Nova Scotia

“ But yet how beautiful is any land looking off upon the barren deeps of ocean. Distant is the city on a hill-side, glittering at a thousand points, while on either hand, as we move in at the entrance of the harbor, are the pleasant woods and the white dwellings, country steeples and cultivated grounds. As the comfortless mist rolls away, and the golden light follows after, warming the wet and chilly landscape, I feel that there are bliss and beauty in Nova Scotia. ”

“ Indeed, we looked in vain for the "garden" appearance of the valley. There was nothing generous in the small meadows or the thin orchards; and if large trees ever grew on the bordering hills, they have given place to rather stunted evergreens; the scraggy firs and balsams, in fact, possess Nova Scotia generally as we saw it,—and there is nothing more uninteresting and wearisome than large tracts of these woods. We are bound to believe that Nova Scotia has somewhere, or had, great pines and hemlocks that murmur, but we were not blessed with the sight of them. ”

“ The wind was fresh, and the little waves tossed up their heads across where the sunlight fell, flashing back the rays of the sun in perpetually changing light, and presenting to the eye the appearance of innumerable dazzling stars. Far away rose the Nova Scotia shore as they had seen it in the morning, while up the bay, in the distance, abrupt, dark, and precipitous, arose the solitary Ile Haute. ”

“ No place could be more thoroughly English in feeling, habits, and principles, than Nova Scotia; but it was not England. The violent transition of seasons, so different from the soft gradations by which, with us, winter brightens into summer, and summer fades into winter, marked a contrast far from pleasing; and the intensity of cold, the fierceness of heat, alike unknown in our temperate climate, forced comparisons far from agreeable. ”

“ In addition to her fishing industry and tale of ships, Nova Scotia enjoys a pastoral side no less rich in genre. Farms are here. In following the highways and little by-paths rambling among apple orchards and gardens, potato fields and hay meadows—paths etched in Spring by the pink flush of apple-blossoms, or in autumn by boughs curving to earth under weight of rosy Baldwins or creamy Bellefleurs—one follows everywhere hard on the heels of romance. It is her hand that beckons into every little cottage snugly tucked away in valley and glen ”

“ In the western valley of that part of French Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, not only do we tread on historic ground, but we see in these days a landscape of more varied beauty than that which so delighted the gentlemen-adventurers of old France nearly three centuries ago. In this country, which the poem conceived by Longfellow amid the elms of Cambridge has made so famous, we see the rich lands reclaimed from the sea, which glistens a few miles to the north, and every day comes rushing up its estuaries. ”

“ Populous China and the rich East are beyond; and the sails of our children’s children will reflect as familiarly the sunbeams of the South as they now brave the angry tempests of the North. The Maritime Provinces which I now address are but the Atlantic frontage of this boundless and prolific region. God has planted Nova Scotia in the front of this boundless region—see that you discharge, with energy and elevation of soul, the duties which devolve upon you in virtue of your position. ”

“ There are many prosperous farmers in Nova Scotia who landed a few years ago with scarcely a shilling in their pockets, but these have been hard workers.
The population of Nova Scotia is chiefly of British descent, though not a few of the early settlers came by way of New England in Loyalist and pre-Loyalist days. Scottish names are common in many parts of the province, especially in Cape Breton Island. The ancient Acadians are represented by something like fifty thousand French people, and the Nova Scotians of German descent are not much fewer. ”

“ But, after all, they occupy but a limited portion of that boundless heritage which God and nature have given to us and to our children. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are but the frontage of a territory which includes four millions of square miles, stretching away behind and beyond them to the frozen regions on the one side and to the Pacific on the other. ”

“ Nova Scotia has an area equal to rather more than one-half that of Scotland, with a population of four hundred thousand persons; and as nearly all of these are natives of the province, it does not appear that many strangers have recently sought homes upon her soil. The country is beautifully diversified with valley and with hill, and bright with river and with lake. Much of the land is abundantly fertile, and a careful and intelligent system of cultivation is practised. ”

“ Nova Scotia had made considerable progress by this time; her fisheries, forests, mines, and fertile lands being sources of wealth. Her inhabitants were remarkably strong, vigorous and intelligent people, many of them being of U. E. Loyalist and Scotch descent. Her schools and colleges were generously supported by the Government, and education, before Confederation, had become practically free to all her people. ”

“ Duncan Hale explained fully and clearly that all the land on both sides of the water marked Bay of Fundy was called Nova Scotia. This was a single province, which had a Governor who lived in Halifax. 'Canada,' Lord Percy explained later to my mother, 'is known as the Province of Quebec. There are many French there,' he said; 'but in Nova Scotia most of the people are English or Scotch. ”

“ I can spare little space for history, but before I go on to tell what I can of Nova Scotia—and for seven years quaint old Halifax was my home—I should like to say that whatever else this smallest, save one, of the Dominion’s nine provinces fails to produce, she has been singularly successful in the producing of men. ”

“ In Nova Scotia democracy was a less hardy plant than in Massachusetts. The town and township institutions, which had been the nurseries of resistance in New England, had not been allowed to take root there. The circumstances of the founding of Halifax had given ripe to a greater tendency, which lasted long, to lean upon the mother country. The Maine wilderness made intercourse between Nova Scotia and New England difficult by land, and the British fleet was in control of the sea until near the close of the war. ”

“ The people of Nova Scotia, represented by the most skillful, and, in his province, the most irreproachable of public men, in possession of the full confidence and the justly acquired respect of his fellow-citizens, and the respect of the ministers and that of the most eminent men of the English Parliament in all parties, is before them. ”

“ In the fair land of Nova Scotia, a maritime province, there is a ridge called North Mountain, overlooking the Bay of Fundy on one side and the fertile Annapolis valley on the other. On the northern slope of the range grows the hardy spruce-tree, well adapted for ship-timbers, of which many vessels of all classes have been built. The people of this coast, hardy, robust, and strong, are disposed to compete in the world's commerce, and it is nothing against the master mariner if the birthplace mentioned on his certificate be Nova Scotia. ”

“ The question of the future of British North America had long occupied his mind. His first recorded speech was a call to young Nova {108} Scotians to raise their province to a place amid the nations of the earth. The easy patronage of Englishmen, whose intellectual equal he knew himself to be, roused him the more because he felt it to be in a sense justified. America by rebellion had risen to manhood; was Nova Scotia by loyalty to be doomed to inferiority? ”

“ Nova Scotia, called by the French Acadia, lies between the forty-fourth and fiftieth degrees of north latitude, having New England and the Atlantic ocean to the south and south-west, and the river and gulph of St. Lawrence to the north and north-east. The winter, which continues near seven months in this country, is intensely cold; and without the intervention of any thing that can be called spring, it is immediately succeeded by a summer, the heat of which is almost insupportable, but of no long continuance. ”

“ Adventures in Morocco—Search for the Lost Captain.
As the morning sun arose, lighting up Sambro Head in the distance, the clouds of night dispersed from off the sky, and with a fair breeze we ran in under the forts which guard McNab’s Island, at the entrance of the fine harbour of Halifax. The capital of Nova Scotia stands on the side of a hill facing the east, which rises gradually from the water’s edge. ”

“ It is a simple thing to reach Nova Scotia from New York as I went, and not expensive: Fall River Line to Boston, Yarmouth Line to Yarmouth. A two weeks’ trip can easily be made for $75 or less.
My adventure started as a walking trip along the coast line, but quickly resolved itself into a series of short walks punctuated with railroad rides. Away from the coast all roads are wood roads, bordered by spruces or other evergreens, picked out here and there at this season of the year with a bit of vivid color where the frost has touched the scrub maple or oak or an occasional white birch. ”

“ PORT LATOUR AND BURCHTOWN.
Even this early I clearly saw that to walk all the coast line between Yarmouth and Halifax could not be done at my leisurely three miles or less per hour. It is three miles when no pictures intervene or no friendly Nova Scotian comes along with a ghost story or tale of the seas: Under such circumstances time is not of the essence of the contract. ”

“ Pubnico claims to be the oldest Acadian settlement in Nova Scotia, having been planted by D’Entrement in 1650. After the expulsion some of the exiles returned, and the region is still peopled by their descendants, it being commonly known as the “French Shore.” The houses give no indication of age, and there is no outward sign to suggest an old-settled place. Here, as elsewhere, I saw no indications of extreme poverty; the farms are of little value, but the fisheries supply every need. The various nationalities do not mix and disappear in this land as with us. ”

“ Nova Scotia as a British colony also came into being as another result of these adventurous British expeditions to North America in the reign of James I. Under the name of Acadie this region had been declared to be a portion of New France by De Monts and Champlain in 1604-14. ”

“ It was planned to be the chief city of Nova Scotia, and there is something rather tragic in looking at the broad streets that were meant for a larger city. Hardly one of the fine old houses remains. They say that twelve thousand Loyalists came here just after the Revolution, and most of them were rich and influential. The frames of large houses were brought and set up here; people tried to live as they would in a great city, with servants and every luxury. With such a great harbor they expected to have a great seaport ”

“ At Antigonish, we find a bridal party, and the [Pg 209] pretty English landlady offers us wine and cake with hospitable welcome; and a jovial time of it we have until we are summoned, by crack of whip, to ride over to West River.
I must say that the natural prejudices we have against Nova Scotia are ill-placed, unjust, and groundless. The country itself is the great redeeming feature of the province, and a very large portion of it is uninfested by Scotchmen. ”

“ We passed a chain of lakes extending for sixteen miles, their length varying from one to three miles, and their shores covered with forests of gloomy pine. People are very apt to say that Nova Scotia is sterile and barren, because they have not penetrated into the interior. It is certainly rather difficult of access, but I was by no means sorry that my route lay through it. The coast of Nova Scotia is barren, and bears a very distinct resemblance to the east of Scotland. The climate, though severe in winter and very foggy, is favourable both to health and vegetation. ”

“ In this peninsula of Nova Scotia, various settlements are marked. One is named Minas, which is also known as Grand Pré, a large and important community, situated in one of the most beautiful and fertile valleys in America. In the neighborhood of this are a half dozen points, marked with the general name of French settlements, while the vacant places between and beyond are marked with the name Mic Macs, which is the title of the Indians who inhabit Nova Scotia. ”

“ Though born in Nova Scotia, I am of almost pure New England descent. ”

“ And may I not respectfully demand, why British subjects in Nova Scotia any more than their brethren in Liverpool, should be expected to prosper or be contented under it; when experience has convinced them that it is miserably insufficient and deceptive, repugnant to the principles of the Constitution they revere, and but a poor return for the steady loyalty which their forefathers and themselves have maintained on all occasions? ”

“ In many cases what one has the other has not; and climate and beauty of scene will be found in such delightful contrast in passing from one province to the other that few not acquainted with these facts could believe.
It is now matter of general knowledge that the early settlement of Nova Scotia was made by the French. De Monts and Champlain explored parts of the south shore, entered the Annapolis Basin, 232 made choice of a site there for settlement, and explored the Minas Basin. Later they founded Port Royal, in the year 1605, but abandoned it a few years after. ”