New Brunswick, Canada
New Brunswick is one of Canada’s four Atlantic provinces and the only constitutionally bilingual province.
New Brunswick is also one of three Maritimes provinces, along with Prince Edward Island to the East, Nova Scotia to the Southeast. New Brunswick is also bordered by Quebec to the North, and the U.S. state of Maine to the West.
The population of the Maritime provinces was 1,826,896 in 2008. To give a sense of how they view themselves, the most popular definition of a Maritimer on urbandictionary.com [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=maritimer] is: "A real Canadian, unlike those asswipes from Ontario and Alberta. The original and best part of Canada, where people are down to earth, take the time to talk with you and ask how you are doing, and are known for being friendly."
Oh, and we actually respect America, our neighbours and trade partners. Hell, we should join New England, as the rest of Canada has no respect for what we have to offer."
A few comedy websites(1) list the Ways to know you’re a New Brunswicker when:
- You know all 4 seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Construction.
- Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
- You are sandwiched between French assholes and drunken Celtic fiddlers.
- One way or another, the government gets 98 percent of your income.
- You see people wearing hunting clothes at social events.
- When listing the provinces, everyone forgets to mention yours.
- You often switch from "Heat" to "A/C" in the same day.
- Everybody has a grandfather who runs a lighthouse.
- Just as charming as Maine, but with more unemployed fishermen.
- Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor… on the highway.
- Vacation means going to Moncton for the weekend.
- You measure distance in hours.
- You know several people who have hit a deer.
- You use a down filled comforter in the summer.
- You can drive 100 km through 13 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching.
- You install security lights on both your house and garage and go and leave both unlocked.
- You think of the major food groups as: Meat, Fish and Tim Horton’s.
- There are seven empty cars running in the parking lot of the Canadian Tire store at any given time.
- You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
- You have French people, but they don't want to kill you
- Your lingerie consists of tube socks and flannel pajamas.
- You're poor, but not as poor as the Newfies
- It takes three hours to go to the store for one item, even when you're in a hurry because you have to stop and talk to everybody in town.
You actually understand these jokes and forward them to all your friends from the Maritimes.
Like much of Canada, New Brunswick has an economy that is closely tied to its natural resources. Forestry products (including manufactured items) have been New Brunswick's economic mainstay throughout its history. Both fishing and agriculture have declined in significance. Since the discovery of extensive base metal ore deposits in the 1950's, mineral production has increased dramatically. With the growth of service industries and specialized manufacturing, the province has a wider employment base than ever before.
The Province is a patchwork of European ethnicities. The 2001 Canadian census reported a mix of English (23.0%); Irish (18.9%); Scottish (17.7%); German (3.8%); Acadians (3.6%); "North American Indian" (First Nations) (3.3%); Dutch (Netherlands) (1.9%); and Welsh (1.1%).
Historically, local society was founded in forestry and seaborne endeavours, a tradition of lumber camp songs and sea chanties prevailed. Acadian cloggers and step dancers competed at festivals to expressive fiddle and accordion music.
The art of storytelling, well-known to the native populations, passed on to the early settlers, and poetry—whether put to music or not—was a common form of commemorating shared events, as the voice of a masterful poet or soulful musician easily conquered the province's language barriers.
The performing arts have a long tradition in New Brunswick, dating back to traveling road shows and 19th-century opera in Saint John. All three major cities have significant performance spaces.
The province is named for the British royal family of Brunswick-Lüneburg (the house of Hannover). New Brunswick is called the Loyalist Province; about 40,000 refuges, loyal to the British Crown, settled in New Brunswick after the Revolutionary War in America. Anyone interested in the history of the United States and Canada can find a fascinating account here [http://www.economicexpert.com/a/United:Empire:Loyalists.htm]. This is an excerpt:
Of the exiles from the United States at least twenty-five thousand went to the maritime colonies, and built up the province of New Brunswick, where representative institutions were established in 1784. About ten thousand people sought the valley of the St Lawrence. Some settled in Montreal, but the great majority accepted grants of land on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, on Lake St. Francis, in the Niagara District, and on the shores of Lake Erie. The coming of these people, subsequently known by the name of "U.E. Loyalists"--a name appropriately given to them in recognition of their fidelity to a United Empire--was a most auspicious event for the British-American provinces, the greater part of which was still a wilderness. There was in the Acadian provinces, afterwards divided into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, a British population of only some 14,000, mostly confined to the peninsula. In the valley of the St. Lawrence there was a French population of probably 100,000 persons, dwelling chiefly on the banks of the St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal. The total British population of the province of Quebec did not exceed 2000, residing for the most part in the towns of Quebec and Montreal. No English people were found west of Lake St. Louis; and what is now the populous province of Ontario was a mere wilderness, except where loyal refugees had gathered about the English fort at Niagara, or a few French settlers had made homes for themselves on the banks of the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. The migration of between 30,000 and 40,000 Loyalists to the maritime provinces and the valley of the St. Lawrence was the saving of British interests in the great region which England still happily retained in North America.
Footnotes
(1) http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?name=jokes&op=ViewItems&vid=208