| Chapter 1: | New Brunswick and Canadian Confederation, 1861–1866 |
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Chapter 1
New Brunswick and Canadian Confederation, 1861–1866
It is a bore to have no equals. 1
The Environment of Responsible Government
As one of the three coastal Maritime provinces, New Brunswick bridged a frontier between two regions—the St. Lawrence basin and the State of Maine—without serving as a natural channel of communication between them. Business and settlement concentrated around the navigable St. John River and its port. The “North Shore” of that river was another country as far as the Gaspé Peninsula—thinly populated, settled by Acadian French, and isolated—before the Intercolonial Railway, which connected Nova Scotia with St. John in 1860, passed through Acadian territory at Moncton to join with the Canadian Grand Trunk in Quebec