Travel to Nova Scotia

While the town of Oxford, Nova Scotia bills itself as the “Wild Blueberry Capital of Canada” I wanted to search around to find out how true this was. Because of its central location Oxford is a hub for the distribution and processing of fresh wild blueberries that are grown all over Cumberland County.  In fact you can purchase fresh blueberries in season at various locations around Oxford from August to early September. But then you can all over Nova Scotia. So what’s the real story here?

As the website claims, the name of the town of Oxford can be taken quite literally. In 1791oxen did ford the river. It’s just that the teamster never looked up and saw the blueberry fields or else the town might have another name. But another siet states that the people wanted a “good old English name” and so the fact that it was shallow enough for wagons to cross so Oxford stuck. But I wanted to find out about the blueberries not names.

Oxford began its existence as a farming community but then the Black River was dammed for use to power a woolen mill and later a sawmill. In fact in the late 1800’s it became a major sawmill town. But as far back as 1900 there was still no mention of blueberries.

However, when you enter Oxford’s quaint town you are welcomed by the Wild Blueberry & Maple Centre (Now we’re getting somewhere!). In the exhibits area you see the harvesting and exporting history of wild blueberries and there are exhibits and displays that explain the lifecycle of wild blueberries. This includes how modern producers prune, pollinate and take care of the berries as well as how they are harvested. In addition, a live bee colony under glass demonstrates how the bees are used to pollinate the fields.And in season the bees pay you no mind while they go about their business.

So went to the WBPANS (Wild Blueberry Producers Association of Nova Scotia) website and got these facts:

Nova Scotia’s provincial production is over 40 million pounds.

The wild blueberry is the number 1 fruit crop in acreage export sales, and value.

Oxford is the wild blueberry capital of Canada.

Wild blueberries are high in antioxidants which have many health benefits including anti-aging effects, cancer inhibiting properties, heart health, urinary tract health, vision health.

Nova Scotia wild blueberries are exported to the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and other countries.

Harvesting of wild blueberries begins in August and continues until late September.

Oxford Frozen Foods is the largest employer in the town and is owned by John Bragg who also owns Bragg Communications, a telecommunications company in Halifax.

And I got a picture of the giant Blueberry Man.

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“The Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo is one of the world’s premiere cultural and entertainment spectaculars with over 2000 first-class Canadian and international, military and civilian performers. Featuring pipes and drums, massed bands, historic re-enactments, dancers, acrobats, comedians, choirs, military displays and competitions, plus a host of innovative acts in a fast-paced 2 1/2 hour family show. “

Now is a good time to buy tickets for the Royal International Tattoo that takes place from July 1 through 8, 2009. In Nova Scotia, the Tattoo is now as common a yearly occurrence as the old time circuses that once arrived by train and set up the Big Top and tents on the fair grounds. Only this big show features more bands instead of animals.

A friend of mine was remarked, “Nah, I’m not going. Yah heard one pipe band, yah heard ‘em all.” Au contraire ! This is a great show and, although I really like pipe bands, there is so much more to enjoy.

For one thing, it is a great venue to appreciate our Armed Forces. The Canadian Forces have been a centerpiece for this show since its inception and continue to support the 2009 Tattoo in order to promote their history and esprit de corps.

The foreign bands are great and many bring in a comedy section with them. It is quite spectacular.

You can get your early-bird tickets at: Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo.

Seating Plan For Metro Centre

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Glen Breton Rare Canadian Single Malt Whisky has the distinction of being the only single malt whiskey produced in Canada - and that is using only three ingredients: barley, yeast and water. It is the perfect recipe for Scotch whisky but cannot be called ‘Scotch’ unless it is bottled in Scotland.

However, the Scotch whiskey producers in the native land are not content with Glenora Distillery leaving out the word, ‘Scotch,’ they have put in a ‘cease and desist’ order to Glenora to remove the word ‘Glen.’ In fact Glenora has been in a long legal battle with the Scotch Whisky Association who wants the name removed from the Cape Breton liquor. They say it confuses scotch drinkers into thinking that the whisky is from Scotland and not from the Nova Scotia island.

So what is the big deal? It’s that the whisky is in high demand.The Gaels, or old Gaelic people found that the water improved the flavor of the whisky. With that in mind early two dozen area streams were given rigorous tests before MacLellans Brook was chosen as the site for the distillery. This is a stream which is fed by 22 natural springs flowing straight from the Mabou highlands.

The whisky is produced in traditional copper pot with malted barley imported from Scotland and aged in oak barrels from, believe it or not, the Jack Daniel’s bourbon distillery in Tennessee. Master distiller Daniel MacLean, a Cape Breton native, is the distillery’s master and oversees ans annual production of 50,000 liters or 2000 cases of 12 bottles each.

Glenora Distillery vice-president, Bob Scott says, “The caliber of the whisky has always been striking, now guests are raving about Glenora’s other attributes. It’s a real experience.

Scott enthusiastically declares. “I just talked to guests who said it is the best food they have ever eaten in Canada.” Glenora draws more than 10,000 visitors a year to this hauntingly serene corner of the province. The staff have a genuine commitment to boosting tourism on the Ceilidh Trail and to treating visitors “as friends of Nova Scotia.” You see, the distillery has an inn and fine dining restaurant that attracts thousands of non-whisky drinkers a year as well.

Now back to the “glen.” The Trade-marks Opposition Board had already decided that Glenora’s use of the word did not cause confusion. Everyone one the board knew what it it was. However, the Scotch Whisky Association has appealed to the Federal courts and a ruling will come out in January. A negative ruling would mean that the legal fees were all in vain and a pile of money would have to be spent on re-branding, re-packaging and re-marketing.

President Lauchie MacLean can only say that he is “Cautiously optimistic.”

I do believe that the Scotch Whiskey Association, although the keeper of a sacred legacy, cannot have very much self-esteem as a group if it feels threatened by a Cape Breton distillery that has literally a drop in the bucket for production compared to the Scottish whisky empires.

So why not come and see Genora Inn and Distillery for yourself?

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I am honored to have a guest blog by Melanie Cookson-Carter, Operations Coordinator for the Joggins Fossil Cliffs and Centre.

When I get asked how long someone should schedule for a trip to Joggins I am always at a loss for an answer.

As Operations Coordinator for the Joggins Fossil Cliffs and Centre I have the enviable job of meeting with our visitors to find out what they enjoyed about their visit, what was perhaps missing and how we could work a little harder to enhance their experience. One of the most popular answers that people give during my conversations with them is that they wish that they had more time to enable them to stay longer.

I have visited hundreds of sites throughout the world and those which stick in my memory are those which I have walked away from after a tangible experience, one which leaves me wanting more. We don’t even need to try here; The Fossil Cliffs of Joggins manage to do this all by themselves.

Watching people walking along the beach, rarely do you ever see anyone walking with their head up. Everyone walks, watching the ground at their feet, hoping to find fossils. Most of them do, and with every high tide (we are on the Bay of Fundy, which boasts of having the world’s highest tides) there is the opportunity of nature playing along and helping new fossils to become uncovered.

What makes a visit here even more special is that it is an all-round sensory experience, one which can fulfill each of the ingredients on an experiential recipe. You can feel the rocky beach and the wind in your hair, taste the salt in the air and smell the ozone and even most importantly touch fossils which are 300million years old. The site has been referred to as a ‘Coal-Age Galapagos’.

As Kim has rightly mentioned, the Joggins Fossil Cliffs were inscribed onto the World Heritage List by UNESCO in July 2008. This is no small thing. It took over ten years of hard work by a small team of passionate and dedicated people and has catapulted the Cliffs into the realm of other cultural and natural heritage giants such as Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Galapagos Islands and the Great Pyramids of Giza (to name only a small number of the 878 World Heritage Sites).

Inscription means that the site is of significant universal value and Joggins statement is that:
“The classic coastal section at Joggins, Nova Scotia, is of outstanding universal value. It contains an unrivalled fossil record preserved in its environmental context, which represents the finest example in the world of the terrestrial tropical environment and ecosystems of the Pennsylvanian ‘Coal Age’ of the Earth’s history.”

We have welcomed over 17,000 people through the doors of our new state of the art visitor and research centre here on the site and a few thousand more that have skipped the centre and gone straight for the beach. I could count the number of negative comments we have received from our visitors on one hand, such is the amazing standard of general experience of the site, and when 75% of those have been about the weather we know that we are doing something right.

We have a fantastic cafe, the Roundhouse (named after the building, which used to be close by and which was used to turn the steam trains around) which serves the best organic, fair-trade coffee and tea for miles, as well as homemade cakes, salads and sandwiches (no fryers here) and we have an awe-inspiring collection of fossils, harvested from the site over the past sixty years and more. You can learn about fossilization, evolution, the debate between science and the church and clutch your new-found knowledge to your chest as you descend our staircase onto the beach and become dwarfed by the massive cliffs.

Can you take fossils? No. The site is protected (and has been since 1972 by the way) which means that all natural materials on the beach must remain where you find them. You can touch and you can pick up the fossils but you have to put them back. Some say this is wrong and that the tide will only destroy the fossils but we have to be able to research the site and to enable us to do this it has to be left for Mother Nature. After all she created it and it shall be her who decides its fate.

Many of our team of Interpreters have been recruited from the community and have a hereditary knowledge of the cliffs, which has been passed down through the branches of their family tree to them and it is this that makes a guided tour of the cliffs so special, it is the anecdotal and personal tales of how the cliffs have touched the lives of locals and become the inspiration for many family stories scores of years before becoming a global phenomenon.

We are open for the 2009 season between 22nd April and 31st October but we are happy to welcome visitors outside of these times if they call ahead and if you want to know how long to schedule for your visit, I would say all the time in the world!

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“Joggins Fossil Cliffs are the finest example in the world of a natural exposure in a continuous section ten miles long, occurs in the sea cliffs bordering a branch of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.”

Sir Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology: 1829

I am a big fan of the Tyrrell Museum of Palentology in Drumheller, Alberta and spent a great day there a few years ago. I especially liked “Dinosaur Hill” where the standing remains of 40 dinosaurs can be studied.

Less than two hours away from Halifax is the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a fabulous display of Coal Age history that has been eroded down by wave action so that the fossilized remains of dinosaurs, fossilized trees and dinosaur footprints from 310 million years ago. So, you can litterally walk in the footsteps of the ancient creatures.

On July 7, 2008 the joggins cliffs made the World Heritage Site list after the opening of the $9 million interpretive center.  It is one of only 15 sites in Canada. Dubbed the “Coal Age Galapagos” it is the richest find of Coal Age fossils. There are twenty-foot high fossilized tress in the cliffs, trilobites, fish, dragonflies. It was so famous in the 18oo’s that it made mention in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.

The actual fossil cliffs stretch for almost 10 miles along Fundy’s Chignecto Bay in Northwest Nova Scotia. The Bay of Fundy has the world’s greatest tides which worked away at the shore and exposing more fossils of the Carboniferous, or Coal Age, Period. For years before the UNESCO designation the cliffs have been under the protection os the Province of Nova Scotia’s Special Places Protection Act.

Visits are best at low tide because you can see more. If the tide is high start at the interpretive center and when the tide lowers you will have a better understanding of the area and its history.Better yet, take a guided tour. It’s not much and you get way more out of the experience.

The Joggins Fossil Centre can be reached at 1-902-251-2727.  Joggins is near Amherst, which is two-hour drive from Halifax or a one-hour trip from Moncton, New Brunswick.

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