THE ALLURE OF NOVA SCOTIA
Stay longer and see more in this great Canadian province,
HALIFAX— Nova Scotia is the party province. The tradition started in 1605 when Samuel de Champlain established a dining society, the Order of Good Cheer, as a way to break up the boredom of winter in Port Royal. Nova Scotians have been partying ever since.
In the 400 years since Champlain launched his dining club, residents have crammed the provincial calendar with more than 700 fairs, festivals and special days. There are festivals for every fruit and fish harvested, as well as events like the Seaport Beerfest in the new arts district on the Halifax waterfront, next to Pier 21, which is Canada’s immigration museum (think of it as our Ellis Island).
The provincial entertainment scene is equally busy and diverse, ranging from open-air theatre (like Shakespeare-by-the-Sea and Two Planks and A Passion); to the Dutch Mason Blues festival; folk festivals in Lunenburg, Halifax, Canso; Halifax Jazz Festival; and the five-day Rock Explosion, which spotlights new and emerging talent. For spectacle, forget Vegas, the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo’s 2,000 performers makes this North America’s largest show.
When you draw back the Celtic curtain, you also find a surprisingly-diverse population that includes North America’s largest Buddhist community. In 1979 Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan lama, landed in Halifax, pronounced it a good place, and was followed here by thousands of his adherents who opened funky restaurants, cool boutiques, bolstered cultural organizations, and established a school, temple and monastery. HALIFAX’S VIBRANT NIGHTLIFE, fuelled by 30,000 university students attending the city’s seven degreegranting institutions, is centred on the harbourside Historic Properties and pub-and-club-lined Argyle Street. In Cape Breton, check out the weekly barn dances at the Normaway Inn, the entertainers at Mabou’s Red Shoe Pub owned by the Rankin sisters, and look for community ceilidhs, those impromptu musical evenings fed by wild fiddles, throbbing bodrhans (flat Irish hand drums), and plaintive bagpipes, mixed with step dancing and singers.
Among the province’s more nontraditional events are the Wharf Rat Rally, which draws over 20,000 motorcycle enthusiasts to Digby; Clam Harbour Beach Sandcastle Contest (which covers the beach in temporary sand art); International Buskers’ Festival; to the Whirligig and the Weathervane Festival, organized by a nuclear physicist who summers in Shelburne; and the Pumpkin Regatta, where competitors paddle hollowed-out giant pumpkins across Windsor’s Lake Pisiquid.
Travelling the province, you can also learn about rum runners (think entrepreneurial sea captains who challenged U.S. prohibition-era laws), privateers (legal pirates) and maybe meet a caber tosser (the kilted guys who throw telephone-polesized logs end-over-end).
WITH MORE THAN 260 museums and art galleries, plus the festival scene, Nova Scotia caters to all interests. For example, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic has such a comprehensive and important Titanic collection that James Cameron sent his set directors here to get details right for the film. The Gaelic College in St. Ann’s explains all things Scottish while the nearby Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck explores his mind, life and inventions. Bell lived in Baddeck for 32 years and built a lakeside laboratory where Guglielmo Marconi came to develop his wireless communication system. In effect, they put Baddeck on the forefront of a global communications revolution, like an early Silicon Valley.
Nova Scotia also has three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Those interested in earth sciences head to the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, where 350-million-year-old fossils that litter the beach have been described as the Coal-Age Galapagos. Architects and those interested in the sea head to Lunenburg, which has UNESCO status for its colourful, marine-inspired architecture (it’s also the setting for the Stephen King-based TV series, Haven). The province’s third UNESCO site is Grand Pre, outside of Wolfville. This is the site of the deportation of the Acadians.
It’s not surprising that a place this old is filled with superlatives: First, oldest, biggest, best. For example, the Highlands Links Golf Course in Ingonish is consistently rated among the world’s top100 courses. The Halifax Citadel is the most visited National Historic Site in Canada. The Fortress of Louisbourg is the largest historical recreation in North America. When the original was built 300 years ago it was so expensive Louis XV complained, “I half expect to rise from my bed in Versailles and one day see the towers of Louisbourg rising over the horizon.” Another “best” is Cape Breton’s 298- kilometre Cabot Trail. It has been rated among the world’s top drives, along with the Amalfi Coast Road in Italy and California’s Pacific Coast Highway.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS ARE the tides in the Bay of Fundy and Minas Basin, which each have a 54 foot difference between high and low tide. These tides feed the province’s most de- lightful adventure: Tidal bore rafting. This involves charging river rapids formed by the incoming tide in a rubber raft. Other water options range from sailing a tall ship in Halifax Harbour or Bluenose II in Lunenburg; surfing at Lawrencetown Beach; whale watching for the nine types of whales found here (Atlantic, Pilot, Blue Minke, Finback, Humpback, Right, Killer and Sei); and sea kayaking in the ocean, rivers, lakes and bays. More experienced paddlers can kayak or canoe the Shubenacadie Canal, a 200-year-old system linking Hali- fax Harbour and Minas Basin via rivers, lakes and locks.
Land-based adventure includes hiking and cycling through old growth forests, abandoned rail lines and along shorelines in places like Five Islands Provincial Park, Cheboque Loop by Yarmouth harbor, the 142,000-hectare Tobeatic Wilderness Area, and McNab’s Island Provincial Park. Kejimkujik National Park (a dark sky preserve) and Cape Breton Highlands National Park also offer excellent camping.
The bottom line is you shouldn’t be fooled by Nova Scotia’s small size on the map of Canada. It has more to see, taste and experience than most visitors expect. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll drive it in a day.