Belledune (2011 population: 1,548) is a Canadian village that straddles both

Restigouche County Restigouche County (2016 population 30,955) is located in north-central New Brunswick, Canada. The county is named for the Restigouche River which flows through the county and is famous for its salmon pools, which have attracted wealthy American ...

and Gloucester County,

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and 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 ...

. The community of Belledune was created through the amalgamation of Jacquet River, Armstrong Brook, and Belledune in 1994. The community dubbed itself a "Supervillage" after this amalgamation. Belledune's population meets the requirements as a "Town" under the Municipalities Act of the Province of New Brunswick, but it has not requested a change in municipal status. Belledune is one of the few municipalities not significantly affected by the province's 2023 local governance reforms.

History

The village was first settled by François Guitard around 1815. Guitard was originally from

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and after fighting in Napoleon's army, he later defected to the

British army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. He and his wife Marie emigrated to Canada and after a brief settling in Riviere-Ouelle, Quebec, were granted land in New Brunswick. Guitard had also helped map the New Brunswick coastline with the British military. Settlers from the

Miramichi Valley The Miramichi Valley is a Canadian river valley and region in the east-central part of New Brunswick. It extends along both major branches of the Miramichi River and their tributaries, however it is generally agreed that the much larger Southwe ...

moved towards Belledune after the 1825 Great Miramichi Fire.

Economy

Belledune underwent unprecedented development during the era of premier

Louis Robichaud Louis Joseph Robichaud (October 21, 1925 – January 6, 2005), popularly known as "Little Louis" or "P'tit-Louis", was the second (but first elected) Acadian premier of New Brunswick, serving from 1960 to 1970. With the Equal Opportunity p ...

(1960's) when a major regional

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

was built to service various industries on the north shore of New Brunswick. The first major industrial projects at the port included in 1966 a lead and zinc

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

, now owned by

Glencore Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was c ...

with a nominal production of 120,000 tonnes per year. built in support of the lead and zinc mines opened south of Bathurst during the 1950s in the Bathurst Mining Camp. The smelter has managed to extract silver from its imported silver lead concentrates, and in 2011 produced 400mt of pure silver valued at 448M$; the company proposes to increase its silver production to 700mt.gnb.ca: "FACILITY MODIFICATION - SILVER REFINERY OPTIMIZATION PROJECT"
(Department of Environment Impact Management Branch) August 2011 The current permit to operate is file number I-7107.gnb.ca: "Approval to Operate I-7107 - XSTRATA CANADA CORPORATION for the operation of the Belledune Lead Smelter and Bulk Handling Facility"

NB Power New Brunswick Power Corporation (french: Société d’énergie du Nouveau-Brunswick), operating as NB Power (french: Énergie NB), is the primary electric utility in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. NB Power is a vertically-integrated C ...

opened the

Belledune Generating Station __NOTOC__ The Belledune Generating Station is a 450 MW coal-fired electrical generating station located in the community of Belledune in Gloucester County, New Brunswick. It is a thermal generating station owned and operated by provincial Crown ...

, a coal-fired thermal generating station, at the port in 1993.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Belledune had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Language

Notable people

References

External links

Village of Belledune

{{coord, 47, 54, , N, 65, 49, , W, display=title Communities in Gloucester County, New Brunswick Villages in New Brunswick