Lamèque-Miscou — A bunch of little New Brunswick places that everyone thought were one place already decided not to amalgamate this past Monday.
On May 15, “citizens” of Cap-Bateau, Coteau Road, Haut-Lamèque, Lamèque, Miscou, Petite-Lamèque, Paroisse Ste-Cécile, Pigeon Hill, Paroisse Shippagan, Pointe-Alexandre, Pointe-Canot and Sainte-Marie-Saint-Raphaël were asked to vote on forming into one big place. However, 54.7 percent of the 1,600 people who voted decided to leave things as is — a status that to most is questionable at best.
“I don’t think you could strictly speaking call most of them towns or even villages,” said government spokesperson Shirley Knox-Sirious. “I believe their official classification is ‘podunk local service districts’ but I could be mistaken. Anyways, I know everyone thinks it’s all one place but you can ask anyone who lives there, and they will tell you that they most definitely are not and now it’s going to stay that way. So, there you go.
“It’s like the whole Sussex and Sussex Corner amalgamation thing a couple of years ago. Sussex Corner citizens were like, ‘No way are we joining Sussex! Forget it!’
“But, most people were like, ‘You mean these two things aren’t considered one place already? Seriously? Where the heck is Sussex Corner? I barely know where Sussex is.’ It was a whole thing in a very small geographical area, but that’s about it. God forbid we save some paperwork or something with all of these holes in the wall.”
Residents of the places in the scope of Monday’s vote were not having second thoughts. “Pigeon Hill has garbage pickup on Tuesday, while Coteau Road has it on Wednesday. I mean, figure that one out!” laughed local resident of one of those places, Andre LeBlanc. “And, Cap-Bateau has all of those stop signs… I’m not paying for those! Give me a break!”
The Manatee tried to include photos of all of the places in scope of Monday’s vote, but for the most part no one has ever found anything notable to photograph in those places.
I find it very disrespectful for a government spokesperson to refer to these communities as “podunk local service district”. Each one of these “holes in the wall” has their own history, traditions and folklore that is passed down from generation to generation and is not generally known to anyone who is not local. Why the hell would they want to give that up? I can speak about Coteau Rd specifically. For alot of the people who live there it is all they know, and all the ones that have moved away, Coteau will always be home. As for including pictures in your article but you couldn’t find anything notable to photograph, there are many breathtaking sites and the reason you couldn’t find them is simple… they don’t like outsiders and that is one of the main things that makes these communities great.