Belledune is a port village in the Canadian

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering 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 ...

. It has a

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 1,325, and straddles the boundary between Restigouche County and Gloucester County, New Brunswick. The community of Belledune was created through the amalgamation of

Jacquet River Jacquet River is a community in the village of Belledune in Restigouche County, New Brunswick. Previously, it was a village until 1994, when it amalgamated into Belledune. It has a population of about 1,200 people. It has an elementary and ...

, 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 and therefore remains as a village. Belledune is one of the few municipalities not significantly affected by the province's 2023 local governance reforms.

History

The village, "Big Dune", was first settled by François Guittard (middle name: Joseph) around 1815, with a land grant approval in 1825 for two lots of land of 200 acres each. Guittard was born in Fauxbourg, St. Antoine, France, around 1774, and after fighting in Napoleon's army, in 1801, he defected to the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

. Guittard worked as a navigator, and helped map the New Brunswick coastline with the British military. Guittard and his wife Marie LeFilatre emigrated to Canada, and after a brief settling in Rivière-Ouelle, Quebec, they resettled in New Brunswick, where the promise of a land grant became a possibility. 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 Southw ...

moved towards Belledune after the 1825 Great Miramichi Fire.

Politics

Economy

Belledune underwent unprecedented development during the 1960s when under the premiership of Louis Robichaud 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 Hamburg, Manch ...

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 and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...

, formerly Brunswick Mining and Smelting Corporation, but now owned by

Glencore Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss Multinational corporation, multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, London, England as well a ...

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. A $30 million venture at the time, the smelter has managed to extract silver from its imported silver lead concentrates, and in 2011 produced 400mt of pure silver valued at 448M$; 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.

NB Power New Brunswick Power Corporation (), operating as NB Power (), is the primary electric utility in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. NB Power is a Vertical integration, vertically-integrated Crown corpor ...

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. The announcement of the closure of the Glencore smelter was issued in late 2019. At that time, the company workforce was on strike. The site decommissioning will continue to 2028.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), 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 culture. It is headquartered in ...

, 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

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