The City That Industry Built
Documentary photographer Chris Donovan had a relatively normal childhood in Saint John, New Brunswick: his parents were high school teachers who believed in unions, and his grandmother was an early supporter of the federal NDP. Like many local children, he grew up in the shadow of the Irving Group, a conglomerate that dominates nearly every major industry in the province, including oil, gas, trucking and lumber. In Saint John, Irving operates the country’s largest oil refinery, a paper mill perched atop Reversing Falls and an 11-storey office tower.
In 2016, Donovan started his career as a photojournalist for the Telegraph-Journal, Saint John’s daily newspaper, then under Irving ownership. On the job, he saw the city’s deep economic divide: Saint John was home to one of Canada’s wealthiest empires, yet nearly one in three children lived below the poverty line. Industry didn’t just create the city’s economy, he realized; it also shaped the daily lives of the families who lived there.
Two years later, an Irving Oil pipeline leaked butane—an explosive colourless gas—for 17 hours in the city’s east side. Some 84 residents were evacuated. Donovan started knocking on doors to find people who might agree to talk and be photographed. Eventually, Lisa Crandall answered, though she was doubtful at first. “She was nervous,” Donovan says. “She thought I was with the company.”
Nine months later, a massive explosion and fire at the refinery sent flames shooting 30 metres into the sky, while thick black smoke blanketed the east side. Dozens of workers were injured. Crandall, who lives near the refinery, has since been dreading the day another disaster might strike—one that might not be contained. She worries her home could be next. More than anything, she wants her family to be safe. “It’s hard for her to live in uncertainty, knowing her family’s health might always be at risk,” Donovan says.
He went on to photograph for the New York Times and the Globe and Mail, as well as win recognition from the World Press Photo Awards and Pictures of the Year International. Through it all, his thoughts kept returning to the families in his hometown. Like the ephemeral clouds of vapour billowing out of the refinery and the paper mill, the Irving companies are the unseen force behind Donovan’s photo series The Cloud Factory, a decade-long chronicle of Saint John. The series has been exhibited at Toronto’s Contact Photography Festival, the Image Centre and Moncton’s Aberdeen Cultural Centre. This month, it appears in a book of the same name. Ultimately, The Cloud Factory is not about the Irving Group but about the families, like the Crandalls, who live in the shadow of an industrial empire. Below, Donovan shares the stories behind some photos from the book. ■
2022: “That’s steam rising from the Irving Pulp & Paper mill, seen from the back porch of an old apartment of mine on Princess Street in uptown Saint John. I used to go out there every time there was a nice sunset and photograph both the mill steam and the oil tanker traffic on the Bay of Fundy. Those sunsets were oddly beautiful, despite representing something that may be harmful to human health. They seem to encompass the paradox that is Saint John.”
2017: “This is one of the homes in Crescent Valley, a public housing neighbourhood in Saint John. Older people call it Rifle Range because the area used to be a Second World War–era shooting range. Then, in the late 1940s, the city built subsidized townhouses there. It was poor and white when I was growing up, but the Syrian community came in and cleaned up the neighbourhood.”
2023: “Here, a white-tailed deer stands in front of the Irving Pulp & Paper mill on the west side of Saint John. The city feels like an industrial park that people just happen to live in. It’s cinematic and gorgeous, but you’re going to be living near the refinery, the pulp mill, the nuclear power plant, the liquid natural gas plant or the landfill—you name it.”
2021: “For many travellers, the first glimpse of the Irving Group comes in the form of billboards lining New Brunswick’s highways—often next to replanted forests. The signs tell us about the company’s commitment to planting trees and fighting climate change. But it has a record of environmental controversies. For example, in 2018, it pleaded guilty to illegally dumping harmful substances into the Saint John River and paid $3.5 million in penalties.”
2019: “I met Lisa Crandall while reporting on a pipeline leak in 2018, which forced some 84 residents to evacuate after butane seeped out. She’s embraced by her grandson Trey in front of their house near the refinery. Lisa’s mom, Judy, also lives with them: she had Lisa when she was quite young, so they’re almost like sisters. They’re a fun and loving family to be around, always ribbing each other.”
2023: “These teenage girls were burning their papers at the end of the school year—an old tradition—at the park across from the Irving Pulp & Paper mill. I had to call the fire department when they left.”
2017: “I met Jennifer and Pat London while covering issues of child poverty. This is one of their four children, Hallie, playing with the family dog on the floor of their kitchen. A lot of people fall through the cracks of our social systems. Luckily, the London kids were in some programs. They went to a nearby community centre and had mentors—much like Big Brothers and Big Sisters—who helped them navigate adolescence.”
2019: “This photo was taken during Thanksgiving dinner at the Crandall home—one year after a massive explosion rocked the nearby Irving Oil refinery. That day, the Telegraph-Journal, then owned by the Irving Group, ran the headline ‘Thanksgiving Miracle,’ celebrating the fact that no one died in the blast. Later information revealed that dozens of workers had been injured, far more than initial reports. Since the explosion, the Crandalls have lived in fear that further disaster is going to take place. If there’s another blast, if it’s bigger or isn’t contained, then their home could go up.”
2019: “Here, Trey jumps on a trampoline in the Crandalls’ backyard. He always took me down to the area where houses once stood; they were bulldozed after the butane leak. There was a huge pit there where one of the foundations had been ripped out. Trey and his friends called it their fort, their little imaginary hideout by the refinery.”
2022: “This is what it’s like to live in Saint John: Irving is everywhere. You relax on the beach, and it’s still there. Fittingly, one of Irving Oil’s early slogans was ‘Always There.’ Just beyond the shoreline is the Canaport Liquid Natural Gas terminal, which used to be partly owned by Irving. In 2015, the plant pleaded guilty to an incident two years prior, in which a massive gas flare killed 7,500 songbirds.”
2022: “This graveyard, located in Saint John’s west side, echoes a famous image by American photographer Walker Evans: his 1935 masterpiece, A Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Evans’s photograph captures a cemetery, a row of houses and a looming steel mill in the background, portraying the entire life cycle of the town. Here, the Irving Pulp & Paper mill dominates the horizon, its smokestacks filling the air with pollution. But one detail stands out: a cross in the foreground that almost looks like a dollar sign.”
This story appears in the April 2025 issue of Maclean’s. You can buy the issue here, subscribe to the magazine here or send a gift subscription here.
