It was in June 1940 that the Gorton-Pew factory in Caraquet was inaugurated with great fanfare. Built at a cost of $400,000, the factory, the first in New Brunswick to be equipped with freezing facilities, was established there for one reason only: cod. It would mark the beginning of the end for the aging Robins market, which still processed dried salt cod for Catholic markets in Europe and South America. To build the factory, electricity was brought down from Bathurst, Route 11 was paved, and a railway line was installed alongside it. The older residents will tell you that it was as if the 20th century arrived in the Peninsula in the spring of 1940.
Despite the delays caused by the war, the factory wanted cod, lots of cod, which it would obtain with the arrival of the Fishermen’s and Trawlers’ Loan Commission in 1946. Gorton-Pew, headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts, received generous subsidies and property tax exemptions and employed, year in and year out, nearly two hundred people. A processing season began with the breakup of the ice in April and continued until Epiphany in January, when shipments to American markets were completed.
Born from the merger of Slade Gorton and John Pew in 1906, the company now known as Gorton Seafood remains the largest North American producer of frozen fish sticks. The Caraquet plant was sold in the 1970s to local interests and continued production until the early 2000s. Considered by many to be the most significant investment ever made by the federal and provincial governments, the arrival of the “plane” (a type of fishing vessel) was a pivotal moment in our regional history.
Bernard Thériault, historian
And where did the reference to this factory as “la plane” come from?
Explanatory note by Rhéal Boucher: The Americans who came to build the factory referred to it as “the fish plant” or “the plant.” The local population borrowed the term and “Acadianized” it. It became la plane. Even today, the place where the factory is located is called la butte de la plane (the hill of la plane).
