The Bathurst Pulp and Paper Industry -A Tale to Tell

When Angus L. McLean and other young entrepreneurs first invested in a saw mill on Chaleur Bay in New Brunswick, they could not have realized that their venture would lay the foundation for one hundred years of prosperity in the City of Bathurst.

From the turn of the century, the dense forests around Chaleur Bay had provided raw material for the lumber and timber industry, but McLean and other young men from this area had bigger dreams. In 1915, ten years after acquiring the sawmill, McLean’s company, Bathurst Power & Paper built a paper mill in Bathurst, introducing a pulp and paper industry that would become the mainstay of the regional economy.

This Community Memories exhibit, A Tale to Tell, tells how the dreams of Angus McLean and other young men of the 19th and 20th centuries, their initiative and perseverance spurred the development of the community itself, from the small village of Nepisiguit to a town to a city.

The community of Bathurst embraced the vision of the entrepreneurs and with hard work and perseverance the first paper mill became one of the most successful and dominant in the world, the local pulp and paper enterprise a world class business.

The mill is now closed, the industry dormant. But the story of the rise and fall of Bathurst’s pulp and paper industry lives on forever in A Tale to Tell.

The exhibit includes photos, artifacts from the Mill Room at the Nepisiguit Centennial Museum and Cultural Centre, and, most telling, the memories of the former employees of this great enterprise. They were anxious to record every detail of the glory days of high employment, healthy paychecks, admirable administration as well as the years of a fading industry. The words of early sawmill workers, foresters, loggers, river guides and camp workers, cooks, teamsters and the employees of the Bathurst Lumber Company/ the Bathurst Pulp and Paper Mill/ Bathurst Power and Paper Mill/Consolidated Bathurst Mill and finally the Smurfit-Stone Container Mill provide a rich text to this exhibit.

Now it is time to tell the tale.