Introduction to Situation

In March 2020, New Brunswick experienced its first cases of COVID-19 and swiftly moved into lockdown. Throughout the more than a year and a half of public restrictions and social distancing measures, numerous buzzwords were integrated into everyday vocabularies and news briefings. Examples included ‘new normal,’ ‘flatten the curve,’ ‘household bubbles,’ and ‘unprecedented.’ The latter, although ubiquitous and true for many New Brunswickers’ experiences, was not wholly accurate. Over one hundred years prior, the Spanish influenza had engulfed the province into a similar state of uncertainty. As with COVID-19, New Brunswick citizens had never lived through anything comparable to the influenza outbreak. This online exhibit shares the history of the Spanish influenza in New Brunswick through a variety of documents housed at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.

The Spanish influenza was an H1N1 virus that first affected soldiers during the spring of 1918. The second wave came in the summer of 1918 when, thanks in part to these same soldiers, the virus achieved an international reach. This 1918 wave was the worst, affecting mostly young people in their twenties or thirties (Lam and Lee, Flu Pandemic and You, 45-6; 59). New Brunswick was no exception and suffered most during October and November 1918 (Jenkins, “Baptism of Fire,” 336). Between October 1918 and January 1919, the province experienced over 35,000 cases and 1,400 deaths (Jenkins, “Baptism of Fire,” 317). Soldiers landing in Montréal, Québec City, and Halifax ports were primarily responsible for carrying it back home to New Brunswick. Likewise, sick military recruits from Boston travelled on trains to training centres in Saint John and Sussex. Québec loggers were another source, spreading influenza in lumber camps (Jenkins, “Baptism of Fire,” 331-2). In Canada, the disease hit the East first, before it was brought westward through the railways (Jenkins, “Baptism of Fire,” 319). Although the province held the second lowest death rate of the country, four deaths per one thousand, the pandemic still rocked New Brunswick communities (Jenkins, “Baptism of Fire,” 318). The years 1919 and 1920 also saw two, less severe, waves of the virus hit the province (Lam and Lee, Flu Pandemic and You, 59; 46).

Despite its name, the Spanish influenza did not originate in Spain. To outsiders, the country appeared to suffer more harshly than other nations due to their constant news coverage of the pandemic. However, Spain had remained neutral during the First World War, permitting them to run a free press and report the first wave in detail. Other countries did not grant the virus the same coverage for fear that news of a health crisis would shift public attention away from the war and dampen the morale on the home front (Lam and Lee, Flu Pandemic and You, 65). Yet, it was an army base in Kansas, U.S.A. that reported the first known case of influenza. Local army recruits spread the virus to different military training camps, eventually allowing the disease to travel with soldiers around the world (Lam and Lee, Flu Pandemic and You, 45). Many sources in this collection refer to the outbreak as an “epidemic” since government officials and citizens alike were engrossed in the local situation mostly on influenza in the province. However, the Spanish influenza had international consequences – it was truly a pandemic. The outbreak resulted in roughly 40 to 100 million deaths, killing more people than the First World War (Lam and Lee, Flu Pandemic and You, 49).

Discussing his encounter with the flu while in the military:

This collection of textual and photographic documents follows how the Spanish influenza affected New Brunswick citizens between 1918 and 1920. The Provincial Archives of New Brunswick houses all primary documents featured in the exhibit.