Welcome to St. Martins

Jane LeBlanc takes us on a tour of her adopted hometown—this charming New Brunswick village on the beautiful Bay of Fundy

I live in the tiny, picturesque village of St. Martins, N.B., but I’m not from here, originally. I’m “CFA” or “Come from away.” I was born and raised in London, Ont., a good size city. So you can imagine the culture shock at moving to such a small place. The population of St. Martins is under 300 year-round residents. But what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in warm Maritime welcome and stunning scenery.

St. Martins is located about 50 kilometers east of Saint John, on the Bay of Fundy coast. Artifacts found in the area prove there were people here as early as 10,000 years ago. The Mi’kmaq people named this place “Quaco” and folks generally translate that as meaning “haunt of the hooded seal.”

The first Europeans here in the 1600swere the French. The area went back and forth between the British and French several times. Mathias Moran was one of the original settlers of St. Martins. He arrived in October 1783 after the war ended and members of the King’s Orange Rangers, who had fought in the War of Independence but were loyal to the British king (hence the name “Loyalist”) were granted land in St. Martins, and a permanent settlement began.