Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec to Edmunston, New Brunswick – 17 June 2023
We finally made it to Edmunston situated in Madawaska County in New Brunswick and to our campsite Camp Edmunston. Edmundston was founded around 1790 by Acadians fleeing Loyalists’ arrival from the East. It borders Quebec, Canada and Maine, USA, and is the gateway to the Atlantic provinces. New Brunswick is one of the three Maritime provinces together with Nova Scotia and Price Edward Island.
When the land was first being settled, Edmundston was called Petit-Sault and the Fortin du Petit Sault (or Fort Madawaska), built in 1841 by the British army, was strategically built to protect against enemy fire even though the inside is so tiny only a few men could fit inside at once. Unfortunately when we went to view it, it was closed so we could only take photos from the outside. From there we drove to the Visitor’s centre and then walked across the eye catching blue Bernard Valcourt pedestrian bridge, which is a city icon, to the other side of the Madawaska River to explore downtown Edmunston.
We saw several magnificent wood sculptures outside the City Hall. These were created by artist Albert Deveau and pay tribute to the different nationalities which came together to build the Madawaska. The area also has several beautiful churches as well as the University of Moncton campus. We headed to Edmunston’s favourite micro brewery – Les Brasseurs du Petit-Sault. They wanted their beer to tell local stories so they named them after characters from Edmunston’s past, but specifically the unsung heroes. For instance – One is a prospector, who never really found anything but worked really hard, and another beer is named after an Acadian heroine who helped save the people of Madawaska County from a famine in the late 1700s. Les Brasseurs du Petit-Sault are very into nostalgia which speaks to their bottles, vintage style “stubbies”. Their beer was really good. I had a Snap Dickie and Derek a Soeur Catherine. Jax was allowed inside the brewery which was nice and was treated to a turkey pepperoni as we were short of snacks.
Edmundston is one of the most Francophone cities in Canada outside Quebec. While more than 90% of its population speaks French as a first language, New Brunswick has been officially bilingual for more than 50 years. Its first Official Languages Act was enacted in 1969, making the province Canada’s first and only officially bilingual province. We immediately noticed the language difference when we entered the province.
The one thing that did stand out in Edmunston, is the billowing smoke from the Twin Rivers Paper Company. The company which opened in 2020, is a specialty papers business, with fully integrated operations comprised of a pulp and energy complex in Edmundston, a paper mill in Madawaska, Maine, as well as a lumber mill located in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick. Production capacities are cited as 370,000 tons per year of bleached magnesium sulphite and groundwood pulp from Edmundston and 335,000 tons per year of paper from Madawaska.
Pulp and paper mills are known large emitters of air pollution creating potential environmental challenges and human health impacts. While there has been comparatively little research conducted on health impacts of air pollution due to pulp and paper mills at a community level, most existing research suggests that negative health impacts do exist like cancer as well as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Despite operating within two regulatory jurisdictions on both sides of the international border, the mills have exceeded their approvals to operate and national air quality regulations multiple times over the years making this an important regional issue in Canada and the US.
Manufacturing a paper bag takes about four times as much energy as it takes to produce a plastic bag, plus the chemicals and fertilizers used in producing paper bags create additional harm to the environment. The pulp and paper industry uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.
Pulp and paper is a heavily regulated industry with laws, regulations, and policies directing effluent , forest management and air pollution. Some of the environmental impacts of the pulp and paper industry have been addressed and there is movement towards sustainable practices. For instance, using wood from plantation forests addresses concerns about loss of old growth forests. The move to non elemental chlorine for the bleaching process reduced the emission of the carcinogenic organochlorines. Also recycling causes 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution than making virgin paper.
It was Father’s day on Sunday and Derek’s prerogative to choose what he wanted to do for the day. He chose to have a nice dinner and go to the Casino. So after breakfast in bed we went for a walk with Jax in the neighbourhood and then made our way to the Casino. We had tried previously to book at table at their steakhouse but were unsuccessful so we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not get in anywhere and would do the dinner the next day instead. However, we took a chance when we arrived and asked for a table, as it was quite early in the afternoon and we scored. So we were able to enjoy a nice dinner after all and still spend a while on the one arm bandits in the Casino (albeit only about 20 mins till our money ran out!)
