SAINT JOHN, New Brunswick – The Irving family is closing its Saint John shipyard, the largest in Canada, marking the end of a long shipbuilding tradition in New Brunswick.

“We always hoped that this day would never come, but shipbuilding these days is a fiercely competitive business,” Mary Keith, spokeswoman for J.D. Irving Ltd., said Friday. “While we made an attempt to buy time and build skill in the building of the container vessels a number of years ago, clearly the competitive environment is such that we’re just no longer able to build ships.”

The closure of the shipyard, idle since April 2000, leaves Canada with only one yard, in Levis, Quebec, capable of handling major military projects.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Irving yard built 12 patrol frigates for the Canadian navy as part of a $6.2 billion contract. Since then, work has been scarce.

Bill Haggett of Bath, Maine, the Irving shipyard’s president and chief executive officer from 1992 to 1997, said the closure is sad but was inevitable given the high labor and overhead costs at North American shipyards. Haggett was president of Bath Iron Works before taking the top job at the Saint John shipyard.

“The Irvings made a huge investment to build a facility and it worked very well building frigates. It’s very sad they couldn’t keep it going,” said Haggett.

The Canadian government is offering up to $55 million to help with the shutdown of the sprawling yard, which first opened in November 1923. The company is expected to match the money dollar-for-dollar.

Keith said the company will conduct a study to find alternative industrial uses for the site. An earlier study in 2000 by PriceWaterhouse made more than 60 suggestions, including a state-of-the-art wood-and-pulp processing facility.

The Irvings, who have owned the shipyard since 1958, also said they intend to establish a $10 million fund to help about 600 workers hit by the closure. Most are between 45 and 60 years old, and the Canadian government is not providing retraining money.

In its heyday, the shipyard employed up to 4,000 workers. Its last major contract was for two container ships for Irving-owned Kent Lines, which was finished about three years ago.