Caraquet

Caraquet faces Chaleur Bay from the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick. The Caraquet River and Rivière du Nord meet just west of the town, and the Mi'kmaq name refers to this meeting of two rivers. Mi'kmaq people visited the region as early as about four thousand years ago, leaving objects around the port that suggest a camp rather than a permanent village. Around 1731 the Breton trader Gabriel Giraud dit Saint-Jean founded a settlement on the ground that later became Lower Caraquet.

After the British began deporting Acadians in 1755, survivors led by Alexis Landry took refuge at Sainte-Anne-du-Bocage in 1757. In 1760 privateers and survivors of the Battle of the Restigouche sheltered in Giraud's village, and the following year Roderick MacKenzie captured most of the refugees there. Families returned from 1766, and in 1784 a Great Grant, secured through François Gionet's journey to Halifax, legalised the occupation of about 57 square kilometres by 34 families. Norman fishermen then settled in town.