Historic Wolfville: Grand Pré and Countryside

Margaret Conrad is Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Studies at
the University of New Brunswick. She is the author of Atlantic Canada: A
Region in the Making, and co-author of Intimate Relations: Family and
Community in Planter Nova Scotia, 1759–

This is another in Nimbus Publishing’s Images of Our Past series,
which tells the stories of Nova Scotia communities in black-and-white
archival photographs supported by text. Over twice the length of most of
the volumes in the series, Historic Wolfville includes a substantial
introduction as well as introductions to each of seven chapters devoted,
respectively, to town scenes; historic homes and buildings; Acadia
University; industry; transportation; people, events, and daily life;
and Grand Pré and countryside. Author Tom Sheppard, who grew up in
Wolfville, has a deep knowledge of this university town located near
historic Grand Pré, the site of one of the best-documented episodes in
the Acadian deportation of 1755. Blessed with rich archival sources
housed at Acadia University and the Randall House Museum, Sheppard’s
biggest problem must have been deciding which of the many images of
historic homes, university events, apple orchards, Fundy tides, and
bucolic scenes promoting the “Land of Evangeline” and the “Home of
Glooscap” to choose.

The chapter on people, places, and events extends to 65 pages and
includes portraits in image and prose of a few of the many talented
people associated with the Wolfville area, including pianist Evelyn
Starr, track-and-field star Gertrude Phinney, and artist Alex Colville,
who married a daughter of the town, Rhoda Wright. Although many of the
images are well known, Sheppard has also tapped rich sources of
privately held photographs that are now happily part of the public
record. The wealth of images, coupled with extensive research on the
town’s complex history (acknowledged in four pages of bibliographic
sources), make this book a valuable addition to the growing shelf of
volumes on one of Canada’s most beautiful and best-known small towns.