Unincorporated settlement in New Brunswick, Canada
This article is about the community. For the geographic parish, former local service district, and rural census subdivision, see Saint George Parish, New Brunswick.
The area was surveyed in 1786. First called Magaguadavic, it was renamed Granite Town after the nearby red-granite quarries. In 1829 it was renamed to the current name, and a post office was established. By 1898 the town's port served the Shore Line Railway, and there were three hotels, four churches, 22 stores, and two mills. It was incorporated as a town in 1904.[2]
During the Second World War, two military bases were opened near the town: A Canadian Army training base known as "Camp Utopia" and a RCAF/RAF Air Station at Pennfield Ridge. By the late 1950s, both bases were closed; Camp Utopia relocated to Camp Gagetown, later CFB Gagetown, and the airfield at Pennfield Ridge served as the first commercial airport for the city of Saint John. From 1983 to 1985, Adex Mining Inc. operated a tungsten/molybdenum mine 40 km north of the town, at Mount Pleasant. Primary employers are aquaculture and a J. D. Irving lumber mill, Lake Utopia Paper.
St. George Power runs a hydroelectric generating station on the Magaguadavic River. It has an installed capacity of 15 MW.[3] It is a run of the river plant, meaning there is no water storage in reservoirs as there is at the Mactaquac Dam.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, St. George had a population of 1,579 living in 698 of its 751 total private dwellings, a change of 4.1% from its 2016 population of 1,517. With a land area of 16.17 km2 (6.24 sq mi), it had a population density of 97.6/km2 (252.9/sq mi) in 2021.[1]
Canada census – St. George, New Brunswick community profile