New Brunswick community aims to be designated dark sky site

Global News

15-07-2025

The community of St. Martins, N.B., is reaching for the sky, literally, as it works to complete a corridor with the world's highest concentration of dark sky sites.
If the stars align on the idea, the village will help complete the world's densest dark sky corridor from New River Beach Provincial Park to Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, with six sites within around 150 kilometres, according to Stephan Picard, the owner and CEO of Cliff Valley Astronomy.
The initiative was launched by the St. Martins and District Chamber of Commerce, which formed a dark sky committee about three months ago.
'The whole dark sky corridor, we're in the middle of it, the village of St. Martins. And we're the biggest area in the corridor of dark sky,' said Elisabete Way, the committee's chair.
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International Dark Sky Week
While the committee is just getting started, it has already met about 95 per cent of the requirements for International Dark Sky Association certification.
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Village council has sent a letter of support for the initiative and passed two new light mitigation bylaws.
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'Light pollution is growing at 10 per cent per year, worldwide. In 30 to 40 years, you will not be able to see the sky at all,' Way said.
Picard, who is working as the astro-tourism consultant on the certification, says the community is perfectly positioned in the northern hemisphere with the Bay of Fundy facing the south.
'That's where the planets rise, that's where the stars rise, that's where the Milky Way rises,' Picard said.
'And the Bay of Fundy guarantees that there will not be any light pollution because nobody is building on the water.'
Picard says that access to dark skies is getting increasingly tough, with about 60 per cent of residents in Canada unable to see the Milky Way from where they live.
Fortunately for New Brunswick, the province has 85 per cent forest land.
'When you go to the big city … when you look up at the sky, you can't see the stars because of the light pollution,' Fundy-St. Martins Mayor James Bedford said.
'(You) get to appreciate what we take for granted every day but others don't actually get to see this.'
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Beyond boosting international tourism, Way says the certification would protect the environment, support local ecosystems and benefit human health.
The group hopes to secure certification by next April, with annual light pollution audits required to maintain it.