New Brunswick has had its share of boundary disputes over the years, almost going to war with the state of Maine in 1839 then squabbling with Quebec over Lake Temiscouata a few years later.
But along the Missaguash River between Aulac, N.B., and Amherst, N.S., there’s nary a whisper of contention over a five-hectare historical curiosity.
No farmers fluster. No politicians bluster. No militias muster.
The Missaguash is a narrow, murky channel regulated by dikes and aboiteaux that keep the Bay of Fundy from flooding the soil here with salt water.
It’s also the boundary between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia — except at one lot, PID No. 70395462.
Local farmer John Atkinson pointing at the little piece of New Brunswick beyond the Nova Scotia border. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
That parcel has an official New Brunswick land registry number, though it sits on the Nova Scotia side of the river.
Fredericton engineer Rob Hoadley noticed the anomaly last year, when provincial boundary shutdowns got him poking around maps of the area.
“I’m just that kind of guy to get curious about that kind of stuff,” he says. “At a time when we couldn’t physically cross the border, here’s a spot that may or may not be in New Brunswick.”
A federal government atlas shows the boundary running down the river, which would put the land in Nova Scotia. Election New Brunswick’s official map of the riding of Memramcook-Tantramar does not include the property.
A new channel was dug in the 1950s. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
But a Nova Scotia online map shows the border deviating from the river to wrap around the parcel of land, placing it in New Brunswick.
And that map is the correct one, says its owner.
“We own the property and we pay taxes on it,” says Edie Helm, who grew up on her family’s farm on the New Brunswick side of the river.
Helm lives in Amherst but the property taxes for the land are levied by, and paid to, New Brunswick.
But how can that be?
The Missaguash has been the boundary between the two provinces since King George III approved carving New Brunswick out of what used to be a much larger Nova Scotia on June 18, 1784.
Hank Kolstee, a retired agricultural engineer who worked at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, says the anomaly is a product of drainage needs. (Robert Guertin/CBC)
The order-in-council said the boundary would be established by “drawing a line of separation from the Mouth of the Musquat [Missiguash] River” to its source.
The two provinces confirmed that almost a century later when they passed legislation identifying the Missaguash as the boundary.
But that was then.
“The river would have had a different routing in its earlier days,” says local farmer John Atkinson.
The farmers at that time were more concerned about getting proper drainage than worrying about on what side to the border their land was going to be on.– Hank Kolstee, retired agricultural engineer.
In 1949 the federal government took over maintenance of the dike system here under the Maritime Marshland Reclamation Act.
The river’s meandering watercourse featured an oxbow, a U-shaped bend in the river that wrapped almost entirely around this teardrop-shaped parcel of land.
That presented a drainage problem.The dike system was designed to let the river’s freshwater current out without allowing salt water in.
“That could cut the distance in that particular area by about a third, so you could get much better water flow in that area,” says Hank Kolstee, a retired agricultural engineer who worked at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College and worked on marshland projects.
In this case, a new channel shifted the river to the north of the five-hectare parcel of land.
It also produced this jurisdictional anomaly.
“I don’t know what their thinking was way back then, as to the legalities of the Nova Scotia or New Brunswick land registry or whatever,” Atkinson says.
“If you look at the old marsh plans, it will show where the old channel was, and what was actually the border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,” Kolstee says.
“The farmers at that time were more concerned about getting proper drainage than worrying about on what side to the border their land was going to be on. But it just looks a little odd right now because they consider that the new channel is the border.”
The piece of New Brunswick that lives on the Nova Scotia side
5 hours ago
This marshy notch was once an oxbow on the N.B side of the river — but not anymore. 4:02
‘Complex web of agreements’
Service New Brunswick spent several days looking into the “complex web of agreements, precedents and conventions” that apply to boundaries before they could explain the property’s legal status.
According to spokesperson Jennifer Vienneau, a boundary defined by a natural geographic feature like a river can move only by “slow and imperceptible” natural causes such as accretion or erosion.
If a river is altered artificially, by human engineering, the boundary does not move.
The new channel dug in the Missaguash “would have caused the watercourse to be relocated, but the original river bed would continue to be the legal boundary,” she said.
So the issue isn’t as murky as it seemed.
The situation here is as calm and quiet as Fort Beauséjour, a monument to long-ago battles for this territory, standing at ease on the horizon.
There’s one last issue: you can’t get to this stranded piece of New Brunswick without crossing into Nova Scotia, or wading across the mucky, marshy river.
But that’s hardly a pressing concern.
Edie Helm, the owner of the property, wouldn’t agree to an interview, but in a brief telephone conversation made it clear no one needs to worry about access.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
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