We came away from Cape Breton with a much better picture of my family history- especially regarding the King family, which has been my primary focus. We have new leads to follow and have already started. We stopped in the Guysborough area of Nova Scotia and although we didn’t learn much here, it was very cool for me to realize that my 5th great grandfather moved to this area from Virginia, in 1784.
We were headed to Halifax, again, to look for land deeds, but we took the long way there. With temperatures hovering at 30 degrees ( that's Celsius) we opted for one more beach day. One of the perks to traveling in a truck camper is that we can check out from one campground, stop at the beach with the camper, hang out, make our own lunch, take a shower, and then go to the next campground. And that’s exactly what we did.
Once in Halifax, we hit the Archives as soon as they opened, and found the records we were looking for. We had suspected that my 5th great grandfather came to Nova Scotia with 4 children, not just the 3 we knew about, and the land deed records showed that Amelia Cook, daughter of George King, sold land at the same time as her sister, Rebecca King Langley.
That was a key piece of information for me, and the only thing we were looking for, so we met with Neil and Susan again for dinner, this time down at the Halifax waterfront.
Labor Day weekend is one of those weekends that its not always a good idea to wait till the last minute for campground reservations. Paul and I had looked ahead and had to decide where we wanted to go. We could have done the Cabot trail again, on Cape Breton, but decided we didn’t need to do it again.
We debated heading back to the States, but there was a section of Nova Scotia that we hadn’t really explored, and we decided that it could be “now or never” so we booked places along the south western section of Nova Scotia.
Shelburne
We bypassed the quaint, but well known towns of Liverpool and Lunenburg because we had visited them before and settled near the seacoast town of Shelburne.
This is a cute little town, with a few nice restaurants and a long history of Dory making.
I have seen Dories before, in fact, Gloucester MA has dory races every year. Anyway, although I had seen dories , I didn’t know much about them. Shelburne was known for their Dories, and at one time there were 7 dory builders in town. Now there is one museum, and they build about two per year.So here is what we learned:
A Dory is a shallow bottom boat, usually about 12-15 feet long. The shorter boats can be manned by one person and the longer boats require two people at the oars.
Dories have many purposes- fishing, transport, etc
They were cheap, and considered to be disposable, so if a dory sprung a leak, it was tossed overboard.
They were painted “Dory Buff Yellow” which was, at the time, the color most visible in a fog. New ones are sometimes painted in neon colors. Back in the day, when they were used for fishing, two members of the same family were not allowed to go out on the same dory- the fatality rate was pretty high in the dory fishing world.
Kejimkujik
Trying to get back into the hiking routine, as much as possible, we stayed in provincial parks, as well as Kejimkujik National Park.
There are two sections to Kejimkujik- one deep in the woods, and another along the seashore.
We hiked them both. Paul’s favorite trail was probably the Gold Miner Trail- an interpretive hike that showcased the gold mining history of the area.
We noticed these weird contraptions all over the park, and finally chatted with a volunteer to find out what they are. The Blanding Turtle is endangered, and they love to lay their eggs in this particular area, only at night, and each year they return to the same spot. There is a group of volunteers that stay here and cover the eggs once they are laid, protecting them from predators. Once they hatch, each turtle is marked with a unique code ( they notch the shell) and released.
As we were hiking back to our campsite one day, I got a kick out of this sign that showed our speed. I was pretty impressed with our walking pace until I remembered it’s in kilometers per hour, not miles. Still, it was funny.
Digby
Our final stop in Nova Scotia was Digby. They are known for their scallops so of course we searched for a restaurant on the water where we could enjoy a glass of wine and some seafood.
Nearby Annapolis Royal has a cute downtown area and also Historical botanical gardens. We meandered around the gardens for a bit, and bought some amazingly delicious orange vinegar from their gift store.
