Miramichi

The Miramichi River drains a vast wooded valley into a broad bay on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Long before French settlement, the river and its fisheries sustained Mi'kmaq communities. Its sheltered reaches later offered refuge to Acadian families fleeing the British expulsion, though war followed them to the coast.

In 1757 the French officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert brought refugees to Beaubears Island, where a camp called Camp de l'Espérance was established. Hunger and hardship claimed many lives. The following year British forces destroyed Acadian settlements on the lower river and burned the Mi'kmaq village of Sainte-Anne. Some survivors left for Quebec, while others remained or returned to the coast. William Davidson, one of the first Scottish settlers, arrived in 1767; Acadian families also began returning to the bay in the years that followed.