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| A wall mural on a downtown Windsor building depicts the town's seafaring history. |
If you've ever been near Windsor, but haven't stopped for a visit, then a miss is a good as a mile in this Annapolis Valley town where the early bird get the worm and sometimes it rains cats and dogs.
However, if you're quick as a wink or as sharp as a tack you may find that facts are stranger than fiction in Windsor. As any resident can tell you, every dog has his day and you're barking up the wrong tree if you should ever look a gift horse in the mouth or try to find a needle in a haystack.
I bet you didn't know that all these commonplace sayings (in red) were actually coined in Windsor in the 1830s by Judge Thomas Chandler Haliburton in his newspaper articles and books about The Clockmaker: The Sayings and Doings of Samual Slick of Slickville.
Judge Haliburton's home 'Clifton' is now part of the Nova Scotia Museum complex and is open to the public as are several other museums in the town where you can learn more about the town's history and its star character Sam Slick.
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| Clifton House Museum | The Shand House Museum |
Fort Edward Blockhouse, a National Historic Site |
Among other things, Windsor lays claim to the title 'birthplace of hockey' and points to a reference by Sam Slick talking about boys playing 'hurley' on ice on Windsor's Long Pond as proof. Hurley is a European game played on grass with a ball and curved-end stick. Sam Slick also made mention of youngsters playing bass (two ss) ball, but Windsor doesn't lay claim to having invented this sport, although the town is twinned with Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. |
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One claim to fame that can't be disputed is the fact that Windsor is home to 'giant' pumpkins. It was the late Windsor farmer Howard Dill who developed 'Dill's Atlantic Giant', the granddaddy of all giant pumpkins. The current world record is 767.7 kilograms or 1689 pounds and was produced from one of his seeds. No matter how you cut it, that's a lot of pumpkin pies and some people even turn them into boats and race them. I'm sure if you met Sam Slick on the streets of Windsor today and he told you such a thing was for real, you would probably say: This country is going to the dogs if you expect me to believe that . . . I wasn't born yesterday. And he'd be apt to reply: Seeing is believing.   |
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| Historic downtown Windsor buildings | Large, ornate homes include The Clockmaker Inn |
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| Large trains carry gypsum from nearby mines | Miniature trains take kids for rides |
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| The Avon River flows around Windsor and is a good place to witness the power of the Bay of Fundy tides. |
If you too have to see to believe, checkout these website for more on Windsor: It's as large as life and twice as natural if you believe Sam Slick.
www.birthplaceofhockey.com
www.exploreourshores.com
www.destinationsouthwestnova.com
www.novascotia.com
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