Nova Scotia stretches 500 kilometres on a southwest-northeast axis from Cape Sable to Cape North, the shape of the province is often compared to that native delicacy, the lobster, with Cape Breton Island representing the outstretched claws, preparing to nip unsuspecting Newfoundland across the Cabot Strait.
The coastline of the uplands region is deeply indented, forming many good harbours, some of which are considered outstanding. Hundreds of islands dot the landscape along the entire Atlantic coast, most notably at St. Margarets Bay and Mahone Bay. Reefs and shoals abound, accounting for the many lighthouses erected along this coast. In many ways the Atlantic uplands coast epitomizes the North Atlantic coastline with its bare granite sheets plunging headlong into the raging surf to produce an awesome cataclysm between land and sea. When people think of Nova Scotia, they usually envisage the rocky granite shores of the uplands. Nova Scotia – the Land of Romance
Nova Scotia is a land of romance. The annals of Nova Scotia are replete with romantic and adventurous stories. Tradition has it that more than nine centuries ago the Norsemen landed on this peninsula and names it Markland, but the record of that voyage is only dimly enshrined in the sagas of their poets. Whatever settlement was made by them, Markland was again left to the wild Micmacs who hunted the moose and caribou, sang their songs of love and war, and offered sacrifices to their gods in the light of a thousand lodge fires.
Then Columbus came and five years later john Cabot under authority of letters patent issued by Henry the Seventh of England, crossed the Atlantic, and on June 24, 1497 planted the flag of Britain on the Northeastern seaboard of North America.. To Cabot belongs the honour of being the first European discoverer of the mainland of North America. His discoveries gave to England a claim upon the continent which the colonizing spirit of her sons made good in later times.
The first attempt at settlement of Markland – named Acadia by the French –was made by a native of France, Baron de Lery in the year 1518. he arrived too late in the season to construct houses for his people and so returned home leaving part of his livestock in Canso.
After de leery none came to colonize these lands until Jacques Cartier, the hardy St, Malo mariner, sailed with his men into the Gulf and up the River St. Lawrence to the point where Montreal now stands. Attracted by his findings of the wealth of the new world fisheries came a horde of English, French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen, who plied their calling off the coast and dried their fish on the shores.
In 1598 a French nobleman, Marquis de la Roche, armed with a Royal commission, sailed with a party of fifty convicts for Acadia. He landed them on Sable Island and went in search of grounds suitable for a settlement, but was forced by adverse gales to return to France. Only twelve of the convicts remained alive when rescuers reached them seven tears later.
A few years later another nobleman of France, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, received from his monarch, Henry the Fourth, a patent constituting him Lieutenant- General of Acadia. He was also given a monopoly of the fur trade. De Mont set forth on march 7, 1604, with a party of 120 farmers in two ships to people the territory named in his grant, Acadia, or New France, which covered lands, now Nova Scotia, and also adjoining territory.
With de Monts sailed Samuel Champlain, an experienced navigator, and a Picardy nobleman, Baron de Poutrincourt. After sighting Cape La Have the party skirted the coast line, explored the Bay of Fundy and finally established the first settlement in Nova Scotia, on the shores of a beautiful harbour on the Annapolis Basin, which they christened Port Royal. That settlement was at Lower Granville, seven miles from the present Annapolis Royal.
Champlain at this time explored the coast of what is now New England and in 1606 a large number of artisans from France joined the colony. In that year also came Marc Lescarbot, law3yer and poet and man of affairs, who became the ablest historian of the French colonial transactions of that period. In the following winter Champlain instituted at Port Royal his famous “Order of the Good time”, of which many stories have come down to us.
The English meanwhile had obtained a foothold in Virginia and from thence in 1613 came an armed force under Samuel Argall, which utterly destroyed Port Royal as encroaching upon the territories of the English. From this historical inroad dates the long and bitter struggle lasting a century and a half for the possession of Acadia [Nova Scotia] – a conflict that was not ended until Wolfe’s victory at Quebec and the surrender of new France.
Great Britain’s first attempt at the settlement of what is now Nova Scotia was made in 1621 when, on the ground of prior discovery, King James the First of England and sixth of Scotland granted to Sir William Alexander, a Scottish gentleman of his court, the lands lying between New England and Newfoundland,’ to be holden of us from our kingdom of Scotland as a part thereof”.
It is therefore a fact worth noting that New Scotland sprang as it were, direct from the loins of old Scotland, Alexander resolved by the favour of the king to engage his countrymen in extending the glory of their native land by forming a New Scotland across the ocean. The name Nova Scotia used in the document conveying the grant was the suggestion of sir William, who said to the King.” My countrymen would never adventure to such an enterprise unless it was as there was a new France, a new Spain, a new England, that they might likewise have a new Scotland.’ In this document lies the origin of Nova Scotia as a Province.
Sir William Alexander dreamed of a feudal state, with himself as Lieutenant-Governor. In order that he might take possession of his lands after the feudal fashion he had Nova Scotia made a part of the County of Edinburgh. Therefore different parts of Nova Scotia were 3,000 miles apart at a time. Thereupon he entered upon the ownership of his barony with all the display of ceremonial of Edinburgh Castle.
An interesting outgrowth of that undertaking was the creation of a Scottish order of Knighthood, known as the Baronets of Nova Scotia which was bestowed upon each of the gentlemen who subscribed 3,000 marks toward the exploration and colonization of the new land. This order was conferred upon 140 persons. Each creation up to 1638 carried with it a barony of four by six miles in Nova Scotia. The order was not wholly bestowed upon court favourites. All parts of Scotland and Scottish life were respected in the roll of honour. Although the baronets raised a total of about 26,000 pounds the expeditions they sent out were not very successful, and finally in 1632 treacherous session of Nova Scotia to France by Charles the First brought the enterprise to an end.
Oliver Cromwell, the next ruler of England, recovered what Charles of England had basely surrendered and Acadia became once more Nova Scotia; but this position was changed again in 1667, when Charles the Second gave away what Cromwell had won, that is to say, “all the country called Acadia situated in America which the most Christian King had formerly enjoyed”.
Another war, however, soon came between England and France after the expulsion of James the Second, Port Royal was compelled to surrender to a force from Boston, and possession of Nova Scotia again changed hands. The country retreated to the French through a Treaty of King William the Third in 1697; but at the end of a further war, in 1713, the mainland of Nova Scotia passed into the possession of the British, a position which has never since changed. France retained her hold on Cape Breton Island until Louisburg was captured in 1758.
To reach these results many battles were fought and many interesting historical events happened in New Scotland, as for instance, the two sieges of Louisburg, and the famous expulsion of the Acadians, celebrated in Longfellow’s poem Evangeline.