Minto, New Brunswick
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Minto (2001 pop. 2,776) is a village located in central New Brunswick, Canada approximately 50 km northeast of Fredericton.
Situated on the north shore of Grand Lake, the village straddles the border of Sunbury and Queens counties. Minto was originally named Northfield but took its present name in 1904 upon the retirement of Canada's eighth Governor General, The Earl of Minto.
The village is located along the Newcastle Creek in a shallow valley which also hosts an extensive coal seam. Local lore claims Minto as one of the first locations in North America where coal was mined (although Port Morien, Nova Scotia also claims this title - see Fortress Louisbourg).
Mining in the Newcastle Creek seam only began on a large scale during the late nineteenth century with the completion of a railway from Fredericton to Chipman and south to Norton, passing through the village. Later construction of the National Transcontinental Railway passing north of the village in 1912 saw a spur line built south into Minto to access the coal.
During the early years of the Great Depression, the New Brunswick Power Corporation built the province's first thermal generating station south of the village on the shores of Grand Lake. Opened in 1931, the Grand Lake Generating Station accessed coal from nearby deposits and is presently still in operation. A NB Power subsidiary, NB Coal, is the only mining company left in the Minto area and performs strip mining. Due to the poor quality of Minto coal, the age of the Grand Lake Generating Station, and the increasing cost of environmental controls, NB Power is in the process of closing the generating station and the NB Coal operations, placing Minto's economic future in doubt.
During the Second World War, the largest internment camp in eastern Canada was located in the hamlet of Ripples, 10 km west of the village; in addition to German POWs, its most notable prisoner was the anti-conscriptionist mayor of Montreal, Camillien Houde.
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