Rough Waters

Geography

Bathurst is on Nepisiguit Bay, which is part of Chaleur Bay, at the mouth of four rivers: the Nepisiguit River, Middle River, Little River, and the Tetagouche River. Two spits of land, Carron Point and Alston Point, form the enclosure for the harbour. Youghall Beach Park lies to the north of town. Bathurst is located 90 km southeast of Dalhousie, and 75 km north of Miramichi.

Bathurst's waste management facility is located south of the city, in Allardville. The city's sewage treatment plant is located within the harbor, at the northern end of Riverside Drive, behind the Canadian Tire. City water comes from Middle River.

Several of the salt marshes around Bathurst Harbour play host to a Chaleur Bay-specific butterfly: the Maritime Ringlet, which flies late July to late August.

Attractions

La Promenade Waterfront is cluster of shops, art, boutiques, a visitor information centre, and an outdoor pavilion that hosts a variety of activities throughout the year. There are boardwalks with views of the Nepisiguit Bay.

Youghall Beach Park offers swimming, volleyball, and windsurfing. The Bathurst Marina is also located next to the beach.

Bathurst has two golf courses; Gowan Brae and Squire Green.

Bathurst Hospitality Days is a week-long festival with many activities for the young and old. It includes four nights of concerts, featuring a mix of classic rock, Acadian and maritime music.

Bathurst Chamber Music Festival is an annual week-long classical music festival which features over 30 emerging musicians and composers from around Canada and abroad. It was created to help build appreciation, as well as to create a necessity for classical music within the community.

Government and politics

Bathurst has a Mayor–council form of government, with seven at-large councillors. Elections are held quadrennially in May, as are all since 2004 local governments in New Brunswick. Mayor Fongemie won over a field of four candidates with 3,064 votes; the next candidate garnered 1,831 votes. In 2016, 21 candidates put their names on the ballot. The minimum number of votes needed for election was 2,347. Councillor Stever won more votes than the Mayor.

At the 2014 New Brunswick general election, 4,367 residents of Bathurst West-Beresford elected Brian Kenny, while 4,431 residents in Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint-Isidore chose Denis Landry. Both are member of the New Brunswick Liberal Association, and both are cabinet ministers in the Brian Gallant government.

Bathurst is a part of the Acadie—Bathurst federal riding, and represented since 2015 in the House of Commons of Canada by Liberal Party of Canada member Serge Cormier.

Bathurst is the county seat of Gloucester County, New Brunswick. As such it is home to the county court house and houses much of the province's regional administration.

Education

Primary

École Place-des-Jeunes (6 - 8)

Superior Middle School (6 - 8)

Académie Assomption (K - 5)

École Cité-de-l'Amitié (K - 5)

Terry Fox Elementary School (K - 5)

Parkwood Heights Elementary School (K - 5)

Secondary

Bathurst High School (BHS): in English, grades 9 - 12 are taught at BHS. The school district is known administratively as "Anglophone North Subdistrict 3", and Sheila Rogers was acclaimed to it in May 2016.

École Secondaire Népisiguit (ESN): in French, grades 9 - 12 are taught at ESN. The school district is known administratively as "Francophone Nord-est - Subdistrict 4", and Danny Comeau was acclaimed to it in May 2016.

Post-secondary

French-language postsecondary studies are offered at the Bathurst campuses of College communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB-NBCC). Many Anglophones study elsewhere; the nearest English NBCC campus is roughly 90 km south in Miramichi.

Health sector

Chaleur Regional Hospital looks after the needs of the community at 1750 Sunset Drive Bathurst, E2A 4L7, in the north of town. It was given in 2013 a rating of 'A+' by the CBC's The Fifth Estate programme in a national survey of 66 hospitals.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Bathurst had a population of 12,157 living in 5,824 of its 6,445 total private dwellings, a change of 2.2% from its 2016 population of 11,897. With a land area of 91.62 km2 (35.37 sq mi), it had a population density of 132.7/km2 (343.7/sq mi) in 2021.

Language

Bathurst is officially bilingual, (English and French) with English, French, Irish and Scottish heritage. The city is also home to Míkmaq natives, with the Pabineau First Nations (Kekwapskuk) community on the outskirts of the city.

Community organizations and churches

Bathurst has many community-based organisations, including:

Synergies Chaleur

Royal Canadian Legion, Branch No. 18

New Brunswick Association for Community Living

Maison Doucet Hennessy House (an architectural heritage project)

St. George's Anglican Church

Holy Family Catholic Church

Bathurst Pastoral Charge First United Church

Evangel Bathurst Church

Legend of the Phantom Ship

The Bay of Chaleur is known for its phantom ship legend, which dates back more than two centuries. The story claims that a sail ship burned in the waters north of the city - possibly from the Battle of the Restigouche - and that the ghost of the vessel and its crew is visible on the water in certain weather and light conditions to this day. Though some believe it is a ghost ship from the Battle of the Restigouche, others believe it is merely caused by heat waves, reflections, or hallucinations. A drawing of a ghost wielding an anchor and two menacing sailors could be seen on the city's old welcome sign.

Climate

In spite of its coastal position, Bathurst experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) with vast seasonal differences in temperature. Summers are warm and humid. Winters are often cold, windy and snowy. Spring and Fall bring chilly to warm temperatures. In fall, late heat waves known as "Indian summer" are a common occurrence.

During winter, snow generally stays on the ground from December until April.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Bathurst was 37.6 °C (99.7 °F) on 19 June 2024, which is also the warmest June temperature ever recorded in the province of New Brunswick. The coldest temperature ever recorded was −37.2 °C (−35 °F) on 9 January 1887 and 19 January 1925.

History

Bathurst had been the location of the annual Mi'kmaq summer coastal community of Nepisiguit prior to European settlement. Europeans first reached the shores of the Baie des Chaleurs when in 1534 it was named by Jacques Cartier. Early settlers from France came to the area in the 17th century in what became part of the colony of Acadia. In 1607 Samuel de Champlain sailed into the Miramichi, and in 1636, Nicolas Denys was granted a seignory by the French crown, apparently the third grant in the colony of Acadie. Jean Jacques Enaud, who hailed from the French Basque Country, was granted in 1638 the seignory at the southeastern gap of the harbor later named Alston Point. Remark is made on William Francis Ganong's map of Bathurst Harbour, depicted here at left, of the residence of Nicolas Denys and the seignory of Gobin.

Little is known about the region between the death of Nicholas Denys in 1688 and the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), whereby Louis XIV ceded the territory of Acadia to Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Although it was marked as an inlet, the Nepisiguit river was not noted in a British map dated 1744, although by 1755 Thomas Jefferys illustrates the "Nipisiki River" and "Nipisighit Bay". Historians remark the Battle of the Restigouche in June 1760 (one of the final events in the Seven Years' War) in the Baie des Chaleurs, and various other incidents as the colony of Nouvelle France expired.

According to Gamaliel Smethurst, a trader who supposedly was permitted there by Governor Murray, the British attempted to remove the remaining scattered Acadians from the Nepisiguit basin and Caraquet in late October 1761. Following the formal fall of this part of Acadia to British control in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, the region saw the arrival of numerous English and Scottish settlers, eager to exploit the region's natural resources. Some grants were rewards for good and loyal service with the King's arms: for example, Captain Arthur Goold of the Royal Marines was granted 2,000 acres on both sides of the Nepisiguit River mouth on 9 September 1784 in what is now known as East Bathurst.

1800s

One of the Scotsmen was Hugh Munro, who arrived in 1794. By 1800, he was the founder of "the first and most ancient establishment" in the timber trade of Nepisiguit Bay. In 1807 Munro was appointed a justice of the peace and judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for Northumberland County, He was first elected as one of the members of the Legislative Assembly for Northumberland County at the general election of 1820, and maintained that office until the dissolution of that body in 1827. In 1828 he was elected to sit in the 9th New Brunswick Legislature when the county of Gloucester was given its first representative.

It seems that the great 1825 Miramichi Fire had a significant impact on the fortunes of Bathurst, for the devastation of 6,000 acres forced northwards many displaced people. This incident was the reason for the subdivision of two new counties, Kent and Gloucester, out of what had been Northumberland County, and in 1826, St. Peter's harbour was renamed in honour of the Colonial Secretary, Lord Bathurst.

The first St. George's Anglican Church was built in 1825 and consecrated as a place of worship in 1836. The Anglican burial ground near the old post office dates to 1823. The more recent St. George's church, which was built in 1864, on King avenue below St. Andrew Street is a nice example of Carpenter Gothic architecture.

The community, which up to 1828 had been named St. Peters, was renamed by the governor, Sir Howard Douglas (1823–1831), in honor of Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst (1762–1834), Secretary of State for the Colonies of the British government.

A man named Cooney wrote in May 1832 that in 1828, Bathurst only contained a few houses, but that four years' hence it had sprouted a brick courthouse roofed with slate, a jail, a post office, a few mercantile establishments, and more than 30 homes. What we now know as Riverside Drive was populated by several Francophone families (who are assumed to be the remnants of Captain MacKenzie's evacuation) and their "neat little Chapel... and two or three rustic windmills", presumably for grinding grain. He estimated the population of Bathurst and its harbor area to be more than 600 souls. Economic activities included farming, lumbering, and fishing.

Joseph Cunard, attracted by the county's timber resources, set up a branch of his family's shipbuilding firm here at some time after the great fire in Miramichi of 1825. By 1828, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick as representative for Northumberland County, and was variously a justice of the peace and served on the board of health. Joseph's brother Samuel Cunard was also a landowner in Bathurst. Cunard purchased the Gould grant in 1837 and his production of ships in Bathurst harbor began in earnest. The age of timber ships began its decline in 1848 with the 1848 launch of Brunel's SS Great Britain, the revolutionary iron-hulled steamship. This event caused Joseph's shipbuilding firm to founder, and with it went New Brunswick's economy. Samuel went on to manage the Cunard Line. A shipbuilder who followed in Cunard's wake by the name of John O'Brien built more than 60 ships from 1858 to 1877. Ship's carpenters, spar and mast makers, adzemen and other tradesmen were paid up to five dollars per day. It was not unusual during the heyday of Bathurst shipbuilding to see anywhere from five to fifteen ships in various stages of construction along the waterfront.

1900s

Even as late as 1900, the Sacred Heart Academy had outdoor toilets; modern water facilities from Carter's Brook to a 200 ft AMSL tank on Murray Avenue were provided to the newly formed Town only after August 1916; a sewer system was installed at the same time, although the date of sanitary service installation at the Academy is unknown.

The imposing county courthouse and jail at St. Patrick Street—built from the same Connolly (Nepisiquit) quarry granite as other official buildings of the period—dates from 1900. This replaced an earlier, and more modest, wood-frame building. The jail function has been decommissioned for some years, in favour of the provincial facility at Dalhousie.

In 1904 Bathurst was a seaport, a port of entry on the Intercolonial Railway and the Caraquet and Gulf Shore Railway and a town with a post office, 35 stores, six hotels, a steam sawmill, a shingle mill, a flour mill, three fish freezers, two carriage factories, a printing shop, three churches and a population of 3,000. A boy of fifteen, fresh out of school, could earn $18.00 per month "to work in the woods". That year, John P. Leger formed a private venture called the Bathurst Electric and Water Power Company, with aim to erect and operate at Tetagouche River Falls a hydro-electric plant. Electricity had arrived in Bathurst, twenty-two years after the Pearl Street Station had illuminated New York.

The Northern New Brunswick and Seaboard Railway can lay claim to be the

railway company with the fewest miles of standard gauge

track in history. The province empowered it in 1904 to lay track

between Nepisiguit Junction and Grand Falls, a distance of 16 miles,

to serve the short-lived Drummond Iron Mines. It would serve, for several years from 1920, to ferry construction materials to the (Nepisiguit) Grand Falls hydroelectric power dam.

The Annie R. plied her trade between Bathurst, Carron Point and Youghall

2000s

The Nepisiguit Centennial Museum/Cultural Centre (established 1967) was designated in October 2005 a local historic place under the provincial Community Planning Act. The Herman J. Good V.C Branch No.18 Royal Canadian Legion War Museum (established 1956) was designated in December 2005 a local historic place.

On the evening of 27 March 2015, the Munro St. home of the Bathurst Agricultural Society—which had celebrated its 125th anniversary the previous year—was destroyed by fire. The society had been formed on 3 May 1853 to assist farmers by providing education, seeds and purebred livestock, and in as of 2014 sold a variety of agricultural-related products including livestock feed. The Bathurst Farmer's Market, which had been housed in the same building, eventually moved to near the old Post Office building on Main St. The Society was quickly re-housed in the former location of Save Easy on Rough Waters Drive.

On the evening of 27 November 2015, a fire destroyed four historic commercial buildings at the corner of Main Street and King Avenue. Fifty people in apartments above the stores lost everything and prominent office space was destroyed, including buildings that housed Birds Eye View pet store, Au Cafe Gourmet, local fabric store Christie's, the old stone-faced Bank of Montreal, and a wine bar. All the animals in the pet store perished, and electricity service was temporarily suspended to about 450 NB Power customers in the area. Mayor Stephen Brunet said it was a busy and successful corner: "Every building was part of the history of downtown and there for many, many years. It's going to be a big hole in downtown." The previous week, an abandoned building down the street on King Avenue was destroyed by fire, causing Mayor Brunet concerns. The Downtown Bathurst Revitalization Corporation and the local chapter of the Canadian Red Cross were active in the efforts to support the afflicted. The fire was believed to have started at the back of the pet shop. On 5 August 2016, 53-year-old Perry Kinsman was arrested and charged with one count of arson after over nine months of investigation.

On January 1, 2023, Bathurst annexed parts of the local service districts of the parish of Bathurst, Big River, New Bandon-Salmon Beach, and North Tetagouche. The names of communities in the annexed areas remain in use for address purposes.

Economy

The Bathurst Mining Camp provided for almost 50 years a lot of jobs to the regional economy. The Brunswick Mine facility closed in April 2013. Unemployment hit over 20% in northern New Brunswick in March 2013 as a result.

Bathurst is located, and has a station, on the Canadian National railway line. Via Rail provides a Wednesday, Friday and Sunday passenger service in both directions. The economy is primarily focused on mining, fishing and forestry. Other sectors include: tourism, phone call centres, manufacturing, and provincial and federal government.

The service sector is the city's largest employer. The city is serviced by one health care facility, Chaleur Regional Hospital.

A regional Tax Services Canada and a Transport Canada Marine Safety Service centre are in the old downtown. Bathurst Marina is listed as an official Port of Entry for small vessels. It is listed as a non-compulsory pilotage zone. The port authority was transferred in February 2003 to a private consortium, after which on 21 September 2006 the port was delisted from the Canada Marine Act along with other ports on the North Shore of the province which by then had fallen into disuse. Bathurst is located 50 km south of the deep-water Port of Belledune, where a petroleum tank farm and a coal-fired electrical generating station are located.

On December 17, 2010, it was determined that an environmental assessment was required in relation to an expansion of a sawmill project because the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency considered providing financial assistance to the proponent. The project consists of building an expansion of approximately 297 square meters (m2) that will be added to the existing building of approximately 372 m2.

Bathurst Airport accommodates general aviation.

The Smurfit-Stone paper mill (formerly part of the Power Corporation of Canada empire) ceased operations in 2009, and the plant is in process of being demolished. The 225ac of industrial wasteland was sold on in January 2010 to the Green Investment Group partners. Their goal is to create innovative, alternative energy projects that enhance the Bathurst region and Northern New Brunswick. The plan anticipates attracting companies that utilize technologies focusing on energy generation, alternative fuels and waste-to-energy conversion. The property was as of July 2015 in violation of the city's dangerous and unsightly premises bylaw, but the owner is located outside the country, and was unwilling to deal with the property despite being given final notice by the city. There were almost $1 million in back taxes and environmental reclamation costs associated with the former mill site as of July 2015. The provincial Department of Environment and Local Government Minister, Brian Kenny, issued a ministerial order, which required the company to clean up the site within 120 days, but the deadline passed on 14 August, so the file was passed on to the Attorney-General in order to determine whether charges would be laid.

Sports

Bathurst has several community and competitive sports organizations, along with outdoor recreation facilities across the city. Residents have access to playing fields, tennis and basketball courts, recreational trails, and public skating at local rinks. The K. C. Irving Regional Centre is the main arena and events venue and posts public/senior skating schedules throughout the season. In 2023 the City launched a 10-year Parks & Recreation Master Plan to guide parks, trails, facilities and programs.

Bathurst supports amateur and semi-professional teams in hockey and basketball.

Notable sports teams in the city include:

The Chaleur Lightning of the Maritime Junior Hockey League (MHL).

The Acadie–Bathurst Titan of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, based at the K. C. Irving Regional Centre from 1998 to 2025. The team won the Memorial Cup in 2018.

The Bathurst Bears of the Eastern Canadian Basketball League.

The historic Bathurst Alpine Papermakers, who won the national Hardy Cup in 1972.

Recreation amenities include baseball diamonds, soccer fields, beaches, and public parks throughout the city and waterfront.

Notable people

The BBC's chief international news correspondent Lyse Doucet and her sister, the sociologist Andrea Doucet, are natives of Bathurst.

Sir James Dunn, of Algoma Steel and Canada Steamship Lines fame, was born in West Bathurst.

External relations

The city of Bathurst is twinned with:

Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, Calvados - many soldiers of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment gave their lives on D-Day in the Normandy campaign of the Second World War; it was the fulcrum between Juno Beach and Sword Beach.

Houma, Louisiana, in Terrebonne Parish is one location of the Acadian diaspora, that eventually grew into the Cajun culture of the American south.