The Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited, commonly shortened to Bowater Mersey, operates a thermomechanical pulp (TMP) mill and associated paper mill producing newsprint located in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. Annual production is approximately 253,000 t (253,000 t) of newsprint.
The mill was built by Mersey Paper Company Limited in 1929, founded by Nova Scotia industrialist Izaak Walton Killam. It was located on the northern shore of Liverpool Bay, in the estuary of the Mersey River. The mill had its own shipping and receiving pier to accommodate ocean freighters. To power the mill, the company dammed the Mersey approximately 30 km (19 mi) upstream at Indian Gardens, in the process creating a reservoir named Lake Rossignol.
In 1956 the estate of Izaak Walton Killam sold the company to Bowater which renamed the company Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited in 1959. At the same time, Killam's estate sold the Mersey River generating stations to the then-provincial Crown corporation Nova Scotia Power; the mill is still supplied by NSP to this day.
In 1963 the Washington Post Company purchased 49 percent of the common stock of Bowater Mersey Paper Company, with Bowater retaining the controlling 51 percent ownership.
Changes to the corporate structure and ownership of parent company Bowater have seen that company's name evolve to become AbitibiBowater Inc in 2007 and Resolute Forest Products in November 2011.
In October 2011 it was announced by parent company Resolute Forest Products that the Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited was facing unprecedented production costs and that its operations would be re-evaluated later that fall. The parent company demanded concessions from the union, which were granted in a narrow vote in November 2011. Nova Scotia Power is also offering concessions in the form of discounted power rates and other incentives.
The year after the mill began production in 1929, Mersey Paper Company Ltd founded Mersey Shipping Company Limited in 1930 which was renamed to Markland Shipping Company Limited in 1937 and Bowater Steamship Company of Canada Limited in 1959. Its ships carried pulp wood and paper products for the Brooklyn mill and other shippers.