Talk About the Valley: Stories from Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley

Anthony MacKenzie is an associate professor of history at St. Francis
Xavier University.

The Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia was one of the first places in the
Atlantic provinces to be settled by Europeans. Most of the first
settlers (French) were expelled in the 18th century and replaced by
English-speaking Protestants. The majority of these were from New
England; a number of Loyalists settled there after 1776, as did some
Blacks during the War of 1812. With occasional reference to the Micmacs,
Norman Creighton deals with settlers who came after 1755 and their
descendants. His short, informal, and often humorous essays make good
reading as

they deal with history, biography, and natural history.

There are fascinating accounts of places and people and unusual
happenings. In 1885, a school of “blackfish” (small whales) were
stranded and died on the Avon River mud flats; the carcasses rotted away
and the polluted atmosphere caused an outbreak of fever that killed 30
people. At Wilmot Spa Springs, there were springs of water with amazing
curative properties; an old soldier with one wooden leg found that the
springs caused his cork leg to grow flesh so that it looked just like
the other leg! Other essays deal with forgotten trades and
skills—telegraph operators, builders of wooden ships, and
old-fashioned farming.

Creighton tells of famous people from the Valley: Alfred C. Fuller, the
original Fuller Brush Man; writer Ernest Buckler; William Hall, a black
man who won the Victoria Cross. There is an account of a family (the
Burgesses), one of whose members was a very successful inventor. And
there is the incredible tale of a Halls Harbour seaman who became
Admiral of the Imperial Turkish Navy, equipped with a large income and a
suitable harem, only to have his indignant wife ruin everything.

Creighton tells it as it was, providing a feast of nostalgia for
old-timers. But why is poet Bliss Carman’s name always misspelled?