Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
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Mahone Bay is a town on the northwest shore of
Mahone Bay Mahone Bay is a bay on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada along the eastern end of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg County. The bay has many islands (potentially 365), and is a popular sailing area. Since 2003 the M ...
along the South Shore of
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...
in Lunenburg County. A long-standing picturesque tourism destination, the town has recently enjoyed a growing reputation as a haven for entrepreneurs and business startups. The town has the fastest growing population of any municipality in Nova Scotia according to the 2016 census, experiencing 9.9% population growth.


History

The end of glaciation began 13,500 years ago and ended with the region becoming largely ice free 11,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of Palaeo-Indian settlement in the region follows rapidly after deglaciation. The Town of Mahone Bay is part of the Mi’kma’ki territory of the
Mi’kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...
who have inhabited their traditional lands for over 13,500 years. Prior to arrival of the Europeans, Mi’kmaw lived in and around what is now Mahone Bay. Indian Point, just outside the town, was an important summertime settlement where the Mi’kmaq could enjoy the sheltered waters and plentiful food sources. In the winter, they would move inland from the coast using the rivers that flow into Mahone Bay harbour. There are many Mi’kmaq who live in the area today. British officials placed public notices in Germany, southern France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands stating that those willing to move to their planned settlement in Nova Scotia would receive grants of land, food for a year, and a few farm animals. Between 1750 and 1752 more than 2,200 such “
Foreign Protestants The Foreign Protestants were a group of non-British Protestant immigrants to Nova Scotia, primarily originating from France and Germany. They largely settled in Halifax at Gottingen Street (named after the German town of Göttingen) and Dutch Vill ...
” made the long journey from Europe to Halifax. In 1753, most of the new immigrants were brought from Halifax to Lunenburg, which was to be the centre of the planned settlement. The first to arrive were those who lived in town of Lunenberg and had farm lots throughout the peninsula, including Mahone Bay. They arrived under the leadership of mariner
Ephraim Cook Ephraim Cook (June 14, 1803 – December 28, 1881) was a physician and political figure in Canada West. He was born in Hadley, Massachusetts in 1803, the son of John Cook, a local farmer. He studied medicine at Boston and moved to St. Thomas, Upp ...
. The people who settled on the Lunenburg Peninsula, including the present-day village of Mahone Bay, were
foreign protestants The Foreign Protestants were a group of non-British Protestant immigrants to Nova Scotia, primarily originating from France and Germany. They largely settled in Halifax at Gottingen Street (named after the German town of Göttingen) and Dutch Vill ...
who were
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
,
Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...
, and
Montbéliard Montbéliard (; traditional ) is a town in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France, about from the border with Switzerland. It is one of the two subprefectures of the department. History Montbéliard is ...
ais settlers. During the
French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...
, there were nine Native and Acadian (Catholic) raids against the protestant settlers on the Lunenburg Peninsula. One such raid – the Raid on Lunenburg (1756) – happened just off the shores of Mahone Bay on present-day Covey Island and ohnRous Island. Another raid happened on 24 August 1758 in the village of Mahone Bay, when eight Mi'kmaq attacked the family homes of Lay and Brant. While they killed three people in the raid, the Mi'kmaq were unsuccessful in taking their scalps, which was the common practice for payment from the French. Mills were established at the mouth of each of Mahone Bay's two rivers and over the decades a separate community evolved at Mahone Bay with blacksmiths, merchants, a large school, churches, and shipyards.


Shipbuilding

Mahone Bay's boat building history begins with the Mi’kmaq. The Mi’kmaq were built birch bark canoes. The British began the first industrial production of ships. They established sawmills to produce lumber for shipbuilding. The earliest official registration form found for a vessel built in Mahone Bay dates from 1817. By 1850, at least 43 vessels had already been built by small shipyards in the Mahone Bay area and larger shipyards began being established to build mainly schooners and other smaller vessels, primarily for fishing and moving goods. As years passed, the trend was to build larger vessels for longer distance trading with the United States, West Indies, and elsewhere. By the end of WWI, there was no longer much demand for sailing vessels so the local shipyards began designing and building power vessels that used engines instead of sails for fishing and moving goods (including rum-running). Shipyards continued producing vessels during WWII. During this period, as many as 500 people were employed in Mahone Bay shipyards. Although fishing vessels were still being built until 1967, after WWII the industry transitioned to mainly constructing pleasure boats. Fibreglass sailboats were built on the site of the present RPS Composites factory located at 740 Main Street, under several different company names, including Paceship Yachts. The final days of commercial boat building concentrated on the building of pleasure crafts. Mahone Bay Plycraft Co. built thousands of laminated plywood “runabout” boats from 1949 to 1962. Commercial shipbuilding in the Town of Mahone Bay wrapped up around 1975, when the last fibreglass yachts were built at Paceship. World Wars I and II brought brief revivals of shipbuilding with construction of schooners,
tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...
s and
barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...
s. After the war, the shipyard became known for innovative production of moulded plywood boats. Later on,
Paceship Yachts Paceship Yachts Limited was a Canada, Canadian, and later United States, American, boat builder originally based in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The company was founded in 1962 and specialized in the design and manufacture of fiberglass sailboats. ...
and McVay Fiberglass Yachts built
fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass c ...
sailboats, such as the Paceship 20, designed in 1970. There were six major shipyards that produced between 1850 – 1942: Obed H. Ham Yacht Works, Abraham Ernst/ Erst & Sons/ Ernst Shipbuilding, John Zwicker, John Mclean and Sons Shipyard, Elkanah Zwicker/ Titus Langilee, Henry Schnare."


Today

The town is also known for a history of wooden boat building, it was the main industry of Mahone Bay in its earlier years. The Mahone Bay Museum explains and shows this history in detail. Until recent years the town's shipbuilding and boat-building heritage was celebrated by the "Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Festival". The view across the harbour is of three prominent churches: St James'
Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
; St John's
Evangelical Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
; and Trinity United. It has become an iconic image of Nova Scotia, frequently photographed and featured on postcards and calendars. The town has a number of upscale shops and restaurants which almost universally are designed to appeal to the tourist trade, and sometimes shut down during the winter months. The town also has a plastics factory.


Demographics

In the
2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...
conducted by
Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Mahone Bay had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.


Government

The Town of Mahone Bay is governed by a Council composed of a
mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...
and six
councillors A councillor, alternatively councilman, councilwoman, councilperson, or council member, is someone who sits on, votes in, or is a member of, a council. This is typically an elected representative of an electoral district in a municipal or regi ...
elected at-large. The mayor is David DeVenne. Day-to-day activities are managed by a chief administrative officer (CAO) who is accountable to Council. Municipal governments in Nova Scotia are elected every four years and the most recent round of elections took place on October 17, 2020. The provincial legislation that creates and empowers the municipality is the Nova Scotia Municipal Government Act. Municipal Council is responsible for all facets of the
municipal government A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
, including directly delivered and shared or regional services. Directly delivered services include services such fire, public works, roads, as well as the municipally owned and operated electrical and water utilities. The municipality participates in shared services, such as library services and policing. The town's municipal operating budget was $2.7 million, and the town owned electric light utility of $1.9 million and water utility of $575 thousand resulted in a total proposed budget of $5.2 million in the 2017/18 fiscal year. Mahone Bay is represented by one riding in the
Nova Scotia House of Assembly The Nova Scotia House of Assembly (; ), or Legislative Assembly, is the deliberative assembly of the General Assembly of Nova Scotia, and together with the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia makes up the Nova Scotia Legislature. The assembly is ...
and shares representation with one riding in Canada's
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
.


See also

*
List of municipalities in Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is the Population of Canada by province and territory, seventh-most populous provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada with 969,383 residents as of the Canada 2021 Census, 2021 Census of Population, and the List of Can ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Unincorporated communities in Nova Scotia Communities in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia Towns in Nova Scotia