Belledune (2011 population: 1,548) is a Canadian village that straddles both Restigouche County and Gloucester County, New Brunswick. The community of Belledune was created through the amalgamation of

Jacquet River Jacquet River is a former municipality in Restigouche County, New Brunswick, Canada on the Jacquet River. It is now part of the municipality of Belledune, and has a population of about 1,200 people. It has an elementary and middle school, which ...

, 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. Belledune is one of the few municipalities not significantly affected by the province's 2023 local governance reforms.

History

The village was first settled by François Guitard around 1815. Guitard was originally from Paris, France and after fighting in Napoleon's army, he later defected to the British army. He and his wife Marie emigrated to Canada and after a brief settling in Riviere-Ouelle, Quebec, were granted land in New Brunswick. Guitard had also helped map the New Brunswick coastline with the British military. Settlers from the Miramichi Valley moved towards Belledune after the

1825 Great Miramichi Fire The 1825 Dee, or Great Miramichi Fire, or Great Fire of Miramichi, as it came to be known, was a massive forest fire complex that devastated forests and communities throughout much of northern New Brunswick in October 1825. It ranks among the three ...

Economy

Belledune underwent unprecedented development during the era of premier Louis Robichaud (1960's) when a major regional port 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 to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

, now owned by

Glencore Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was c ...

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 The Bathurst Mining Camp is a mining district in northeast New Brunswick, Canada, centred in the Nepisiguit River valley, and near to Bathurst. The camp hosts 45 known volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits typical of the Appalachian Mountai ...

. 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.gnb.ca: "Approval to Operate I-7107 - XSTRATA CANADA CORPORATION for the operation of the Belledune Lead Smelter and Bulk Handling Facility"
NB Power opened the Belledune Generating Station, a coal-fired thermal generating station, at the port in 1993.

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; french: Statistique Canada), 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 cultur ...

, 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

Village of Belledune

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