Saint John's Long Game Pays Off
A $247-million bet, two national rail lines and a surge in Ontario trade are writing a new chapter for Canada's original Port City
We’re sending you down to our own Port City today to read about Saint John’s spotlight news in my latest story with Be Giant, the national non-profit newsroom telling stories of the people, places and ideas doing the work to move Canada forward.
Today’s story follows the remarkable resurrection of Port Saint John: a $247-million modernisation, the return of CPKC rail after a 25-year absence, commitments from global shipping giants Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd, and a 153 per cent surge in Ontario trade traffic as the Golden Horseshoe begins rerouting east. All of it unfolding against the backdrop of American tariffs that are simultaneously battering New Brunswick’s economy and redirecting the world’s attention toward Saint John’s deep-water advantages.
It’s a story about infrastructure, but also about a city that never stopped believing its port was its future.
Here’s the opening. Follow the link at the end to read the full piece on Be Giant.
The South African visitor has come ashore on this blustery morning in Saint John, N.B., to replenish supplies. “It’s OK, we sometimes get snow where I live,” he says with a smile and a shrug as he sets off down Water Street, hands stuffed in the pockets of his red puffer jacket, headed toward the city’s Uptown district to shop for snacks and other necessities.
He and his fellow passengers aboard Virgin Voyages’ 17-deck Valiant Lady aren’t supposed to be experiencing the brisk winds and drizzle that mark early spring on the Bay of Fundy. They’re supposed to be sunning themselves in Bermuda, but gale-force winds and six-metre ocean swells have diverted the 2,000 passengers northward to Saint John, where shopkeepers, wait staff and locals are accustomed to providing directions, lunch recommendations and local history tidbits to visitors “off the boats.”
For much of the 21st century, this has been life in Canada’s historic “Port City” – a cruise ship or two anchored at wharves abutting the city’s Uptown and tourists buying dried Grand Manan dulse and lighthouse magnets in Canada’s oldest city market (established in 1785), and going on walking tours of the city’s ornate 19th-century buildings, which once housed transatlantic merchants and adventurers and are now home to law offices, design studios and loft apartments. In pre-Confederation Canada, Saint John was the place to be, the largest shipbuilding centre in British North America.
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