Canada's Atlantic Provinces

[Applause] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] The Atlantic Ocean's never far away from the people who live in Canada's Atlantic provinces. Three of the Atlantic provinces, New Brunswick with its capital at Frederickton, Nova Scotia with its capital at Halifax, and Prince Edward Island with its capital at Charlotte Town are called the Maritimes. Newfoundland with its capital at St. John's is the fourth Atlantic province. All four provinces are a part of the Appalachian Highlands, which run through eastern North America. [Music] New England. They call their claim Aadia. The British later resettled most Acadians in other parts of North America. Evangeline, the heroine of Henry Wodsworth Longfellow's poem, is probably the most famous Acadian. [Music] The French, Indians, and English all fought for control of the area. The French built forts to guard their new world possessions. [Music] The Europeans wanted the waters for exploration, colonization, and fishing. Some Acadian families still live in fishing villages. They've kept their French language and many French traditions. [Music] People from Scotland, Ireland and other European countries came to the Maritimes too with other customs. [Music] English loyalists moved to the provinces from the United States during the revolution. They started lumbering industries [Music] and they started ship building industries. Both are still important. Their ships include championship racing schooners. For years, ships provided the principal transportation between North America's colonies. In 1864, ships brought Canada's colonial leaders to Prince Edward Island to plan their new nation. The leaders, called the Fathers of Confederation, met for the first time in Charlotte Town. Here they started building Canada's federal government. [Music] Many of the maritime Canadians earn their living at sea. [Music] Ships and equipment are modern, but the fisherman's lives still involve risks and hard work. [Music] lobsters are one of the most important seafoods exported by the Atlantic provinces. The fishermen catch and process a wide variety of seafood. They dry or fillet and freeze the cod they catch. There's also hadock, herring, salmon, oysters, and scolops. Fishing's common. The ocean's close with a lot of natural harbors. Of course, there are other types of coasts, too. In the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the ocean plays tricks with unusually high tides. And the high tide affects rivers like the St. John in New Brunswick, which flows one way, then reverses when the tide changes. [Music] At the headarters of the Bay of Fundi, the incoming tide causes a title bore, a wall of water, sometimes up to 5 ft high. [Music] Besides the ocean, the Maritimes have inland water resources. By building dams and salmon ladders, Canadians hope to make the best of these resources. [Music] Lakes provide water for industry and recreation. [Music] Canadians use Nova Scotia's Annapapolis River Valley and New Brunswick's St. John River Valley for farming. There's even potential for Newfoundland's bogs, which may be drained for farmland. Water affects life here other ways, like the fog that's common. Although there's fog and snow, the Harbor of Halifax stays open in winter, making it a major trade center. On pleasant summer days, water resources offer plenty to do. [Music] Besides water resources, there are resources of the land. Lumbering supplies trees for construction and for pulp and paper. From forests, the wood goes to industries that are changing. [Music] Large factories like this pulp and paper mill are replacing smaller operations. [Music] Just as manufacturing wood products is traditional in the Maritimes, so is farming. Especially on Prince Edward Island. Most of the island's game animals are gone because forests were cut to make fields. Its major crop is potatoes. The island's people use most of the other farm products. The other provinces grow fruit and produce milk and cheese. [Music] These then are the traditional Atlantic provinces. Enough farms to supply the individual provincial needs. Enough pulpwood to help Canada supply almost half the world's paper. And enough fish to compete in the world market. But modern technology is slowly changing the maritimes. [Music] New methods of fish processing make possible a few large plants instead of many small ones doing the same work. [Music] Industries like fish processing attract people to work in St. John's and other cities. And mining's become more and more important. Coal mining and asbestous as mining always have been. Various ores, lead, zinc, silver, copper, flurospar, and especially iron have made future mining promising. Steel manufacturing now makes Nova Scotia a leading industrial center. The province also manufactures heavy water for nuclear reactors. But changes don't come quickly. Many Canadians of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland still live isolated, independent lifestyles, never far away from the Atlantic Ocean. [Music] Get out.