This New Brunswick village near the USA border is doing something remarkable for a Maritime town: It’s actually growing

Don’t misunderstand McAdam Mayor Ken Stannix. There’s nothing wrong with his New Brunswick town’s graveyard. As final resting places go, it might even be exceptional. It’s 120 years old and sits four kilometres from where a German spy tried to blow up a bridge to Maine in 1915. Also nearby is a railway station where Marilyn Monroe once caught a train—before she got famous and started taking planes everywhere.

But there’s no getting around the fact that Rockland Cemetery, despite its proximity to some of the 20th century’s more vital moments, is still where this 1,350-member village buries its dead. And, Stannix asks not unreasonably, “Is a picture of that graveyard the first thing we want people to see on our website?”

Or, at least, that’s what he asked local officials while launching a campaign to attract new residents to the area a couple of years ago. “We’re promoting McAdam as vibrant and alive, not where people go and die,” he recalls telling them.

It was hard to argue with logic like that. Then again, it was hard to argue with anything retired Canadian Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Stannix—who spent decades commanding operations at military bases from Chilliwack to Colorado Springs—had to say about the place where he was born and raised. It still is.

Thanks to him (and fellow municipal councillors), McAdam is undergoing a transformation that’s nothing short of remarkable for a small Maritime town. Where other communities of its size are shedding citizens to more economically promising corners of the country and world, this spot is actually growing.

Since 2018, real estate agents here have sold 100 houses to residents and outsiders lured by low prices, renewed cultural amenities and word of the community’s pristine natural environment. In fact, come-from-aways helped boost McAdam’s population to 1,350 this past summer, from 1,100 in 2016.

 
Photo by Jean Copp - Low home prices, renewed cultural amenities, and word of the community’s pristine natural environment have all helped boost McAdam’s population in recent years from 1,100 in 2016 to 1,350 in 2020.

More than this, though, there’s a spirit that hasn’t been seen about town in years, says Don Doherty, who runs McAdam Home and Building Centre with his wife Rhonda. “Not to speak badly about former politicians, but the place was stuck in a rut. Although it was a great place to live, it wasn’t going forward. I have nothing but good things to say nothing but the current town council. They work as a team. They may have their disagreements, but it never seems to show. Once they decide on a course of action, they’re all pulling the same direction.”

Stannix credits his own decisiveness to his formative years in McAdam where, he says, he learned how to think for himself. “That independence as a child carried me through my adult military career,” he says. “I knew that no matter the situation, I could sit back, look at the logic flow and make a decision based on what I saw at the time.”

What he saw in 2012, when he retired from the service and returned home to enjoy his sunset years, frankly shocked him. “I looked around and saw a village in decline,” he says. “There was derelict housing, the streets had not been paved in a long time, the sidewalks had not been replaced.”

Worse was an underlying attitude Stannix hadn’t experienced before in his childhood stomping grounds. “People were leaving and moving out to Alberta, but that wasn’t the strange part,” he says. “People were almost taking pride in the fact that neighbours were getting out. I thought this can’t be right. What are we going to do about it?”

The first public meeting, he says, generated enormous buzz and attracted a fifth of the village’s residents. After he and a new council were elected to office in 2015, the navel gazing continued as they pressed the existential questions: What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? What do we want to be when we grow up?

For clues, Stannix consulted widely, including a study published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill titled Small Towns, Big Ideas. “That piece talks about five ways a village can reinvent itself,” he says. “We already have three of them going for us: Industry, tourism and retirement.”

Photo by David Blair

For tourism, the McAdam Railway Station is a no brainer. Built in 1900, it’s “a National and Provincial Historic site and a designated Heritage Railway Station,” the village website proudly reports. “Located on the New Brunswick-Maine border, the former Canadian Pacific Railway Station was part of the main CPR line into Atlantic Canada…[now] an active museum offering tours, catered meals, conference facilities, and Visitor Information Center only a few kilometers from the Maine-New Brunswick border crossing at Vanceboro,” drawing as many as 30,000 visitors a year.

For industry and retirement, a reasonable mix—ranging from manufacturing and professional firms to public sector and healthcare institutions—provides steady employment, job creation, and residential opportunities for older people. The Gun Dealer, which bills itself as “Atlantic Canada’s largest firearms merchant” sits just off the main drag, not far from Soleno Maritimes, which manufactures polyethylene stormwater pipes. On the other side of town, Wauklehegan Manor offers permanent long-term-care residence to 35 seniors.

With these assets in hand, the new, almost military, logic at McAdam’s village council dictated broadening the theatre of engagement for as many people as possible. “We were looking at retirees who want a good, safe, comfortable place to live,” Stannix says. “But, we were also looking at families and younger people. So, again the question was: What do we do?”

The word “propaganda” comes to mind—but only in the friendliest, most genial economic development sort of way. The town’s redesigned website is replete with precisely targeted messages for just about every age and interest.

“If you are looking for a peaceful and picturesque setting, a quiet night’s sleep, and lots of opportunity to enjoy real country activities, then we think you’ll enjoy your stay at Wauklehegan Lake Campground,” it gleefully crows. “Centrally located, we offer fully serviced lots and tent sites. Enjoy boating, fishing, canoeing, kayaking and beautiful sunsets. All registered campers will receive a pass which entitles them to a free tour of the McAdam Railway Station.”

Indeed, if you happen to pop by the place where Marilyn Monroe once loitered looking for a train, you might want to “Take the guided tour and discover the significance of rail travel to New Brunswick and Canada. Stories of German spies, plane crashes and a waiting room shooting are all part of the experience of rail travel in the early 1900s. It’s a step back in time. Winston Churchill, Barbara Ann Scott, and a host of others all traveled through the McAdam Railway Station… a vital supply link for Canadian troops and material heading to Europe in WW I & II.”

 
Photo by Jean Copp - McAdam’s website almost purrs: “If you are looking for a peaceful and picturesque setting, a quiet night’s sleep, and lots of opportunity to enjoy country activities...you’ll enjoy Wauklehegan Lake Campground.”

Other initiatives required more plotting. Stannix explains: “One of the obstacles we faced was a lot of run-down housing. We counted 25 places like that. One of the first policies we put into action was remediating or tearing down these old homes. As soon as we started doing that, the houses beside them started selling to people both in the town and outside of it.”

In fact, the program was a bit more involved and innovative than that. In 2018, Council assumed ownership of 16 ramshackle dwellings, cleared the land on which they sat, and flipped the properties onto the market at one dollar a pop. Nobody in this neck of the Atlantic woods had ever tried anything as audacious before, and the innovative move generated press coverage across North America.

“For just $1, you can purchase a fully-serviced plot of land in McAdam, New Brunswick, no strings attached,” blared Montreal-based MTL Blog—whose parent company Narcity Media claims to reach more than 16 million millennials monthly—two years ago. “The plots range from 5,300 square feet to 11,000 square feet. That leaves you lots of space for a great garden or expansive backyard….Everyone knows that Maritime hospitality is world renowned, and it seems McAdam is no different. “The town spent two years slowly acquiring the land, spending about $2,500 per lot. That means you’d be getting a nice $2,499 discount. The only catch is that you must build a dwelling on the property within two years. (So, give up any plans you have to buy the land for a dollar and then flip it for its actual worth).”

Buyers from Quebec to Texas scooped up the properties as fast as they hit the streets. Stannix was delighted. He still is. “It was a pleasure to speak with so many people that wanted to take a look at McAdam after the dollar lots,” he says. “Their reasons for coming here were as varied as shades of gray.”

Of course, it’s always possible that this new lease on life in the village that time once forgot doesn’t sit well with everyone here. Habits of mind can be hard to break. Some people like cemeteries, after all. 

Still, Don Doherty hasn’t heard anyone complaining. A retired banker, who has worked across Canada, he—like Stannix—was born and raised here. “Yes, there is a very good quality of life,” he says. “We have lakes and walking trails. We have places for people to fish and hunt. And, if you are younger, there’s no better thing than the small classroom sizes. But the important thing is that most people who live here are leaders. They’re not followers. They’re creative. If you want to live in a community that is based on those values, you want to live here.”

Stannix agrees. “There’s a new sense of pride,” he says. “I had a fellow come over to me on my way home from the office and say, ‘Ken, I just want to thank you and your council.’ He said, ‘Before you guys came in, I was almost embarrassed to say I’m a McAdamite because of the derelict housing, the depressed look of the town… Now, things look so much better I’m proud to call myself a McAdamite again.’

“I thought, wow that is quite a statement. I have been told by many people that there is a new sense of excitement and new sense of hope in the community.”

It’s also possible that the boomtown attitude won’t last. But Stannix only smiles at this suggestion. “I had one couple come up from Texas,” he says. “They were looking for a summer home. And they couldn’t get over the place. They said New Brunswick is very similar to the way people in Texas think. We’re independent-minded, and willing to take things on. After they bought their house here, this one couple took pictures of another one and called their friends in Texas. Then, that couple bought that house sight unseen. They eventually brought a third family up from Texas.”

He doesn’t say it, but it seems pretty clear they’re not coming for the storied graveyard down by the railway tracks. Not while the living are getting busy in McAdam.