Minudie is a fairly isolated area of Nova Scotia between the mouth of River Hebert and the Cumberland Basin. Originally occupied by the Mi’kmaq and later farmed by Acadians before the Deportation, the area became part of a grant made to Joseph…

In an isolated clearing in the forest, accessible only by rough logging roads from the TransCanada Highway or from Judique, is the small, white-painted church of St. Margaret of Scotland. Thirty Gaelic-speaking families from the Scottish Highlands…

In 1892, Jean-Jacques Stehelin come to Nova Scotia from France to explore the possibilities of establishing a business here. His father, Émile, knew some of the faculty at Collège Sainte-Anne at Church Point, so this is where his investigations…

For thousands of years before Europeans came to North America, the Indigenous people of Mi’kma’ki travelled in canoes from Tewapskik (the Annapolis River) across to the Atlantic Ocean via a chain of lakes leading to Oqomkikiaq (the Mersey River) and…

Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres was born in 1721, probably in Switzerland. He came to North America after studying at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. In 1756 he was commissioned Lieutenant in the Royal American Regiment and took part in the…

Norman McLeod never intended to live at St. Ann's Harbour in Cape Breton. He began studying for the ministry in his native Scotland, but he disapproved of the practices of the Church of Scotland, which he considered insufficiently austere. In 1817,…

Many of the early British settlements in Nova Scotia were recorded in maps made by Charles Morris, his son, and his grandson. Charles I was born in Boston and was commissioned in 1746 by Governor Shirley to serve in Nova Scotia. In 1748 he was…

In 1606, fourteen-year-old Charles de St-Étienne de LaTour came to Acadie with his sixteen-year-old cousin, Charles de Biencourt, whose father, Jean de Poutrincourt, had been granted the seigneurie of Port Royal. The boys spent a year at the…

Bartholomew Green, like his father and grandfather, was a printer in Boston, establishing his own printing office there in 1725. He left Boston in 1745 to fight at Louisbourg, but when he returned, was unable to rebuild his business successfully.…

Nicolas Denys was born in Tours, France, in 1603. He came to Acadie with Isaac de Razilly in 1632, full of hope. He wanted to develop trade in fish, furs, and lumber, but he was beset by bad luck. He first established a lumber business east of the…