Now abandoned 1917 dam on Kouchibouguac one of N.B.'s earliest power plants

You can still see one of New Brunswick's early power-generating stations if you know where to look.

There is a spot where the Kouchibouguac River runs beneath the highway, just past the village of Saint-Louis de Kent, and if you look to the west you will see an abandoned concrete dam that dates back to 1917.

Built during the First World War, it was the brainchild of Richard O'Leary, a "fascinating character" in New Brunswick history, according to Moncton historian and educator James Upham.

"The building of that dam would have been an astronomically challenging undertaking," he said. "This is going to be horses and wagons and teams of people pouring concrete and lugging this stuff."

Upham said a similar dam could likely be built in a week or so nowadays, but in 1917, it was an "extremely impressive structure."

"If the Romans had built that, they wouldn't have shut up about it for generations," he laughed. "And I don't want to be disrespectful because I love it up here, but it's kind of the middle of nowhere in New Brunswick."

The Kouchibouguac is a major river, located in eastern New Brunswick, named "Pee-chee-boo-quak" by Mi'kmaw, which means "river of long tides."

Business pioneers in early New Brunswick

Upham describes O'Leary, who was born in 1865 in Richibucto, as an innovator.

O'Leary's father built a sawmill on the site, and the family was already successful, but when Richard inherited the mill he asked, "OK, but can we do something extra?"

"And the extra thing that he did was he attached a generator to his mill and in so doing became one of the first electric producers in the province of New Brunswick," said Upham.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes Richard O'Leary as "a pioneer" when it came to electrical utilities and telecommunications.

"Embracing new technology was the secret of O'Leary's success. In 1901 he modified a sawmill to create a power plant to electrify Richibucto and nearby Rexton," according to the biography. "This plant eventually delivered hydroelectric power with the aid of a dam on the Kouchibouguac River." 

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O'Leary also established Kent County's telephone service and was a director of NBTel for 25 years.

"He was one of these early New Brunswickers who actually built business in New Brunswick in a way that was really, really creative — in a way that was really interesting and in a way that was very innovative," said Upham.

"Interestingly, in the process of this, he hires a guy named Ken. Ken Colin. Most people call him K.C."

Upham imagines a young K.C. Irving, who would go on to start Irving Oil, seeing what O'Leary had accomplished in Kent County and wondering if there were "other opportunities like that for people in this province."

According to his biography, O'Leary was an "outstanding New Brunswick businessman of his generation" who set the stage for Irving, a fellow son of Kent County.

Abandoned dam, houses

In a publication titled Seventy Years of Service, published in 1990, N.B. Power lists its generating plants. The earliest is Saint John's Dock Street coal plant, which began operating in 1893. The second oldest is the Milltown hydro dam, which dates back to 1911.

Third on the list is the Kouchibouguac dam, which began operating in 1917 and was the first hydro dam the utility acquired, in 1939. It would be retired in 1953.

Today, Upham describes the area around the dam as "a bit of a ghost town," and said no one pays attention to the dam itself even though it played such an important part in the history of the province.

It is surrounded by many abandoned homes, some of them very grand. He explains the area was cut off when the road that used to run through was replaced.

"Because of that, people stopped going down the road that they used to go down, which is why they don't notice these houses … and why it's basically been sidelined from the consciousness of people that travel on this road."

Upham said it's fascinating to him that people are still "scratching their heads" trying to figure out a way to get away from oil and move to cleaner forms of energy, especially when you consider that dams have been used to power homes and businesses for more than 100 years. 

"We figured it out — all you need to do is build it slightly better and put in a fish ladder and you're good," he said of dams that have come since.

"A lot of New Brunswickers have done a lot of really amazing things and oddly enough, we just sort of skate on by it and don't even notice. But there are these testaments — somebody built that."