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto. The south of the province is bounded by the Bay of Fundy coast, (which with a rise of 16 m (52 ft), has amongst the highest tides in the world). The US state of Maine forms the western boundary.

New Brunswick differs from the other Maritime provinces physiographically, climatologically, and ethnoculturally. Both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are either surrounded by, or are almost completely surrounded by water. Oceanic effects therefore tend to define their climate, economy, and culture. On the other hand, New Brunswick, although having a significant seacoast, is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean proper and has a large interior that is removed from oceanic influences. As a result, the climate tends to be more continental in character rather than maritime.

The major river systems of the province include the St. Croix River, Saint John River, Kennebecasis River, Petitcodiac River, Magaguadavic River, Miramichi River, Nepisiguit River, and the Restigouche River. Although smaller, the Bouctouche River, Richibucto River and Kouchibouguac River are also important. The settlement patterns and the economy of New Brunswick are based more on the province's river systems than its seacoasts. Because of this, New Brunswick's population centres tend to be less 'centralized' than in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. Fredericton, Saint John, and Moncton all sit on rivers that have played a significant role in their economic history.

Northern New Brunswick is dominated by the Appalachian Mountains within the Eastern Canadian forests ecoregion, with the northwestern part of the province consisting of the remote and rugged Miramichi Highlands as well as the Chaleur Uplands and the Notre Dame Mountains, with a maximum elevation at Mount Carleton of 817 m (2,680 ft). The New Brunswick Lowlands form the eastern and central portions of the province and are part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests ecoregion. Finally the Caledonia Highlands and St. Croix Highlands extend along the Bay of Fundy coast reaching elevations of more than 400 m (1,312 ft).

The total land and water area of the province is 72,908 km2 (28,150 sq mi), over 80 percent of which is forested. Agricultural lands are found mostly in the upper Saint John River valley, with lesser amounts of farmland in the southeast of the province, especially in the Kennebecasis and Petitcodiac river valleys. The three major urban centres are all in the southern third of the province.

Climate

NB koppen
Köppen climate types of New Brunswick

New Brunswick has a humid continental climate all over the province, with slightly milder winters on the Gulf of St. Lawrence coastline. The far north of the province is just above subarctic with very cold winters. Winters are colder than those being found in Nova Scotia all over the province due to the greater continental influence. Summers are often warm, sometimes hot.

Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for selected locations in New Brunswick
Location July (°C) July (°F) January (°C) January (°F)
Fredericton 25/13 78/55 –4/−15 25/5
Moncton 24/13 76/55 −3/−14 25/7
Saint John 22/11 72/53 −2/−13 27/8
Miramichi 25/13 77/54 −5/−16 23/2
Edmundston 24/11 76/52 –7/–18 19/–1
Bathurst 25/13 76/58 –5/−16 22/3
Campbellton 23/10 74/51 –9/−20 16 /–4

Demographics

Canada New Brunswick Density 2016
Population density of New Brunswick

Population

The four Atlantic Provinces are Canada's least populated, with New Brunswick the third-least populous at 775,610 in 2021, up 3.8% since 2016. A more recent estimate is that the population surpassed 800,000 in March 2022.

The Atlantic provinces also have higher rural populations. New Brunswick was largely rural until 1951; since then, the rural-urban split has been roughly even. Population density in the Maritimes is above average among Canadian provinces, which reflects their small size and the fact that they do not possess large, unpopulated hinterlands, as do the other seven provinces and three territories.

New Brunswick's 107 municipalities cover 8.6% of the province's land mass but are home to 65.3% of its population. The three major urban areas are in the south of the province and are Greater Moncton, population 126,424, Greater Saint John, population 122,389, and Greater Fredericton, population 85,688.

Ethnicity and language

New Brunswick CSD Languages, 2016
The province's distribution of English and French is highly regional.

In the 2001 census, the most commonly reported ethnicities were British 40%, French Canadian and Acadian 31%, Irish 18%, other European 7%, First Nations 3%, Asian Canadian 2%. Each person could choose more than one ethnicity.

According to the Canadian Constitution, both English and French are the official languages of New Brunswick, making it the only officially bilingual province. Government and public services are available in both English and French. For education, English-language and French-language systems serve the two linguistic communities at all levels.

Anglophone New Brunswickers make up roughly two-thirds of the population, while about one-third are Francophone. Recently there has been growth in the numbers of people reporting themselves as bilingual, with 34% reporting that they speak both English and French. This reflects a trend across Canada.


Religion

In the 2011 census, 84% of provincial residents reported themselves as Christian: 52% were Roman Catholic, 8% Baptist, 8% United Church of Canada, 7% Anglican and 9% other Christian. 15% percent of residents reported no religion.

Culture

Early New Brunswick culture was aboriginal in flavour, influenced by the native populations who made their home along the coast and riverbanks until the arrival of French-speaking in the early 17th century and English-speaking settlers beginning in the mid 18th century. Aboriginal culture in turn quickly came under European influence through trade and religion. Even writing was affected; see for example, Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing. Aboriginal societies were gradually marginalized under the reserve system, and it was not until the late nineteenth century, through the work of Silas Rand, that the tales of Glooscap began to emerge.

As described by the political historian Arthur Doyle, an invisible line separated the two founding European cultures, beginning on the eastern outskirts of Moncton and running diagonally across the province northwest towards Grand Falls. Franco-New Brunswick (Acadie) lay to the northeast of this divide, and Anglo-New Brunswick lay to the southwest.

Doyle's characterization was made not long after government reforms by former premier Louis J. Robichaud had significantly improved the status of French-speaking Acadians within the province and initiated their journey towards cultural recognition and equality with their English-speaking counterparts.

Capitolmoncton
The Capitol Theatre in Moncton.

Early New Brunswick was influenced by its colonial ties to France, England, Scotland, and Ireland as well as by its geographical proximity to New England and the arrival of about 40,000 Loyalists in 1783.

As local society was founded in forestry and seaborne endeavours, a tradition of lumber camp songs and sea shanties prevailed. Acadian cloggers and Irish and Scots step dancers competed at festivals to expressive fiddle and accordion music. The art of storytelling, well-known to the native populations, passed on to the early settlers, and poetry—whether put to music or not—was a common form of commemorating shared events, as the voice of a masterful poet or soulful musician easily conquered the province's language barriers.

Other cultural expressions were found in family gatherings and the church; both French and English cultures saw a long and early influence of ecclesiastical architecture, with Western European and American influences dominating rather than a particular vernacular sense. Poets produced the first important literary contributions in the province. Cousins Bliss Carman and Sir Charles G.D. Roberts found inspiration in the landscape, as would later writers as well. In painting, individual artists such as Anthony Flower worked in obscurity, either through design or neglect, while others such as Edward Mitchell Bannister left the province before ever developing a local influence.

Few 19th-century artists emerged, but those who did often benefited from fine arts training at Mount Allison University in Sackville, which began offering classes in 1854. The program came into its own under John A. Hammond, who served from 1893 to 1916. Alex Colville and Lawren Harris later studied and taught art there and both Christopher Pratt and Mary Pratt were trained at Mount Allison. The University’s art gallery – which opened in 1895 and is named for its patron, John Owens of Saint John – is Canada’s oldest.

In French-speaking New Brunswick, it would not be until the 1960s that a comparable institution was founded, the Université de Moncton. Then, a cultural renaissance occurred under the influence of Acadian historians and such teachers as Claude Roussel and through coffeehouses, music, and protest. An outpouring of Acadian art, literature, and music has pressed on unabated since that time. Popular exponents of modern Acadian literature and music include Antonine Maillet, Édith Butler and France Daigle. A recent New Brunswick Lieutenant-Governor, Herménégilde Chiasson, was a poet. In northwest New Brunswick and neighbouring Quebec and northern Maine, a separate French-speaking group, the Brayon, have fostered such important artists as Roch Voisine and Lenny Breau. (See also "Music of New Brunswick) Dr. John Clarence Webster and Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook have made important endowments to provincial museums. Dr. Webster gave his art collection to the New Brunswick Museum in 1934, thereby endowing the museum with one of its greatest assets, James Barry's Death of General Wolfe, which ranks as a Canadian national treasure. Courtesy of Lord Beaverbrook, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton has a collection of world-renowned art, including works by Salvador Dalí and J. M. W. Turner. The 1930s were an important period for New Brunswick culture, with artists such as Jack Humphrey and Miller Brittain coming to prominence. The nationally-renowned poet and painter P. K. Page spent the decade in Saint John, which also saw the arrival of Danish ceramicists Kjeld and Erica Deichmann, who introduced pottery as a serious art form.

The performing arts have a long tradition in New Brunswick, dating back to travelling road shows and 19th-century opera in Saint John. The early recording star Henry Burr was discovered at the Imperial Theatre in Saint John. Based in Fredericton, the most important proponent of theatre today is Theatre New Brunswick, originally under the direction of Walter Learning, which tours plays around the province; Canadian playwright Norm Foster saw his early works premiere at TNB. Other live theatre troops include Théâtre l’Escaouette in Moncton, the Théatre populaire d'Acadie in Caraquet, and Live Bait Theatre in Sackville. All three major cities have significant performance spaces. The refurbished Imperial and Capitol Theatres are found in Saint John and Moncton, respectively; the more modern Playhouse is located in Fredericton.

In modern literature, writers Alfred Bailey and Alden Nowlan dominated the New Brunswick literary scene in the last third of the 20th century and world-renowned literary critic Northrop Frye was influenced by his upbringing in Moncton. The annual Frye Festival in that city celebrates his legacy. The expatriate British poet John Thompson, who settled outside Sackville, proved influential in his short-lived career. Douglas Lochhead and K. V. Johansen are other prominent writers living in the town of Sackville. David Adams Richards, born in the Miramichi, has become a well-respected Governor-General's Award-winning author. Canadian novelist, story-writer, biographer and poet, Raymond Fraser, grew up in Chatham and lives now in Fredericton and award-winning Irish author and poet Gerard Beirne now lives in Fredericton and is a professor at The University of New Brunswick.

Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada, based in Moncton and featuring Russian and European trained dancers, has recently flourished and has started touring both nationally and internationally. Symphony New Brunswick, based in Saint John, also tours extensively in the province.

New Brunswick differs culturally from Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia in a number of ways. Because of the provinces's sizeable French speaking population, French-Canadian culture (specifically Acadian) permeates many parts of New Brunswick society. Likewise, New Brunswick's proximity to the United States affects the everyday life of people that live close to the 'line'. New Brunswick shares more border crossings with the US State of Maine than any other Province/State share in North America. Furthermore, the well-known Maritime dialect so recognizable in Nova Scotia and PEI becomes 'watered down' the further west (and north) you move in the Province. While some areas, like Saint John, strongly share in the Maritime cultural experience, a number of population centres in New Brunswick have more in common with communities in Maine than they do with Halifax or Charlottetown. New Brunswick has been coined by many as Canada's 'Drive-thru Province.' While this title is used in jest, there is truth behind the fact that the sheer distances between major population centres in New Brunswick do a lot to transform culture from place to place. Despite being within the same provincial boundaries, Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton differ culturally, economically, and geographically in significant ways.

Events and festivals

The following is an incomplete list of events and festivals in the province:

Media

New Brunswick has four daily newspapers (three of which are in English), the Times & Transcript, based in Moncton and serving eastern New Brunswick. Also, there is the Telegraph-Journal, based in Saint John and is distributed province-wide, and the provincial capital daily The Daily Gleaner, based in Fredericton. The French-language daily is L'Acadie Nouvelle, based in Caraquet. There are also several weekly newspapers that are local in scope and based in the province's smaller towns and communities.

The three English-language dailies and the majority of the weeklies are owned and operated by Brunswick News, privately owned by J.K. Irving. The other major media group in the province is Acadie Presse, which publishes L'Acadie Nouvelle.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has various news bureaus throughout the province, but its main Anglophone television and radio operations are centred in Fredericton. Télévision de Radio-Canada (CBC French) service is based in Moncton. Global TV is based in Halifax, with news bureaus in Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John. CTV Atlantic, the regional CTV station, is based in Halifax and has offices in Moncton, Fredericton, and Saint John. Western New Brunswick is served by WAGM-TV which broadcasts CBS and Fox stations into the province and covers New Brunswick news and weather on its NewsSource 8 broadcasts.

There are many private radio stations in New Brunswick, with each of the three major cities having a dozen or more stations. Most smaller cities and towns also have one or two stations. Due to all this many Regional interests, were crested in New Brunswick.

Tourism

New Brunswick is divided into five scenic drives: Fundy Coastal Drive, Acadian Coastal Drive, River Valley Scenic Drive, Miramichi River Route and Appalachian Range Route. Provincial and Municipal Visitor Information Centres are located throughout each drive.

Aside from Saint John's large tourism industry from cruise ships, some of the province's tourist attractions include the New Brunswick Museum, Minister's Island, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Grand Manan Island, Kings Landing Historical Settlement, Village Historique Acadien, Les Jardins de la République, Hopewell Rocks, La Dune de Bouctouche, Saint John Reversing Falls, Magnetic Hill and the Magnetic Hill Zoo, Magic Mountain, Casino New Brunswick, Cape Jourimain National Wildlife Preserve, Sackville Waterfowl Park, and the 41 km (25 mi) Fundy Hiking Trail.

Parks

Provincial Parks: de la République, Herring Cove, Mactaquac, Mount Carleton, Murray Beach, New River Beach, Parlee Beach, Sugarloaf, The Anchorage

National Parks: Fundy National Park, Kouchibouguac National Park

International Parks: Roosevelt Campobello International Park

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Economy

Cruise 003
Uptown Saint John is a commercial hub and seaport for the province.

As of October 2017, seasonally adjusted employment is 73,400 for the goods-producing sector and 280,900 for the services-producing sector. Those in the goods-producing industries are mostly employed in manufacturing or construction, while those in services work in social assistance, trades, and health care. A large portion of the economy is controlled by the Irving Group of Companies, which consists of the holdings of the family of K. C. Irving. The companies have significant holdings in agriculture, forestry, food processing, freight transport (including railways and trucking), media, oil, and shipbuilding.

The United States is the province's largest export market, accounting for 92% of a foreign trade valued in 2014 at almost $13 billion, with refined petroleum making up 63% of that, followed by seafood products, pulp, paper and sawmill products and non-metallic minerals (chiefly potash). The value of exports, mostly to the United States, was $1.6 billion in 2016. About half of that came from lobster. Other products include salmon, crab, and herring. In 2015, spending on non-resident tourism in New Brunswick was $441 million, which provided $87 million in tax revenue.

Primary sector

A large number of residents from New Brunswick are employed in the primary sector of industry. More than 13,000 New Brunswickers work in agriculture, shipping products worth over $1 billion, half of which is from crops, and half of that from potatoes, mostly in the Saint John River valley. McCain Foods is one of the world's largest manufacturers of frozen potato products. Other products include apples, cranberries, and maple syrup. New Brunswick was in 2015 the biggest producer of wild blueberries in Canada. The value of the livestock sector is about a quarter of a billion dollars, nearly half of which is dairy. Other sectors include poultry, fur, and goats, sheep, and pigs.

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A New Brunswick pulp mill owned by J. D. Irving

About 85 to 90% of New Brunswick is forested. Historically important, it accounted for more than 80% of exports in the mid-1800s. By the end of the 1800s the industry, and shipbuilding, were declining due to external economic factors. The 1920s saw the development of a pulp and paper industry. In the mid-1960s, forestry practices changed from the controlled harvests of a commodity to the cultivation of the forests. The industry employs nearly 12,000, generating revenues around $437 million.

Mining was historically unimportant in the province, but has grown since the 1950s. The province's GDP from the Mining and Quarrying industry in 2015 was $299.5 million. Mines in New Brunswick produce lead, zinc, copper, and potash.

Education

UNB Old Arts Building
Sir Howard Douglas Hall at the University of New Brunswick is the oldest university building still in use in Canada.

Public education elementary and secondary education in the province is administered by the provincial Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. New Brunswick has a parallel system of Anglophone and Francophone public schools. In the anglophone system, approximately 27 per cent of the students are enrolled in a French immersion programs.

The province also operates five public post-secondary institutions, including four public universities and one college. Four public universities operate campuses in New Brunswick, including the oldest English-language university in the country, the University of New Brunswick. Other English-language public universities include Mount Allison University and St. Thomas University. Université de Moncton is the province's only French-language university. All four universities offer undergraduate, and postgraduate education. Additionally, the Université de Moncton and the University of New Brunswick also provide professional programs.

Public colleges in the province are managed as a part of the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) system, except for the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design, which has operated through the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour since 1938. In addition to public institutions, the province is also home to several private vocational schools, such as the Moncton Flight College; and universities, the largest being Crandall University.

Transportation

The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure maintains government facilities and the province's highway network and ferries. The Trans-Canada Highway is not under federal jurisdiction, and traverses the province from Edmundston following the Saint John River Valley, through Fredericton, Moncton, and on to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Rail

Via Rail's Ocean service, which connects Montreal to Halifax, is currently the oldest continuously operated passenger route in North America, with stops from west to east at Campbellton, Charlo, Jacquet River, Petit Rocher, Bathurst, Miramichi, Rogersville, Moncton, and Sackville.

Canadian National Railway operates freight services along the same route, as well as a subdivision from Moncton to Saint John. The New Brunswick Southern Railway, a division of J. D. Irving Limited, together with its sister company Eastern Maine Railway form a continuous 305 km (190 mi) main line connecting Saint John and Brownville Junction, Maine.

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See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Nuevo Brunswick para niños

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