Whether you love rivers or forests, coastlines or soft rolling hills, the Miramichi region has it all and more. The most quintessential experience is to spend a day on the river canoeing, tubing, fishing, or swimming. If you’re more into adrenaline, head to French Ford Cove Nature Park to soar over the park on the Maritimes’ longest zipline. If your speed is more relaxed, enjoy a beach day at Escuminac Beach and Family Park. And if you love waterfalls, the highest one in New Brunswick is here—Fall Brook Falls.

Spend a day the whole family will relish on Ritchie Wharf which features waterfront restaurants, boardwalks, an adventure playground, splash pad, and picnic pavilion. You’ll also find live entertainment here most evenings in the summer. There are also plenty of shops and galleries, not to mention farmers’ markets where you can get the freshest local produce and goodies, in towns and villages throughout the area.

With strong storytelling roots and a love for music, you’ll find that arts and culture are deeply valued in this region, which becomes very obvious when festival season rolls around! Miramichi is home to an International Chalk Art Festival, an Irish Festival, a Rock n’ Roll Festival, a Folksong Festival, and an International Buskers Festival, just to name a few. With so much to do, you’ll find your calendar filling up fast!

Combine nature with sport and recreation facilities and you get a playground that has the best of indoors and outdoors. If you love golf, there are plenty of pristine 9- and 18-hole courses to tee off from. With the river and bay so close by, watersports of all kinds are also popular. You can also play or cheer for local baseball, hockey, and basketball teams. And when summer turns to winter, you can trade hiking and biking for snowshoeing and skidooing. No matter the season, you won’t be short on ways to stay active.

When you settle in at a local pub or eatery, be prepared to be greeted by some genuine hospitality and delicious food. It’ll come as no surprise that fresh Atlantic salmon, lobster, and a variety of seafood are on the menu at many local restaurants, but there are also plenty of culturally diverse food options that will leave your tastebuds very happy. Take time to explore to discover your favourites.

While Miramichi serves as the urban centre of the area, you’ll find plenty of smaller towns and villages with stories all their own. You’ll find evidence of the region’s history in shipbuilding and the lumber trade, which helped create some of the communities that dot the area. Given that the Mi’kmaq peoples and Acadians have roots here too, their cultural richness infuses these communities as well.

With a rich storytelling tradition, don’t be surprised to encounter ghost stories and other local folklore when you talk to people. To learn about Miramichi’s old shipbuilding industry and Acadian history, head to Beaubears Island. At Metepenagiag Heritage Park, you can experience 3,000 years of Mi’kmaq culture rooted in this area. And at the Central New Brunswick Woodmen’s Museum you can enjoy the stories and legends related to lumberjacks who once worked here.

Miramichi Regional Multicultural Association