Plaster Rock’s the rugged, forested terrain suggests we are crossing North America’s oldest mountain range – the Appalachians which extend from the state of Georgia to Gaspé. This mountain range has produced the highest summit in the Maritimes – Mount Carleton – over 800 metres high, north of Plaster Rock. In 1841, an early settler, Edmond Ward, described the area as an immense body of Plaster of Paris, with red gypsum hills and river banks., leading to the towns naming in 1900.
The forest produces many jobs including top employer, the Fraser Lumber Mill, which employs about 600 people. The founder of the company was Donald Fraser, who emigrated from Scotland in 1873 to the Scotch Colony near Perth-Andover, and established his first saw mill across the St. John River at River de Chute. His entrepreneurial spirit sparked an international paper company, just as the local McCain family started McCain Foods, though the headquarters of Fraser Papers Inc. is now in Stamford, Connecticut,