Description of Historic Place

Fronting upon the south side of Union Street and situated adjacent the old Gibson Roundhouse, is a former internment camp building. This single-storey building, previously located at the Ripples Internment Camp, was moved to this site in 1947.

Heritage Value

The former internment camp building located at 880 Union Street was designated a Local Historic Place for its historic association with the Ripples Interment Camp. Originally configured as a medical facility, the building was constructed about 1940 to treat patients at the Ripples Internment Camp, the only detention facility constructed in the Maritimes during the Second World War and located outside Fredericton, west of Minto. Because of its situation in the “B” section of Military District #7, it was designated as Camp B, Camp 70, or Camp B/70. Locally, the internment camp had been alternately known as the New Brunswick Camp, or the Fredericton Camp. However, it was more commonly known as the Ripples Internment Camp.

More than four hundred men from different parts of New Brunswick were involved in the construction of the Ripples Internment Camp. The hospital building, located along the south side of the Camp, had been designed to accommodate sixty patients.

The internees were released from the Ripples Internment Camp at the end of the Second World War. For more than a year after the conclusion of the war, the buildings sat empty at the former internment camp. Early in 1947, these buildings were offered for sale through Crown Assets. This former medical building was transported to its current site by the spring of 1947. Ashley Colter, who owned the old Gibson Roundhouse, moved the internment camp building to this site, to use it as a storage facility.

Source: City of Fredericton, Local Historic Places File, “880 Union Street”

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements associated with this structure located at 880 Union Street include:
- rectangular single-storey massing;
- medium-pitched gable roof;
- large, centred double doors;
- its former use and function as an internment camp building.