Road Trip: Digby, Nova Scotia

Spacing Associate Editor Shawn Micallef visited his (other) ancestral homeland — Nova Scotia — in early July. The first post in this (delayed) series looked at Saint John, NB and continues now into Canada’s Ocean Playground.

NOVA SCOTIA: The Princess of Acadia ferry crosses from Saint John to Digby in about 3 hours and reduces the trip to this end of Nova Scotia by quite a few hours and substantial reduction in carbon footprint — though the ferry service is under constant threat, keeping the entire region on edge. Being on the edge is second nature here as the natural resource based economy can be fickle.

The ship passes through the Digby Gut into the Annapolis Basin where it heads to the Digby terminal where we drive out of its damp belly. Digby is, like so many towns across Canada, somewhat isolated in terms of public transportation. There is this ferry, and a bus service from Halifax, but the once extensive rail lines were removed (tracks and all — making sure it doesn’t come back) during the Mulroney era.

Digby is a fishing town — scallops specifically — that has seen busier days. When I was a kid on our semi-annual trips here (some Southern Ontarians have Muskoka, we had Digby County) I was always amazed by the frenetic activity downtown and along the municipal wharf. With the decline of the fishery, Digby is a much quieter place now, though by no means a ghost town.

Do the wives and daughters who are the namesakes of so many of these vessels get together and compare fonts? Some are magnificent. The fishing industry is a very public one — you can look right down into the boats, watch them mend nets and overhear them talk. Standing on the Digby wharf is one of the only times I ever feel the slightest doubt about going vegetarian ten years ago — but happily the spell is broken when back on dry land.

Digby’s main street runs along the shoreline. Buildings on the water side of the road are on stilts, and the tide comes up right underneath. In some areas though there has been some land reclamation and a new grassy park has been created behind the buildings.

Though Digby is not an exceptionally cute or beautiful Maritime destination — it’s a real, working town — it’s quite charming and is trying to attract more tourism to the area. However, this year we heard visits are way down, likely do to high gas prices. Towns like this take double hits when the prime industry, the fishery, shrinks and the savior industry, tourism, evaporates whenever the price of oil rises.

This shop is half souvenir store, half computer store, with a handful of internet stations downstairs. The guy who runs it let me plug in my laptop for over an hour to connect back to Toronto, then refused to take any money from me. These things happen in the big city too — but why do we always notice nice human interactions like this more in small towns? I think we expect to find it here. Still, I told everybody I met in Digby the story, so these little things get around. As always, we get some gentle ribbing from folks when they see our Ontario plates.

Some art-like items around town, including this creepy topiary mermaid with what looked like human hair.

Digby’s not so hidden gem, nestled on a hill above the town and across an inlet in the Annapolis Basin, is the Pines Hotel. Like the hotel in The Shinning it only operates in the summer and there are rumours of ghosts. It was formerly one of the CP Railroad hotels and I recall fuzzy memories of sneaking into the (heated) pool a few times in the late 1970s.

On the edge of town is Point Prim, the western “nub” of the Digby Gut. Great examples of Bay of Fundy rock collide with urban culture. The graffiti won’t last many seasons before the salt and storms wash it away, but it reminds me of the very literal graffiti I found in Malta a few years ago. The main spray-can issues in Digby seem to be the fish, the queers, and the cool.