About Beausoleil
Our name
Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil (1702–1765) was born at Port-Royal, in what is now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia — but he made his life in southeastern New Brunswick. He settled with his wife Agnès and their children at Le Cran, today's Stoney Creek, along the Petitcodiac River, and the family later moved farther upriver to the village that gave him his nickname: Village-des-Beausoleil, near present-day Boundary Creek.
A militia captain, he spent more than a decade organizing Acadian and Mi'kmaw militias against British forces. During the Great Upheaval (1755–1764), when Acadian families were driven from their land, their homes burned and their households scattered across the Atlantic world, Beausoleil led the Acadian resistance on the Petitcodiac, holding out until the fall of Louisbourg and Quebec ended any remaining hope.
He surrendered and was imprisoned. Released in 1763, he went on to guide the first group of Acadians to southern Louisiana in 1765, where he was appointed militia captain of the Acadians of the Attakapas. He died there the same year, at 62 or 63, within months of arriving. He did not live to see what he had made possible: the people he brought across the water endured, and became the Cajuns.
In November 2024, Parks Canada and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada unveiled a plaque in Moncton commemorating his national historic significance.
When our communities came together, the transition committee chose his name. It is a name that belongs to this region, and it stands for what Acadians here have always done: hold on.
Our municipality
The Rural Community of Beausoleil (Communauté rurale de Beausoleil) was created on January 1, 2023 under New Brunswick's Local Governance Reform. It brings together the Acadian communities of Cocagne, Grande-Digue, Notre-Dame, and Shediac Bridge–Shediac River, along the shores of the Northumberland Strait in Kent County and parts of Westmorland County.
Beausoleil is a francophone community. Life here follows the coast and the seasons: the fishery, the farms, the wharves, and the summers that bring family home.
The municipality is governed by a mayor and council, and belongs to the Kent Regional Service Commission.
