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[The following are excerpts from a 19th century article that appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The "Penman" mentioned is the nom de plume of the author, an American. This is courtesy Restigouche Regional Museum.]

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The Restigouche at Tide Head in the 19th century

Athol House. It stood behind where the AV Cell mill now is, to the east of the Athol House Cemetery.

Michel Goudreau Collection

Dalhousie in the 19th century, seen from what is now the west end of town.

Michel Goudreau Collection

A beach in Dalhousie in the 19th century. This is around the corner from the Bonamy Point, below the Stewart property.

MIchel Goudreau Collection

This beach was behind what is now the fire station in Dalhousie. The lady is standing just down from the Riverview Cemetery. That area is now all filled in but it was once a popular beach.

Tribune collection

This Currier and Ives print is supposed of spearing black bass on the Restigouche, but black bass are not native to the river. Someone likely mistook them for so-called "black salmon". The Mi'gmaq speared salmon, not with forks like these, buy with a devise similar to a Neptune's trident.

Michel Goudreau Collection

Oxen were used in this area right into the 20th century. They were stronger than horses, if slower, and useful on the dreadful roads.

This is St. Anne's Mission in the 19th century, where Listuguj now is. It is a bit of a fanciful depiction, given that the mountains in the area don't look like this.

Dalhousie is the shire town of Restigouche County, and lies two miles above the mouth of the Restigouche River. At that point Penman was to leave the steamer.

Just here is one of the most superb and fascinating panoramic views to be found in America. If one of our artists would only transfer it to canvas, he would astonish the world with a novelty as striking as the Heart of the Andes or the Yosemite Valley. The whole region is mountainous, and almost precipitous enough to be Alpine; but its grandeur is derived less from cliffs, chasms, and peaks, than from far-reaching sweeps of outline and continually rising domes that mingle with the clouds. When Penman longed to enjoy the landscape a provoking curtain of densest fog hid it from sight; but, just as he had abandoned himself to extremist despair, the veil was suddenly lifted at the most opportune moment, and then its glories were trebly enhanced. He had not to await the gradual development of the landscape's opening beauties, but they all burst forth simultaneously in fullest effulgence.

The surface of the river was unrippled, and gleamed like polished steel. Two headlands guarded the entrance, which is three miles wide and nine fathoms deep to their very bases. On the Gaspe side precipitous cliffs of brick-red sandstone flanked the shore, so lofty that they seemed to cast their gloomy shadows half across the bay; these yawned with rifts and gullies, through which fretful torrents tumbled into the sea. Behind them the mountains rose and fell in long undulations of ultramarine, and, towering above them all, was the famous peak of Tracadegash, flashing in the sunlight like a pale-blue amethyst. On the New Brunswick side the snowy cottages of Dalhousie climbed a hill that rose from the river in three successive ridges, backed by a range of fantastic knobs and wooded cones that rolled off to the limit of vision. These mountains constitute the north-eastern extremity of the Alleghany chain.

Encircled by this amphitheatre, the harbour of Dalhousie looked like a placid lake. Two wooded islands in the distance seemed to float upon its surface. An English man-of-war lay in the shadow of the cliffs. Not a single craft was on the wing to animate the scene; only a few lumber ships floated lazily at anchor near the land, with an air of sleepy indifference whether they loaded that season or the next. A reek of black smoke drifted sluggishly from the stack of a gigantic saw-mill that stood on a projecting point. The whole landscape was decidedly sleepy, and suggestive of a dolce far niente beyond the latitude of palms and bread-fruit. [Editor's note: dolce far niente means, literally, the sweetness of doing nothing.]

…Had Penman been a devoted geologist, he might have employed may profitable days at Dalhousie, for the place was originally known in the Indian vernacular as "the place of bright stones and many shells"; but he was much more interested in the historical associations that clustered around him…[Moving west] If an antiquarian would collect historical relics of the earlier French settlements to illustrate a period which is veiled in partial obscurity, he can gather here buttons, cutlasses, spurs, bayonets, iron pans, spoons, gun barrels, and many an antique coin. Two iron cannons, that once belched forth destruction from "Battery Point" upon the invading English, are now mounted upon a plateau at "Athol House", and still do occasional service in the way of firing salutes on the anniversaries of the "Queen's Birthday" and the "Landing of the Loyalists" At another private residence the occupant has a mantle-piece carved from a part of one of the wrecks.

…The Restigouche is navigable for large ships eighteen miles. Campbelltown, which is sixteen miles from its mouth, may be considered at the head of navigation.