Tantramar | |
---|---|
Town | |
Coordinates: 45°54′00″N64°22′00″W / 45.90000°N 64.36667°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | New Brunswick |
County | Westmorland |
Regional service commission | Southeast |
Incorporated | January 1, 2023 |
Population | 14,545 (2023) |
Federal electoral district | Beauséjour |
Provincial electoral district | Memramcook-Tantramar |
Government | |
• Type | Town council |
• Mayor | Andrew Black |
• MP | Dominic LeBlanc (L) |
• MLA | Megan Mitton Green Party of New Brunswick |
Elevation | Sea level to 32 m (0 to 105 ft) |
Time zone | UTC-4 (AST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-3 (ADT) |
Postal code(s) | E4L |
Area code | 506 |
Telephone Exchange | 360, 364, 536, 540, 939, 940 |
Tantramar is a town in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It was formed through the 2023 New Brunswick local governance reforms.
Tantramar was incorporated on January 1, 2023 via the amalgamation of the former town of Sackville and the former village of Dorchester as well as the concurrent annexation of adjacent unincorporated areas. [1]
The name Tantramar is derived from the Acadian French tintamarre, meaning 'din' or 'racket', a reference to the noisy flocks of birds which feed there in the marshes.
Tantramar is on the Isthmus of Chignecto, which connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America. It is on the Tantramar River, which empties into Chignecto Bay, a sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy. Tantramar is at a low elevation above sea level. Prominent ridges rise above the marshes, namely the Fort Lawrence Ridge, the Aulac Ridge, the Sackville Ridge, and the Memramcook Ridge. Tantramar is surrounded by the Tantramar Marshes, once a tidal saltmarsh. The marshes are an important stopover for migrating birds. The marsh soil consists of silts deposited by centuries of tidal flooding. Drainage is poor and there are slow-moving meandering rivers, shallow lakes, bogs, and intertidal zones.
The earliest post road followed the route of the present day High Marsh Road. The Trans-Canada Highway (as it is now known) ran straight through the town until a bypass was built in 1962. The provincial border at the Missaguash River bridge is the dividing line between Nova Scotia Highway 104-Nova Scotia Trunk 2 and New Brunswick Highway 2. This highway forms one of the two main surface transportation links between the two provinces. The Mount Whatley Road runs between Mt. Whatley, New Brunswick and Fort Lawrence, Nova Scotia. CN Rail's mainline between Halifax and Montreal runs through Tantramar, parallel to the Trans-Canada Highway. The Sackville railway station, still in active use with Via Rail, is designated a national historic place.
The Sackville Memorial Hospital serves the region, as well as the Community Health Centre which houses several physicians, an optometrist, a dentist, and a pharmacy. It is one of the few that are not government-run. [2]
The Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre, a recreational facility and arena, opened in 2003. [3] The arena can seat over 750 spectators [4] and is the home rink for the Mount Allison University women's hockey team.
Some of the main employers are a Moneris Solutions call centre, Russel Metals, Sackville Memorial Hospital, and Mount Allison University.
Another main employer today is the Correctional Service of Canada, which operates a prison complex now comprising the medium-security (once maximum-security) Dorchester Penitentiary, and the minimum-security Westmorland Institution.
Many residents commute to work in the nearby town of Amherst or the cities of Moncton and Dieppe.
A recent influx of residents is creating a new demand for Tantramar.
Tourism is centred on the historic and natural features of the area. One of Tantramar's most historic buildings houses the Keillor House Museum. The annual shorebird migration to the mud flats of nearby Johnson's Mills is celebrated by an oversize model of a semi-palmated sandpiper situated in Dorchester square.
Another tourist attraction is the conversion of the Dorchester Jail to a successful bed and breakfast where you can spend a night in a real jail cell. Opened in 2017, it’s one of the Maritimes highest rated adventure Airbnb’s listed. It’s the sight of the last double hanging in New Brunswick, where the Bannister brothers were hanged and buried at the jail.
Public schooling, run by Anglophone East School District, includes a pre-school, the Salem Elementary School, Marshview Middle School, Dorchester Consolidated School, and Tantramar Regional High School. Tantramar is also home to Mount Allison University.
The Bay of Fundy is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its tidal range is the highest in the world. The name is probably a corruption of the French word fendu, meaning 'split'.
Mount Allison University is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839.
Westmorland County is a county in New Brunswick, a province of Canada. It is in the south-eastern part of the province. It contains the fast-growing commercial centre of Moncton and its northern and eastern suburbs. Also located in the county are the university town of Sackville and the local tourist destination of Shediac.
Amherst is a town in northwestern Nova Scotia, Canada, located at the northeast end of the Cumberland Basin, an arm of the Bay of Fundy, and 22 km (14 mi) south of the Northumberland Strait. The town sits on a height of land at the eastern boundary of the Isthmus of Chignecto and Tantramar Marshes, 3 km (1.9 mi) east of the interprovincial border with New Brunswick and 65 km (40 mi) southeast of the city of Moncton. It is 60 km (37 mi) southwest of the New Brunswick abutment of the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island at Cape Jourimain.
Sackville is a former town in southeastern New Brunswick, Canada. It held town status prior to 2023 and is now part of the town of Tantramar.
Dorchester is a community in Westmorland County, New Brunswick, Canada. The community became part of the new town of Tantramar in the 2023 New Brunswick local governance reform. Originally incorporated as a town in 1911, it was converted to a village in 1966. By 1825 it had been named for Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, an 18th-century Governor-General of the old Province of Quebec, but prior to that was called Botsford.
The Tantramar Marshes, also known as the Tintamarre National Wildlife Area, is a tidal saltmarsh around the Bay of Fundy on the Isthmus of Chignecto. The area borders between Route 940, Route 16 and Route 2 near Sackville, New Brunswick. The government of Canada proposed the boundaries of the Tantramar Marshes in 1966 and was declared a National Wildlife Area in 1978.
The Isthmus of Chignecto is an isthmus bordering the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America.
Beaubassin was an important Acadian village and trading centre on the Isthmus of Chignecto in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. The area was a significant place in the geopolitical struggle between the British and French empires. It was established in the 1670s on an upland close to an extensive area of saltwater marsh. Settlers reclaimed the land to engage in cattle ranching and trade.
Fort Beauséjour, renamed Fort Cumberland in 1755, is a large, five-bastioned fort on the Isthmus of Chignecto in eastern Canada, a neck of land connecting the present-day province of New Brunswick with that of Nova Scotia. The site was strategically important in Acadia, a French colony that included primarily the Maritimes, the eastern part of Quebec, and northern Maine of the later United States. The fort was built by the French from 1751 to 1752. They surrendered it to the British in 1755 after their defeat in the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, during the Seven Years' War. The British renamed the structure as Fort Cumberland. The fort was strategically important throughout the Anglo-French rivalry of 1749–63, known as the French and Indian Wars by British colonists. Less than a generation later, it was the site of the 1776 Battle of Fort Cumberland, when the British forces repulsed sympathisers of the American Revolution.
The Tantramar Heritage Trust is a non-profit charity that promotes the preservation of heritage buildings, artefacts and lands in an area of south-east New Brunswick along the Nova Scotia border known as the "Tantramar". This region, which is centred on Sackville, New Brunswick and Amherst, Nova Scotia is characterised by an ecologically significant coastal lowland known as the Tantramar Marshes, which encompasses the Tintamarre National Wildlife Area.
John Hammond, was a Canadian adventurer, photographer, artist, printmaker and art educator.
Fort Gaspareaux was a French fort at the head of Baie Verte near the mouth of the Gaspareaux River and just southeast of the modern community of Strait Shores, New Brunswick, Canada, on the Isthmus of Chignecto. It was built during Father Le Loutre's War and is now a National Historic Site of Canada overlooking the Northumberland Strait.
Aulac is a Canadian community in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. As of January 1, 2023 it is part of the Municipality of Tantramar which consists of the former town of Sackville, Village of Dorchester, Pointe de Bute and other rural communities. It is located between the former college town of Sackville and the provincial border with Nova Scotia.
Fort Lawrence is a Canadian rural community located on the Isthmus of Chignecto in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, which is named after Fort Lawrence.
The Captain George Anderson House, also called the Octagonal House, is an octagon house now located in Sackville, New Brunswick. It was built in 1855 by Captain George Anderson, a mariner and shipbuilder. It was later deeded to his father, Captain Titus Anderson and stayed in the Anderson family until 1901. It was used for many years by a foundry company as a storage facility, but was kept in good repair.
Mount Whatley is a community in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, located in Westmorland County on New Brunswick Highway 16. Mount Whatley is situated upon the Aulac Ridge, a prominent rise running west–east across the Tantramar Marshes on the Isthmus of Chignecto,on the shore of the Missaguash River which forms the southern part of the inter-provincial boundary with Nova Scotia.The community is linked by a small bridge to Fort Lawrence Nova Scotia.
LaPlanche Street is the historic connector between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada. Located on the Isthmus of Chignecto, LaPlanche crosses the Tantramar Marshes between Amherst, NS and Sackville, NB. Historically, it hosted the key forts of peninsular Nova Scotia and continental Acadia and witnessed the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, the key battle between the two colonies during the Seven Years' War, and the Battle of Fort Cumberland of the American Revolutionary War.
This is a bibliography of notable works on New Brunswick, Canada.
The Chapman House is a National Historic Site of Canada located on Mount Whatley Road in Fort Lawrence, Nova Scotia consisting of a Georgian style brick house and the lot on which it sits.