page_title: Petitcodiac River
section_title: Resettlement and modern history (1763–present)
hierarchical_section_title: Petitcodiac River / History / Resettlement and modern history (1763–present)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Pont-chausée du fleuve Peticoudiac à Riverview, au Canada.English: Riverview Causeway scross the Petitcodiac River, New Brunswick, Canada
context_page_description: The Petitcodiac River, known informally as the Chocolate River, is a river in south-eastern New Brunswick, Canada. The river has a meander length of 79 kilometres and is located in Westmorland, Albert, and Kings counties, draining a watershed area of about 2,071 square kilometres. The watershed features valleys, ridges, and rolling hills, and is home to a diverse population of terrestrial and aquatic species. Ten named tributaries join the river in its course toward its mouth in Shepody Bay. Before the construction of a causeway in 1968, the river had one of the world's largest tidal bores, which ranged from 1 to 2 metres in height and moved at 5 to 13 kilometres per hour. With the opening of the causeway gates in April 2010, the river is flushing itself of ocean silts, and the bore is returning to its former size.
  The Mi'kmaq were the first to settle near the river, and used it as part of a portage route between Shubenacadie and the village of Petitcodiac, where they had a winter camp. Acadians from Port Royal, Nova Scotia colonised the region in 1698, but were expelled in 1755 during the Seven Years' War.
context_section_description: After the Treaty of Paris (1763), exiled Acadians began to return to the area, but their numbers around the Three Rivers remained under 200 by 1769. Settlers from Philadelphia began to migrate to the Petitcodiac River area in 1766: the Trites, Jones and Stieff families moved to present-day Moncton, but the Stieff family (now Steeves), later moved south-east to Hillsborough. Nine families bought land up to 21 km (13 mi) west from the bend of the river, ranging from 1,718 to 2,193 acres (695–887 ha) per grant. In 1829, the population of Moncton reached 100, composed mainly of descendants of these settlers.
  Moncton's shipbuilding era began in 1840 with the arrival of Stewart Russell, a shipbuilder from Hopewell. Russell built the Aginora, which sailed down the Petitcodiac River to trade at the ports in Saint John and New England. The ship and its crew sank in a storm on 24 December 1850, during a trip to Boston for Christmas. A ferry service on the Petitcodiac River was launched around 1841, thanks to a license obtained by Simon Outhouse. The Larch, built by Stephen Binney in 1845, was another important vessel, becoming the largest to sail on the river. But it was not until the arrival of Joseph Salter in 1846 that the shipbuilding boom began: a shipyard founded by Binney and Salter produced 24 vessels from 1847 to 1859, and employed almost 500 of the 1,000 inhabitants in Moncton. Salter would become the first mayor of Moncton in April 1855, the year the town was incorporated.
  The European and North American Railway was extended to link Pointe-du-Chene to Moncton in 1857, with an eventual goal of reaching Saint John in 1860. The move, according to Larracey, caused the town to become "but a station stop along a railway line". This coincided with the failure of Moncton's shipbuilding industry and a population drop from a peak of 2,000 to about 500. The town declared bankruptcy and was unincorporated in 1862, but it later regained its status in 1875, after it became the Intercolonial Railway's headquarters for its shops in 1871. While the Petitcodiac River continued to aid in the shipping of goods into the 20th century, shipbuilding essentially ended in the 1890s. The final vessel built in Moncton was the Woolastook II on 14 May 1980, while the final ship to sail up the Petitcodiac River was the Inox from France, which arrived on 12 July 1986, (and was, ironically, stranded in Moncton until 3 November due to the river's tidal fluctuations).
  In 1924, the Petitcodiac Tidal Power Company proposed a tidal power project. This called for a dam to be built between Hopewell Cape and Fort Folly Point. The company sold shares to raise funds for the project and a series of on-site and airborne studies were conducted by the federal government, but the project fell through by 1928. As rail transport became more common, it displaced river transportation around the Great Depression. In addition, the Greater Moncton International Airport offered an airmail service from Moncton to Montreal by 29 December 1929. These factors further marginalised the Petitcodiac.
  The Gunningsville Bridge, which crosses the Petitcodiac River to link Moncton and Riverview, was built in 1867. It was damaged and rebuilt on four different occasions. The first was following the Saxby Gale of 1869, which forced the town to rebuild the bridge in 1872. It went under "extensive repairs" mid-1892, but ice build-up from the Petitcodiac continued to pose a threat for the wooden structure, leading to the construction of a new steel version from 1915 to 1919. This fourth bridge would suffer through many collisions, including one with the Mayflower in September 1929, which caused the ship to capsize and drown two men. The Gunningsville Bridge would last 86 years before it would be demolished a final time, making way for a 425-metre-long (1,394 ft) four-lane bridge crossing. Covered bridges were also built over the Petitcodiac River, the final extant one being "Hasty", built in 1929.
caption: A view of Route 114 from Riverview, held up by the Petitcodiac River Causeway.
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