Two Girls From Texas in a Car: NOVA SCOTIA - VINEYARDS , SAILING REGATTA,LOYALIST TOWN, MOST SCENIC DRIVE, AND PRIVATEERS

There were so many activities in Nova Scotia, that the days and nights were full for a month. Many times there were so many choices for evening activities that it was difficult to choose.

CHESTER

The town was first settled in 1759 by immigrants from New England and Great Britain; today it has a population of 1600. Chester is noted for its regal homes and quiet streets, along with numerous islands offshore.

Theoldest pub in Nova Scotia 1767

I was there for the annual Chester regatta. It is the largest regatta in North America.

LIVERPOOL

European settlers replaced Mi'kmaq First Nations here in the mid-1750's, when New England planters began fishing and named it after Liverpool in England.

celebrating a birthday in Liverpool

Great performer at the Astor Theatre - wonderful dancing by locals....

The American Revolution led to the town's history that pivoted around the violent doings of privateers (what amounted to legalized pirates).

Fishing,logging and shipbuilding later sustained the town, with rum running during Prohibition adding a colorful chapter. The town's major employer - a paper mill-closed on 2012 leaving it less prosperous.

SHELBURNE

Shelburne' s history is a microcosm of world events since its founding in 1783 by United Empire Loyalists and Black Loyalists both seeking refuge after the American Revolution in what was then a British colony.

At one point

They are such "loyalists" that this is a "greeter " in the front yard.

the population swelled to 10,000 making it the 4th largest settlement in North America at the time.

Freed slaves and others of African descent stopped here in hopes of a better life, but promises of land and work were not fulfilled. Instead the little settlement of Birchtown became the departure point for those headed back to Aftrica , where they created the stae of Sierra Leone. Made famous in Lawrece Hill's novel "The Book of Negroes" and the movie.

The multi-[million-dollar Black Loyalist Heritage Center with its glass floors, and the names of Black Loyalists etched on its windows, is the newest edition to the province's museums, and it will move you.

Films like "Moby Dick", "The Scarlet Letter", Mary Silliman's War" and "The Book of Negroes " were filmed here.

BLACK LOYALIST HERITAGE CENTRE

This is a tribute to the history of the Black Loyalists who fled stavery and oppression in the US and sought refuge, first in the former British Colony and then in Sierra Leone in Africa.

I saw the eclipse in Shelburne.

ANNAPOLIS VALLEY - THE WINE DISTRICT

Most recently the farmlands around Wolfvlle are being transformed into productive vineyards, making for a new wine industry that has marured the past 3 decades to become a producer of increasingly quaffable - now award winning wines, paarticularly whites, sparkling, and desert wines. Nova Scotia has it's own appellation called Tidal Bay.

GRAND PRE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE (UNESCO)

Hardworking Acadians vastly altered the local landscape in large part by constructing a series of dikes outfitted with ingenious log valves which allowd farmers to convert the saltwater marshes to production farmland.

They were French (Acadians) who populated the Minas Basis from 1680 until their expulsion at the hands of the British in 1755. Some 11,500 were forcefully deported from these and other Acadian communities. Many died on their way to Louisiana where they becam the Cajuns.