Nova Scotia
Shaped By The Sea
A Living History
New Revised Edition
Lesley Choyce
Pottersfield Press at Smashwords
Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada
Copyright © 2007 Lesley Choyce
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used or stored or transmitted in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying – or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any requests for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the publisher or to Access Copyright, The Canadian Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5 (www.accesscopyright.ca). This also applies to classroom use.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Choyce, Lesley, 1951-
Nova Scotia : shaped by the sea : a living history / Lesley Choyce. – New rev. ed.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-897426-33-3
1. Nova Scotia – History. I. Title.
FC2311.C56 2007 971.6 C2007-904664-9
Cover design by Gail LeBlanc
Front cover photo credit: Bluenose II Preservation Society
The original edition of this volume was published by Viking/Penguin Canada Ltd.
Pottersfield Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We also acknowledge the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We also thank the Province of Nova Scotia for its support through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage.
Ebook editor: Mary Ann Archibald
Pottersfield Press
83 Leslie Road
East Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2Z 1P8
Website: www.pottersfieldpress.com
To order phone toll-free 1-800-NIMBUS9 (1-800-646-2879)
Printed in Canada
“Don’t brood on what’s past, but never forget it either.”
– Thomas Raddall
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the following who helped make this project happen: Heather Taylor, Mary Ann Archibald, Dana James, Emily White, Jennifer Wessel, Peggy Amirault, Julia Swan, Gail LeBlanc, Erin Dunn, Dean Jobb, Malcolm Ross, Claudia Pinsent, Gary Shutlak, Dan Paul, Barrie Clarke, Karen Smith, Charles Armour, Cynthia Good, and the people of Nova Scotia.
Contents
Introduction to the New Edition
1 The Sea That Surrounds Us
2 The Story Begins in Africa
3 Cold Wars and Warm-blooded Mammals
4 The Land of the Mi’kmaq
5 Early Explorers: Myths, Legends and Maybe a Few Facts
6 Sailors Westward: In Search of New Worlds
7 Port Royal and the Order of Good Cheer
8 A Charter for New Scotland
9 Carving Up Acadia
10 Acadia: More Than a Bargaining Chip
11 Louisbourg: A Fortress City
12 A Fortress for the Taking
13 The Acadian Way of Life
14 The Founding of Halifax
15 The Rowdy Town on the Harbour
16 The Creation of Lunenburg
17 Empires at Odds
18 The Deportation of the Acadians: “Into Utter Misery”
19 The Fall of Louisbourg
20 The Land of Exile and Immigrants
21 Coastline of Conflict
22 Loyalists: The White and the Black
23 From Rags to Royalty: Halifax Comes of Age
24 1812 and After
25 The Golden Age of Sail
26 Sea Crimes of the Nineteenth Century
27 Confederation: Nova Scotians Become Canadians
28 The Plight of Nineteenth-century Nova Scotian Women
29 The Savage Seas
30 The Decline and Fall of the Age of Sail
31 Dreamers, Schemers and Telephone Screamers
32 Toward the Turn of the Century
33 “A Sound Past All Hearing”
34 Aftermath of the Halifax Explosion
35 Rum and Rum-runners
36 The Bluenose
37 A Province in Economic Ruin
38 Nova Scotia in the Second World War
39 The Spoils of War
40 The Fifties and Sixties: “A Friendly Remoteness”
41 The Tragedy of Africville
42 Unhealthy Habits, Unclean Harbours
43 Coal Mining in Nova Scotia: A Chronicle of Despair
44 The Death of the Fish
45 Fish Sheds and Federal Politics
46 Tragedy and Beyond: The Sustainable Province
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index
Introduction to the New Edition
The final chapter of the original edition of Nova Scotia Shaped by the Sea was titled “Fish Shacks and Federal Politics,” and oddly enough, those same two things are on my mind this morning as I reintroduce this book to a new generation of readers. It’s the middle of June, 2007, eleven years since this story of a seabound province saw the light of day.
The wind is out of the northeast for the fifth day in a row and my neighbour, Luigi Costanzo, a windsurfer who is more than savvy about winds, says that’s unusual. Something isn’t quite right. This month has been cold and wet, and in times gone by, we simply blamed that on the North Atlantic, our ally and sometimes foe. Now, we’re starting to blame bad weather – and especially Maritime oddities of weather – on global climate change. We realize now that we may be in for some monumental coastal changes here. It may not quite be “Farewell to Nova Scotia” yet, but it could be a rough ride ahead for those like me who live a stone’s throw from the sea.
Our governments have nearly universally failed to stay ahead of the impending crisis of climate change. My first honest job in Canada was working for the federal government as an alternate energy consultant in 1978, heralding the sexy, brave new world of power generated by wind, sun, tide and wave. Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet had recognized the immense possibilities but as soon as oil prices stabilized, the proverbial plug was pulled and we descended into a new renewable energy Dark Age that lasted twenty-five years.
But I am brooding, just as the sailor did in the classic aforementioned song, who stares at Nova Scotia’s shores and sings, “May your mountains dark and dreary be.” And this morning the sky is low and dark as the moody nor’east winds drive the clouds over the land.
And on the news, lo and behold, a quarrel continues between the feds and the province over something called “The Atlantic Accord.” Those of us on the sidelines just scratch our heads and wonder what it’s all about. At the heart of the issue are resources – oil in particular – that exist in the waters off Nova Scotia. Who owns it? Canada or Nova Scotia? The Atlantic Accord preserved some dignity for us and would have brought a tad more wealth to this have-not province. Oil money is tainted money, I agree. But if the oil is going to be drilled and pumped, should we not have a fair share of the revenue?
Nova Scotians feel we should. Conservative MP Bill Casey put his career on the line by siding with his fellow bluenosers and thumbing his nose at Prime Minister Stephen Harper and he got the boot from his party, instantly becoming a hero in the eyes of most folks back home here.
Some of the shortchanged among us think that it looks like this. Albertans had oil beneath the land, so they deserved a hefty right to monies from that resource. But Nova Scotians have oil beneath the coastal
sea and that’s, as they say here, another kettle of fish. This may all blow over soon and be one of those blips not worthy of note in a history of a province. I just wanted to share with you what is in my head today and how some themes simply don’t drop off into the deep.
Oil is the wrong resource to develop anyway. We need to get on with wind and sun, tide and wave as we should have continued down this path in the seventies. Here on the coast, our eyes are often on the skies and our broodiness may be brought on by those sullen grey clouds, but it trains us to be an introspective tribe. Today, on this occasion of reintroducing my story about Nova Scotia, I am still looking out my window over a green and lush marsh, the grassy dunes of the Lawrencetown Beach and the Atlantic beyond. Waves are breaking on a shoal called Egg Island and I can just barely make out the lighthouse of Devil’s Island at the mouth of Halifax Harbour.
Eleven years is a blip in any history of any place. In an individual’s life, however, it is a long time. My own daughters have gone from teens to twenties, my own life has seen upheaval and recovery. I’ve written a dozen books, hiked hundreds of coastal kilometres, surfed over a thousand waves and pondered many impossible questions both personal and political.
And every once in a while, often in a time of despair, I abandon all responsibility and retreat. I leave the world behind.
Such was the day of May 31 of this year. I decided to take a solo hike to Fisherman’s Beach in Lower East Chezzetcook, where I had ended the first edition ofNova Scotia Shaped by the Sea.
I drove inland first towards the strip mall of Porters Lake (with its “SuperStore”) and then east towards Musquodoboit Harbour and then south again, driving down the spine of a long tendril of land jutting out to the sea. I had checked the tide predictions, as one must for some of the best coastal hikes in this province, and would arrive near low tide. Otherwise, I would have needed my wetsuit and my surfboard.
The wind was out of the north on this day and it was warm and sunny. The sky was a robin’s egg blue. It was a rare day. I parked my car on sand and began the long hike out over the stones and boulders that would be the sea floor in a matter of hours. Lower East Chezzetcook is a kind of rock star of coastal erosion. Those in the field are aware of how quickly the sea is sweeping the land away here. It reminds us all of just how much this coast is “drowning.”
For me, this is one of those sacred places. Sacred because of what it feels like to be out here, far removed from civilization, on such a stunning day. Sacred because the elements of sea, sun, rock and sand conspire to create such raw beauty. And sacred because it underscores how powerful the sea still remains in all its many vocations of destruction and creation.
The stones beneath my feet require my personal attention. They are round and smooth and some are slippery with sea vegetation. I perform the familiar dance of many a coastal hike and recall the time I hiked here over a decade ago. On that day I carried a camera with film. Now I carry a digital camera. And a cell phone. Despite how remote this place feels, I discover the cell phone still has a signal. I turn it off, fearing the technology might somehow ruin the moment.
I find my way to the spit of sand that faces across the inlet, take my shoes off and absorb the sun and breathe the sea air. I think of lost continents and lost history as I listen to the clanging of the channel buoy and watch the swirling gulls. Although a month of raw damp weather will follow, right now, this feels like summer. I walk further on towards my destination on sand and turn around to study how my human footprint commingles with the footprints of gulls. It makes me think of sheet music on a page. There are bleached boards scattered here and small shells and sea oats. Fragments of debris – a lobster trap plastic tag numbered 138, bits of refuse and Styrofoam. I have a flashback to another day when I walked the beach at Lawrencetown, collecting debris that I knew had once been the cabin wall of Swiss Air Flight 111 that had crashed into the waters near Peggy’s Cove.
All along this coastline, things wash ashore. I think of gains and losses in my own life, in all the lives around me.
My shoes back on my feet, I hike north towards where the fishing village once stood. Storms and tides have dismantled what looks to be a duck blind where blue and red empty shotgun shells litter the ground. Nearby, in what used to be the small protected harbour, two ducks are enjoying their afternoon in safety. There are some sea grasses growing here and glasswort and orach and sea rocket and a low thorny bush that must be some wild version of currant. And wild strawberries, already in flower. How these plants survive the ravages of winter sea storms and inlet shelf ice that would sweep over this finger of land is beyond me. But clearly they will hang on until the land is fully swept away.
As will the orange lichen, as bright and cheerful as they were in 1996. Author Bill Bryson notes, “It may take a lichen more than half a century to attain the size of a shirt button.” These lichen are the dimensions of an outstretched hand or larger. Bryson also observes that they are “just about the hardiest visible living organisms on earth.” I am in the presence of heroes.
And then I arrive at the place where a thriving fishing village once stood thirty years ago. Eleven years ago, a few buildings still remained. Now it is all gone. All except for a single rust-scarred and corroded corpse of a cookstove, the large bleached beams of what was once a wharf scattered like pick-up sticks on the higher sand ridge and a scattering of rusty nails and hinges.
In the last decade, the sea has all but erased the history of this place. And the odd thing is that, right now, right here, it is all so recklessly beautiful on a day like this that it feels as it should be. A butterfly sails by and there is a small battalion of white moths. I get low to the ground and study how those thorny vines, those wild currants, have rooted themselves into only the most protected pockets of land that remain. Humans have abandoned this place for the most part, but life goes on.
There are no fishing boats in the inlet or at sea within my vision. Some still fish the inshore but as they say, “It’s not like it used to be.” The herring schools are chased with sonar and then scooped by nets and machines and hauled ashore where they are vacuumed into waiting trucks. And soon they will be gone like all the rest.
Sitting to ponder the scene before me again, to revel and meditate and brood, I am reminded that on a day like this where I have fled from all my worldly duties and responsibilities, the world continues on without me. This is both worrisome and comforting.
On the trek back across a thousand acres of rocks, I pick up one small smooth stone the shape of a kidney (not a heart) and carry it with me. I think of the “recent” history of this province again, those few 400 years wherein European settlers and descendants made their mark on this place. Another blink of an eye in terms of the history of the earth. And as I wobble on my journey across this sea floor on my way back to solid land, I once again think of what a privilege it is to live here on this coast where the sea meets the land and showers us with its treasures even as it threatens to swallow us up.
Lesley Choyce
Lawrencetown Beach
June 18, 2007
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
In the winter, the “beach” at Lawrencetown Beach disappears. Formidable storms assault this northern coast, pounding the land with waves that gouge and suck at the sand until it is pulled out to the deep. In the summer, it’s a different story. The sea kindly returns the sand to the shoreline and on a crisp, clear August morning at seven o’clock you can find me alone on this beach, walking the edge of the North Atlantic, a sea that is as placid as a mountain lake, with water as transparent as a pane of glass. To anybody watching, it might appear that I’m searching for something, but the truth is I’ve already found what I was looking for. It’s been more than thirty-five years since I made my personal discovery of Nova Scotia, and having moved here and staked my claim on a five-acre homestead at Lawrencetown Beach, I can say in all honesty that I have also found myself.
When I immigrated to Nova Scotia, i
t was clear in my mind that a geographical move would enhance my life. My goal was to become a Nova Scotian and it was secondary that I need also become a Canadian. I didn’t mind all tghat much really, given the fact that my allegiance to this coastal province was so strong that I was ready to swear allegiance to any flag or queen necessary. Hugh MacLennan once mentioned to me that as recently as the 1950s, passengers disembarking from ships in Halifax Harbour were asked by the customs men if they were foreign, Canadian or Nova Scotian. Hugh had always answered the latter and I can understand why. Every state or province undoubtedly nurtures loyalty to its soil, but a land nearly surrounded by water and steeped in a history of the sea suggests kinship between the salt in the blood and the salt in the air.
Because I live a rural life, I like to think that I am more closely linked with the past than those who live in cities. I’m not a historian but I live inside the history that is this place. My 200-year-old farmhouse is a window into the past. One day when I was cutting through a wall to put in a new door, I uncovered an alarming fact. I discovered that my house was built those two centuries ago with wood that had already been used before. Whoever had fashioned this home, above this once lonely stretch of salt marsh, sand dune and sea, had been a scavenger like me. Some closer investigation reveals that it was not a mere barn that had been tor n down to provide the sills and beams, but the lumber recycled here was the wood of a sailing ship, ravaged by a storm and left stranded on the beach. My house was once a ship. And with the original captain long dead, I’mr the only one here to sail her on into the twenty-first century, complete with the aid of satellite dish, online information networks, fax, modems and call-waiting.
Historians often speak with some despair of this province as a place that has been out of step with major industrialized development and the inherent blessings that come along with that. There is for me, however, great comfort in this thought that the world has passed us by. Now I can live here with fewer frills, fewer distractions, a limited amount of noise and observe the madness from a distance.
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