Bear Island

Bear Island is a Name Place in Queensbury Parish, New Brunswick, Canada, located on the north shore of the Saint John River. History Named "Island of the Bear" by the Maliseet people, the location takes its name from islands (Big Bear and the Little Bear Islands) in the Saint John River. One story claims that bears fished in the narrow channels between the islands, while others claim that bears would frequent the butternut trees native to the islands. With the development of the downstream Mactaquac Dam in 1968 and the consequential rise in water levels, Bear Island is technically a misnomer, as the islands no longer exist, and the entire area referred to as Bear Island is on the shore of the dam's 96-kilometre headpond. Many of the area's homes were razed in order to make way for the headpond. The first permanent settlement in Bear Island was by Revolutionary War Loyalist veterans who received minimum land grants by King George III on February 2, 1787, with many soldiers arriving that spring. Twelve veterans from the "Guides and Pioneers, Queensbury" and twenty-one from the "Corps of Queen's Rangers" regiments were granted land. Eventually immigrants from Portugal, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland, France and Germany, and families of former slaves of African descent would find their way to Bear Island.