Miramichi

Geography

The Miramichi River watershed drains a territory comprising one-quarter of New Brunswick's territory, measuring approximately 13,000 km2 of which 300 km2 is an estuarine environment on the inner part of Miramichi Bay. The watershed roughly corresponds to Northumberland County, but also includes sections of Victoria County, Carleton County, and York County and smaller parts of Gloucester County and Sunbury County.

The Miramichi River meander length measures approximately 250 km and comprises two important branches, the Southwest Miramichi River and the Northwest Miramichi River, each having their respective tributaries.

Environmental history

The Miramichi River has a significant environmental history which has brought negative attention to the province of New Brunswick. Known as one of the greatest salmon streams in North America, this waterway is frequented for both recreational and subsistence fishing. In the early 1950s the Miramichi area began having a spruce budworm problem which was affecting the trees purposed for the local pulp and paper industry. To combat the issue, a solution of the chemical DDT was sprayed aerially over the Miramichi area. Assuming the DDT would only harm the budworms, planes kept their spraying jets on over the entire region including over the major waterways. This chemical spraying project adversely affected the river as well as the living things within it, particularly the wild salmon.

Geology

Rising in the Silurian and Ordovician rocks of the Miramichi Highlands, an extension of the Appalachian Mountains, the tributaries of the Miramichi River flow eastward into the New Brunswick Lowland, which dominates the eastern and central part of the province along the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Erosion has created the "Miramichi River valley" (also shortened to just "Miramichi Valley"), through which the Northwest and Southwest Miramichi rivers flow. Throughout the course of both branches to Newcastle, New Brunswick, they are framed by heavily forested low hills. The highest peaks in the Miramichi River watershed, include Big Bald Mountain and the Christmas Mountains, extending to 750 m above sea level.