Historic Mahone Bay

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Every small town needs a local history to capture the way it was and
recognize those who shaped the present. But not every small town has a
heritage of pirates, privateers, ghost ships, buried treasure, and
rum-running to blow the dust off its history. Mahone Bay, a village on
Nova Scotia’s South Shore, traces its history back 250 years, making
it one of the oldest and liveliest sites of European settlement in
Canada. If you’ve heard of the village, it was probably in the context
of Captain Kidd’s treasure, said to be buried there. If you have a
visual image of the village, it’s probably shaped by the famous view
of three churches facing out to sea, a Canada-defining scene.

The village has the advantage of an excellent harbour with hundreds of
small islands. From its founding in 1754, it was a centre for
agriculture, forestry, and fishing. In the mid-1800s, shipbuilding
flourished and Victorian architecture reflected the village’s
prosperity. Prohibition brought a new industry to the
area—rum-running. This was a natural, given the area’s many secluded
coves and inlets, and a workforce with strong seafaring skills. Today
the area is turning to tourism for its economic base, offering
spectacular scenery, impressive architecture, the occasional ghost ship,
and tales of pirate treasure.

The book is based on 170 archival photos, each the trigger for a brief
block of text that moves the history forward. As well as photos and
captions for individual ships, houses, shops, and churches, the work
touches on agriculture, transportation, sports, crafts, entertainment,
and recreation. For residents and relations, visitors and social
historians, it provides a treasure that, fortunately, is not buried.