New Brunswick is the most eastern Maritime Province. New Brunswick has a diverse and fascinating cultural heritage: Micmacs, Maliseets, Loyalists, Acadians, Scots, Danes and Germans all played a role. New Brunswick is Canada's only officially bilingual province with approximately 35% of the population having French as their mother tongue; with Canada's highest percentage of Francophones living outside Quebec. The little municipality of New Denmark boasts North America's largest Danish colony.

Beginning at the north, the province's boundaries are the province of Quebec, the Restigouche River and the Chaleur Bay. Its eastern boundary is entirely water, made up of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Northumberland Strait. On the south, the boundary is the Bay of Fundy and Chignecto Bay, with a 24-km (15 mile) land boundary at the southeast corner, where the province is joined to Nova Scotia by the Isthmus of Chignecto. New Brunswick's western boundary borders on the state of Maine and Quebec. The northern part of the province has the Appalachians (the oldest chain of mountains in North America and the second largest mountain system on the continent with only the Rockies being larger). The range stretches 3,500 kilometres from Alabama to Newfoundland. The tallest peak is Mount Carleton, 820 m high. The interior consists mainly of a rolling plateau, flatter in the east and more hilly in the southeast. Twice a day, with the rising tide of the Atlantic Ocean, 100 billion tonnes of water stream past a rocky headland in the Bay of Fundy. The current created is equal to the flow of all the world's rivers over a 24-hour period. The eastern end of the Bay has tides of nearly 15 m, the highest in the world, sufficient to completely submerge a four-storey building.

As early as the 1400s Basque fishermen plied their trade off Miscou in the northeast of the province. At that time, the region was inhabited by the Malecite and Micmac Indians. The Micmacs were the first to receive Samuel de Champlain and the French when they landed in New Brunswick in 1604. The British and French feuded over the area for a century. Control passed back and forth until 1713, when it was ceded to the British under the Treaty of Utrecht. By 1755, England had established its dominance as a colonial power. Fearing that the previous French settlers (known as Acadians) were a security threat, the British deported , mainly to the United States, all Acadians who would not swear allegiance to the British Crown. Their exile lasted eight years, forced more than 5,000 Acadians into exile in 1755. Some of them escaped to what was then a remote and uninhabited coastline along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Baie des Chaleurs. Today it is called the Acadian Peninsula. Others returned to France or fled to the United States, many settling in Louisiana. The early Acadian farmers settled at the head of the Bay of Fundy and up the St. John River Valley as far as present-day Fredericton.

In 1783, the western part of Nova Scotia became the home of thousands of Loyalists who had taken flight in the aftermath of the American Revolution. These American colonists, wishing to remain faithful to the British Crown, founded communities in the northern part of the province: with so many landing in Saint John that by 1785 they were able to incorporate Canada's first city. This mass influx of Loyalists created a rift between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and New Brunswick became a separate province in June, 1784. In 1783 it was the English who were refugees. Scots and Irish, pushed out of their Great Britain homes by political pressures and potato famines, arrived in the early 1800s. In 1815, 300 former slaves from Maryland and Virginia arrived at Saint John and settled in Loch Lomond.

Forests occupy 85 percent of the land mass of the province making wood and wood products a cornerstone of the economy, with black spruce and fir leading the list. Leading the manufacturing industries are food and beverages, followed by pulp and paper, sawmills, manufacturers of furniture and other wood-based industries, metal processing, transportation equipment, processing of non-metallic ores and primary metals.

Tourism is a vital part of the province's economy. In 1991, nearly 1.5 million people visited New Brunswick's tourists attractions. Tourist facilities include two National parks, several Provincial parks and rest areas operated and maintained within the Provincial park system, and over 24,000 accommodation units in hotels, motels, country inns, campgrounds, farm vacation homes, bed and breakfasts, as well as fishing and hunting outfitter establishments.

New Brunswick has natural resources and deposits of antimony, silver, bismuth, cadmium, coal, copper, natural gas, gold, oil, lead, potash, peat moss, tungsten, silica, salt, sulphur, clay products, cement, lime, sand, gravel, stone and zinc.

Fishing and agriculture are also very important. More than 50 varieties of fish and shellfish are caught here; in fact, the town of Shediac has been called the "lobster capital of the world." The main species caught by New Brunswickers are lobster (which alone accounts for 50% of the landed value), snow crab, herring, scallop, and shrimp. Aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry in New Brunswick. Atlantic salmon is by far the dominant species raised on the aquaculture farms, representing about 95% of production.

In agriculture, New Brunswick is self-sufficient in the production of forage, milk and poultry. Seed potatoes produced in New Brunswick are recognized in over 26 countries. Other crops include strawberries, apples, blueberries and vegetables which are produced for local consumption and for export.

President Roosevelt spent his summer's in this Canadian province in his home at Campobello. An International Park was established as a reminder of his love for not only this part of the world, but his friendship with Canada.

So with legendary salmon angling on the world-famous Miramichi River; more kinds of whales more often than anywhere else in the world; Michias Seal Island (in the Bay of Fundy): which is home to 900 pairs of breeding Atlantic puffins; Kings County: the Covered bridge capital of Canada; where you can walk the ocean floor and see the world's largest whiprlpool the Old Sow off Deer Island .... how can you not want to visit!