NEW BRUNSWICK 



4142 



NEW BRUNSWICK 



Parliament Buildings, Fredericton 



EW BRUNSWICK, brunz' wik, a prov- 

 ince of Canada, the largest of the three Mari- 

 time Provinces. It has an area of 27,985 square 

 miles, of which only seventy-four square miles 

 are water surface. New Brunswick is 6,557 

 square miles larger than Nova Scotia, and is 

 nearly twelve times as large as Prince Edward 

 Island. Its area is about the same as the com- 

 bined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont and 

 Massachusetts. 



The boundaries of the province are partly 

 natural and partly artificial. On the south and 

 east, except for the narrow Isthmus of Chig- 

 necto, which connects the Nova Scotia penin- 

 sula with the mainland, it has water boundaries 

 the Gulf of 

 Saint Lawrence 

 on the east and 

 the Bay of 

 Fundy on the 

 south. Northum- 

 berland Strait, 

 an arm of the 

 gulf, divides 

 Prince Edward ' ~^ ATION MAP 

 Island from showing the size of New 

 New Brunswick Brunswick as compared with 



On the north is 



Quebec, a part of the boundary being formed 

 by the Restigouche River and Chaleur Bay. 

 On the west two rivers, the Saint John and the 

 Saint Croix, form part of the international 

 boundary. There the state of Maine lies be- 

 tween New Brunswick and southeastern Que- 

 bec. From north to south the greatest length 

 of the province is 230 miles, and from east to 

 west 190 miles. 



The People. The population of New Bruns- 

 wick at the census of 1911 was 351,889. This 

 was an average of 12.61 per square mile, as 



compared with 22.98 per square mile in 1 1n- 

 neighboring province of Nova Scotia and 1.93 

 for the Dominion as a whole. The rural popu- 

 lation was 252,342, nearly seventy-two per cent 

 of the total. About sixty-five per cent of the 

 population is of British descent, and about 100,- 

 000 people, or thirty per cent, are of French 

 descent. Immigration has practically ceased, 

 except from Great Britain and the United 

 States, and less than ten per cent of the present 

 population was born outside the province. 



Physical Features. The most noteworthy 

 physical characteristic of New Brunswick is 

 the network of rivers, lakes and bays in all 

 sections. Practically every spot in the prov- 

 ince can be reached by water. The headwaters 

 of the principal rivers are very near each other, 

 and comparatively short portages are required 

 between them. Thus in ancient days the In- 

 dians made portages between the upper waters 

 of the St. John, the Miramichi, the Resti- 

 gouche and other rivers, just as hunters and 

 fishermen do now. Only the lower courses of 

 the rivers are important as transportation 

 routes, but the upper stretches play a large part 

 in lumbering. 



The surface of New Brunswick is divided into 

 two parts by a ridge or height of land extend- 

 ing from the southwest to the northeast cor- 

 ner. This height forms the watershed sepa ni- 

 ing the eastern from the western rivers. It 

 nowhere rises to a great altitude, the average 

 being from 1,000 to 1,500 feet, with here and 

 there an occasional "monadnock" rising to 2,000 

 or 2,500 feet. Mount Carleton, the highest 

 point in the province, has an altitude of 2,630 

 feet. The eastern coast, along the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence, is low and sandy, but on the south, 

 along the shores of the Bay of Fundy, is an- 

 other bold, rocky ridge. Except for these two 





