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. Discovery of Oak Island
Oak Island is one of over 300 islands in Mahone Bay and is itself four miles from the town of Chester, Nova Scotia, and about forty-five miles from Halifax. A narrow channel separates it from the mainland at a point known as Western Shore.
The island was originally included in a Crown grant of 100,000 acres, forming the township of “Shoreham” (the original name of Chester), made to some seventy-three grantees or proprietors, on October 18, 1759. These grantees came in that year from Boston, Kingston, Hanover, Pembroke, Concord, Lexington, Plympton, Shrewsbury, Lancaster, Stoughton, Casco Bay and other places in New England. A further grant of 29,750 acres was made in 1760, and a third grant of 12,400 acres in 1785. The island is about twenty-five miles from the inner run of vessels sailing along the coast, and is almost entirely hidden from the view of passing ships by Big and Little Tancook Islands which lie to the east and southeast.
Oak Island itself is about three-quarters of a mile long and about half a mile wide and was designed on the first survey in 1762-1765 made by Charles Morris, Surveyor General of the Province, as Island No. 28. It was divided into thirty-two lots of four acres each, arranged in two tiers, one north and the other south of a line running almost easterly and westerly the length of the island. In DesBarres’ Atlantic Neptune (1778) the island is shown as Gloucester Island, a name conferred by DesBarres, which, however, did not persist. It was also known as Smith’s Island about the same time.
The eastern end of the Island runs out to a point which encloses a crescent-shaped cove, known today as “Smith’s” or “Smuggler’s Cove.”
In 1965 a causeway was built between the mainland and the western end of the island passable for ordinary motorcar traffic, and extending eastward towards the Money Pit.
It will also be observed that there is a marked indentation in the southern shore of the island and abundant evidence that this indentation was originally a lagoon, cut off from the ocean by a barrachois, or bar, of heavy gravel. Today the land north of the indentation is a very wet swamp, running almost across the island to the north side, and probably in earlier times a narrow channel between two islands. East and west of the swamp the land rises to form two hills, each rising thirty or thirty-five feet above sea level. It is near the crest of the easterly hill that the Money Pit, so-called, is located.
The soil of the island is very hard tough clay mixed with boulders of glacial origin. The erosion of the southern shore is proceeding at less than two inches a year. Today the island is partly cleared at its eastern and western ends. From time to time during the island’s history portions of it have been cultivated by residents.