'Drive-through province' a thing of past, some say — even if drive is easier than ever

Take a drive through New Brunswick a few decades ago, and the Trans-Canada Highway unwinds as a ribbon along the shores of the St. John River, through rolling hills and quaint villages.

But as the province caught up with modernity and twinned major highways, travellers were moved away from scenic views and into the woods.

It can feel like endless kilometres of featureless roadsides offering no hint of what else might make New Brunswick special.   

Now, the St. John River is rarely visible from north to south along the Trans-Canada.

With the widened, higher-speed highways, did New Brunswick reinforce its unflattering reputation as Canada's drive-through province?

Although the label is still voiced online, tourism officials say New Brunswick has essentially shaken that image. 

In the 1940s, just before the Trans-Canada Highway was fully developed, tourism booklets espoused the beauty of the province's highways.

"The motorist today will find happy, carefree wheeling in New Brunswick," declared one brochure. 

"Drives through dense forest are enchanted with the magic perfumery of pine and spruce and fir; while around the next turn there may unfold a vista of infinite blue where the good earth runs down to the great salt sea and the air becomes pungent with a tang of the briny."

But would anyone write such prose about the New Brunswick highways of today?

Joanne Bérubé-Gagné might.

As executive of the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick, she said the province has a strategy of trying to intercept tourists who might not have been planning to stop by enticing them with restaurants, breweries and unique attractions.

"People will stop for a reason, and you have to give them a reason to stop," Bérubé-Gagné said.

She disagrees with the drive-through label but said New Brunswick can "can take advantage of being on the way to somewhere else," she said.