NovaScotia.com: Nova Scotia Blogs
Blogger: Wally Hayes
Destination Southwest Nova Scotia Overview
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Mahone Bay Churches
The South Shore |
Town of Yarmouth
Yarmouth & Acadian Shores |
Grand Pré National Historic Site
Fundy Shore & Annapolis Valley |
Over
the last 24 years, I've logged several hundred thousand kilometers
traveling to every nook and cranny of Nova Scotia as a provincial
tourism photographer. During that time I've shot many hundreds of
thousands of photographs (no exaggeration), both on film and digitally,
and I've yet to run out of subject material for my cameras. Since the
Southwestern part of Nova Scotia represents about one-third of the land
mass of the province, it would be safe to say that a third of these
photographs came from this area. During the next few months, I would
like to share with you some of these photos, and the stories behind
them, in a series of blogs (I think of them more as photo feature
stories) on this website that was recently established to create
awareness of this part of the province known as Destination Southwest
Nova Scotia.
Drawing
on my past experience as a photo journalist who has worked and traveled
on assignment throughout North America, I would like to make these
blogs both entertaining and informative, relying on little hype and few
adjectives, but rather on lots of actual photos so you can better judge
Southwest Nova Scotia for yourself. I hope you enjoy them and I'd
welcome any comments or suggestions you might have. You can email them
to:wallyhayes@exploreourshores.com Hopefully, my blogs will whet your appetite to see Southwestern Nova Scotia. You can get all the specific travel planning info you want by visiting www.exploreourshores.com or the Nova Scotia website at www.novascotia.com
Southwest Nova has two distinct coastlines, the Atlantic Ocean
bordering one side and the Bay of Fundy along the other. They are as
different as day and night. The Atlantic coast features and endless
stretch of granite rock, broken here and there by pristine white sand
beaches and a variety of towns, villages and fishing ports.
Oh!
Did I mention lighthouses? There are lots of them and many you can
drive to in your car . . . the Peggy's Cove lighthouse and the Cape
Forchu lighthouse near Yarmouth just to name two. Others are located on
offshore islands and many can be seen from tour boats or, for the more
adventurous, by sea kayak and sailboat.
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Peggy's Cove, South Shore
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Cape Forchu, Bay of Fundy
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Bay of Fundy shore, on the other hand, is mostly basalt rock and
sandstone. It too has beaches, many distinctive towns and villages and
gobs of history. Did you know that the first permanent settlement in
Canada occurred here more than 400 years ago?. But the Bay of Fundy has
something else that exists nowhere else on the planet . . . the world's
highest tides. Without a word of exaggeration, you can sit at a
dockside restaurant eating freshly cooked lobster and watch fishing
boats floating beside the dock literally drop out of sight as the
harbour empties of water and the boats are left high and dry on the
muddy bottom. This full/empty cycle takes place all over the Bay of
Fundy twice every 24 hours and there's no admission charge for the show. |
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| Hall's Harbour at Low Tide |
Hall's Harbour at High Tide |
The
word unique is often suspect when describing any place, but I can tell
you from experience that there are indeed many unique things to be
found in Southwest Nova, the Fundy tides being one of them. There's a
national park, Kejimkujik, that is actually two parks . . . one part
covering a vast area of rivers, lakes and hiking trails in the
geographic heart of the region and the other on the seashore where
seals and rare shorebirds make their homes.
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| Kejimkujik National Park |
Kejimkujik Seaside Park |
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town, Lunenburg, is a UNESCO world heritage site and a large tract of
land that includes most of Southwest Nova is designated as a UNESCO
biosphere. |
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| Lunenburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site |
So
this is a brief overview of Southwest Nova. In the next few blogs I'll
take a close look at each of the three regions that comprise the area
and after that, join me for a look at the people, places and things
that make up the many experiences that are to be found here.
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