A great place to visit in Miramichi is Middle Island. This small island in the Miramichi is where Irish immigrants were quarantined when they got sick crossing the Atlantic to escape the potato famine in the late 1840s.
Also worth seeing is the MacDonald Farm, a National Historic site. This is on the north side of the river, about 7 miles downstream from the Centennial Bridge. Made of stone from Scotland, this farmhouse was built by Colonel Alexander MacDonald, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War.
Guides in period costumes explain the various exhibits. Transportation to the home, which lies in the banks of the Miramichi River, close to where the Bartibogue River joins it, is by horse drawn wagon. just off the shore is Bartibogue Island.
The Enclosure, where the Northwest Miramichi joins the Southwest Miramichi, makes for an interesting stop. This small Provincial Park contains the graves of the earliest Scottish and English settlers on the Miramichi, including the resting place of William Davidson, the first permanent European settler.
The most dramatic building in the Miramichi Valley is St. Michael's Basilica in the former Chatham neighbourhood. This imposing neoGothic structure is built on a hill and dominates the former town of Chatham. Until Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, it was the largest church in Canada, east of Quebec City.
