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Nova Scotia:
The character of NOVA SCOTIA has
been conditioned by the whims of the North Atlantic weather, a
climate so harsh in wintertime that the seaboard Nova Scotian
colonists of the eighteenth century earned the soubriquet "Bluenoses"
for their ability to stand the cold. The descendants of these
hardened sailors do not typify the whole province, however.
The farmers of the Annapolis Valley and their Acadian
neighbors were quite distinct from the mariners of the
Atlantic coast, and different again were the mixed bag of
emigrants who came to work the coal mines and steel mills of
central Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island from the 1880s –
differences that remain noticeable today.
To get the full sense of
Nova Scotia you have to do a tour, and the logical place to
start is the capital, Halifax, which sits beside a
splendid Harbour on the south coast. With its excellent
restaurants, lively nightlife and handful of historic
attractions, the city can easily fill a couple of days. To
continue the tour, it's best to take in the beguiling fishing
villages of the southwest shore, amongst which handsome
Lunenburg and solitary Lockeport stand out. Between
them is Liverpool, where you turn inland for both the
remote forests and lakes of Kejimkujik National Park
and, beyond, on an arm of the Bay of Fundy, the delightful
little town of Annapolis Royal. Heading east from here
along the Annapolis Valley, it's a further 110km to the
pleasant college town of Wolfville and another 90km
back to Halifax.
Nova Scotia's other
outstanding circular tourist route is the Cabot Trail.
Named after the explorer John Cabot, who is supposed to have
landed here in 1497, it encircles the northern promontory of
Cape Breton Island, where the mountainous landscapes of
Cape Breton Highlands National Park constitute some of
eastern Canada's most stunning scenery. Cape Breton Island –
and the strip of Nova Scotia coast bordering the
Northumberland Strait – attracted thousands of Scottish
highlanders at the end of the eighteenth century, mostly
tenant farmers who had been evicted by Scotland's landowners
when they found sheep-raising more profitable than renting
farmland. Many of the region's settlements celebrate their
Scots ancestry and Gaelic traditions in one way or another –
museums, Highland Games and bagpipe-playing competitions – and
in South Gut St Ann's, on the Cabot Trail, there's even
a Gaelic college. The final attraction of Cape Breton is the
reconstructed eighteenth-century French fortress of
Louisbourg, stuck in splendid isolation on the southeast
coast.
Southwest Nova Scotia is
reasonably well served by bus, with daily connections
running between Halifax and Yarmouth via both the south shore
and – less frequently – the Annapolis Valley. There are also
frequent buses from Halifax to Baddeck, Sydney and Truro, for
connections on to New Brunswick and PEI. VIA Rail
services run between Halifax and Truro, then continue on to
New Brunswick and Québec. Elsewhere, however, you'll need a
car, particularly if you're keen to see anything of the
wilder sections of the Cabot Trail. Car ferries link
Yarmouth with Bar Harbor and Portland in Maine; North Sydney
with Newfoundland; Caribou, near Pictou, with PEI; and Digby
with Saint John, which often makes a useful short cut.
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