Florenceville-Bristol in Canada, the French Fry Capital of the World

Wednesday, 8 February 2023 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika
Category/Kategorie: General Reading Time: 6 minutes

Truffle oil french fries © flickr.com – Tony Webster/cc-by-sa-2.0

Florenceville-Bristol is an unincorporated community in the northwestern part of Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada along the Saint John River. It held town status prior to 2023. On 1 January 2023, Florenceville-Bristol amalgamated with Bath, Centreville and all or part of nine local service districts to form the new town of Carleton North. The community’s name remains in official use.

Florenceville was originally known as Buttermilk Creek. In 1855 it was renamed Florenceville to honour Florence Nightingale, the famous Crimean War nurse. Florenceville was on the west side of the Saint John River and there the first post office and commercial section of the village was situated. In later years East Florenceville, previously known as Buckwheat Flats, became the commercial centre with five grocery stores and several other small businesses. There is a small strip mall along with several convenience stores and restaurants. The former village of Bristol is located on the Saint John River, in Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada, approximately 5 kilometres north of Florenceville. It was named after the city of Bristol, England. The name replaced Kent Station in the 1880s.

Present-day Bristol was the site of a battle between Micmac and Maliseet peoples. The area was originally named Shiktehawk, from the Maliseet for “where he killed him”. The name was changed when the New Brunswick Railway was constructed and railway officials were unable to pronounce the name correctly. Bristol is located where the Big Shiktehawk and Little Shiktehawk Streams empty into the Saint John River. This was an important stopping point for Native peoples as it was the start of the cross province route. They would canoe up the Big Shiktehawk Stream to Divide where they would portage a short distance to the Miramichi River and make their way to the eastern coast of New Brunswick.

Florence Nightingale © www.florence-nightingale.co.uk

Florenceville Bridge © Scott Davis/cc-by-2.5

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Florenceville-Bristol is home to the corporate headquarters for McCain Foods, the largest producer of French fries in the world. McCain also operates the Florenceville Airport, with a single paved runway located amid agricultural fields on the west side of the river. Mountain View Packers is another potato-centred business that calls Florencenville-Bristol home. Mountain View Packers is a business that specializes in the processing of potatoes and cauliflower for the fresh market. Mountain View Packers sources all of their potatoes from local farmers while the cauliflower is grown on site at their own farm. Florenceville-Bristol is also home to H.J. Crabbe & Sons Lumber Mill. This long-running family business specializes in its quality softwood lumber made mainly from Balsam Fir and White Spruce. The company has also recently built a new mill in the town to produce wood stove pellets in order to use more of what would be scrap material to help cut down on waste. The company is also one of the largest landowners in the province, next to Irving and Frasier. A.N.D. Communications & Graphics is a graphics company situated in Florenceville-Bristol. A.N.D. Communications & Graphics specializes in providing the local area with signage and local advertisement solutions.

It also has a free public art gallery. The Andrew and Laura McCain Gallery is a non-profit, community-supported gallery that shows about nine exhibitions a year of everything from exhibitions on loan from the National Gallery of Canada to the work of local school children. Florenceville-Bristol is also home to the New Brunswick Potato Museum (Potato World) and Shogomoc Historical Railway Site. The Shogomoc Historical Railway Site showcases a restored CPR train station and three CPR cars and is home to FRESH “fine dining”. Hunter Brothers Farm Market and Corn Maze. The town celebrates many festivals throughout the year; Festival of Flavour, which takes place August and showcases a variety of wine related events, Canada Day-July, Snow Blast- February, Haunted Train October, Buttermilk Creek Fall Festival-September and more. Throughout the summer season, July to September, the town is host to an outdoor summer market, every Thursday from 10-2 pm at the Riverside Park. The outdoor summer market features food, produce, craft, woodworking, flower, baked goods, local meat and jewellery vendors. Each week showcases a different musical performance from local entertainers. The town is the site of the Florenceville Bridge, a covered bridge built in 1907 that is unique in New Brunswick in combining a wooden covered bridge with steel trusses for the central spans over the Saint John River. Located just outside the town limits is a replica Noah’s Ark, a 2/3-scale model of the Biblical Ark that Noah built, as described in the Christian Old Testament. The replica ark contains the offices and student dorms for a private Bible school, The School of The Spirit, run by the Burnham Road Ministries. The sight of a 300-foot boat in the middle of potato fields within sight of Bristol and Oakland Mountain often attracts curious visitors.

Read more on ExploreFlorencevilleBristol.ca, Wikivoyage Florenceville-Bristol and Wikipedia Florenceville-Bristol (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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