Eastern Passage is one of those small communities not far from Halifax pulled in two directions. While it has a long history as a rural fishing village, its proximity to the big city has meant there have been massive changes to the community in recent years.

Before the coming of Europeans, the Eastern Passage area was frequented in the summer months by Mi’Kmaq who made use of the natural bounty found both on the mainland and nearby on McNab’s, Lawlor’s, and Devil’s Islands. Soon after the founding of Halifax in 1749, the British placed a bounty on the Mi’Kmaq, who were then deported to McNab’s Island. By the time a truce was agreed to in 1752, diseases caused by European contact had devastated the Mi’Kmaq population. European settlement began soon afterwards.

Eastern Passage grew in tandem with Halifax. In 1827, there were 157 people there, and by 1871 the population had grown to 818, with fishing being the main source of income for about one-fifth of families. Through the years, others were engaged in gold and graphite mining, operations that continued until World War II. During that conflict, a spill at a nearby refinery caused what might have been a small fire to become a large blaze that destroyed homes, fishing shacks, wharves, and boats all along Eastern Passage waterfront. In the past fifteen years, as Halifax has continued to grow, the population of the Eastern Passage area has ballooned from 6,000 to 19,000.

Wayne Eddy has seen the effects of this latest growth. One of sixteen fishermen still active out of “The Passage,” (there were twice as many a decade ago), he also built up and recently sold Wayne’s World, a thriving retail lobster operation. “The increase in the number of people in the area has stretched our infrastructure beyond its limit,” Wayne says. “Our roads are congested – what with all the increased traffic – our sewage facilities are taxed to the limit, and our schools are badly in need of upgrading. There are just two gas bars, hardly enough to serve the number of people in the area. If you want diesel fuel, you’d better go to Dartmouth. And high-school students in the area are still bused to Cole Harbour. We need a new high school here, but there’s no word on when we might get one.”

Wayne serves on the Board of the Fisherman’s Cove Development Association (FCDA), which has been responsible for a lot of recent improvements in the community. “When the groundfishery went down here, it hit a lot of fishing families pretty hard,” Wayne says. “But we got the FCDA going in an effort to attract tourists and new businesses to the area, and it’s been quite successful in doing that.”

The FCDA was fueled with funding from The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy (TAGS), an initiative of Human Resources Development Canada designed, in part, to find alternative employment options for people who had been displaced from the fishery. Fisherman’s Cove itself is a complex of roads, boardwalks, and small buildings that house small businesses. There are gift shops, photography studios, fish retailers, restaurants, and many other enterprises offering a wide array of services to visitors. Nearby, McCormack’s Beach Provincial Park offers more than two kilometres of boardwalk hiking along the shore and among sand dunes covered in marram grass that offers protection to a wide variety of birds and other wildlife.

As Wayne and I walk about Fisherman’s Cove, it becomes obvious that the fishery, and the sea, are still vital to the Eastern Passage area. A man in a pick-up truck who offers shark-fishing excursions stops to talk with Wayne about sources of bait. As we walk along the wharf, we see many of the 70 to 90 fishing boats that come to Eastern Passage every year. They’re here for the bluefin tuna that chase the August and September runs of herring and mackerel. There are boats here from Prince Edward Island, from Quebec, from Cape Breton, and from elsewhere in the region, and they all get supplies and services in the Eastern Passage area. Just beyond a fence outside the Fisherman’s Cove development, there’s a fish plant that employs about 35 people.

We stop and talk to Mike Tilley, who has just arrived at the dock in his 19.5-foot open boat powered by a 50-horsepower outboard motor. He operates McNab’s Island Ferry and Nature Tours, which ferries visitors to nearby McNab’s, Lawlor’s, and Devil’s Islands, and, as its name suggests, also offers nature tours of the harbour and islands. “I started my business in 1996,” Mike says, “and the Fisherman’s Cove development has been very helpful to me. It’s made this area a destination for tourists, and the ‘shoulder seasons’ in the spring and fall are far busier than they used to be. I even offer the ferry service through the winter. There are always a few folks who want to experience winter camping.”

Mike is a flamboyant character, with a vast, red beard and big white boots. “People call me ‘Captain Redbeard,’” he tells me. “I’ve lived in the area all my life, and my family has been here for generations. My grandfather was born and raised as a boy on Devil’s Island, but the family came ashore during World War I, when the oil refinery in Woodside first opened. Over the years, a lot of people from the Eastern Passage area have found work there.”

Mike’s family connection to Devil’s Island underlines the important historical ties the harbour islands have with the Eastern Passage area. All three islands were once home to families who, over time, moved ashore to the Eastern Passage area. As you hear him talk about the islands, it’s clear he has a deep attachment to them. He is a former Board member of the Friends of McNab’s Island Society. Last November, McNab’s and Lawlor’s Islands gained protection by being named Nova Scotia’s newest provincial park.

“There are other operators in downtown Halifax who offer ferry service to McNab’s,” Mike tells me, “but my overhead here is far less than theirs, so I can offer better rates. And faster service too: just give me a call and I’m there.” Mike charges eight dollars for a return trip (six dollars for seniors and kids), and there’s no additional charge for backpacks, bicycles, and camping gear. As we conclude our brief talk, Captain Redbeard is off again to rescue some island-stranded visitors.

The FCDA is committed to fostering tourism-related businesses, preserving the history and culture of the area, educating people about the fragile coastal ecosystem, promoting ecologically sound practices, being inclusive of the entire community, and partnering with other organizations for mutual benefit. Carolyn Scott is Director of the FCDA, which keeps its offices in one of the small buildings that line the boardwalk not far from the wharf. “In the mid-1990s, the Eastern Passage area was hit with a triple problem,” she remembers. “Nearby CFB Shearwater was being down-sized, the Ultramar oil refinery was in the process of shutting down, and the groundfish had just collapsed. While unemployment in the Halifax region as a whole was only about seven or eight percent, around here it was more like twenty percent. And nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. Then Ron MacDonald, the local MP for Dartmouth at the time, who also represented this area, was instrumental in getting the FCDA going. Our two objectives were to address the economic problems of the area, and to help the community build its self-esteem, which was at a low ebb at the time. Now, with about 150 to 200 people working right here in Fisherman’s Cove, I think we’ve turned the tide on the first objective. And, with Fisherman’s Cove itself now a legitimate destination for tourists who come here from other communities, people who live here now take a great deal more pride in where they live than they did a few years ago.”

Initially administered by the Shearwater Development Corporation, the FCDA was turned over to a community-based Board of Directors in 1997. “We’ve created lots of direct jobs that you can see by just walking around here,” Carolyn says. “But there are also spin-offs that aren’t so obvious. There are three bed-and-breakfast operations in the community that didn’t exist before, and they are just a few of the 35 businesses that have sprung up elsewhere in the community since we’ve developed Fishermen’s Cove. A 1998 study suggested that Fishman’s Cove was generating about $6 million dollars a year for the community, but I think it’s more than that.”

There’s obviously been a lot of construction around Fisherman’s Cove over the past few years, and it’s still going on. “We were fortunate to get funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to build a Marine Interpretive Centre here,” Carolyn tells me. “ It’s set to open late this fall, and it will underline the marine and fisheries heritage of Eastern Passage and area. There will be ten sculptures as part of the Centre, all of them made from recycled metal found on Nova Scotia beaches. The Centre will also promote environmental stewardship, explore the delicate relationship between fresh- and salt-water environments, and describe the different marine and other species that live in the area. There will be interactive exhibits that will be attractive and educational for both children and adults.”

There has been lots of development here at Fisherman’s Cove in recent years, and it all seems in very good taste. I ask what the development of Fisherman’s Cove has meant to Wayne Eddy as someone still active in the fishery. “It’s changed the space we operate in,” he says. “We used to lay out our nets to dry where you see all these shops today. Now, we have to take them home and dry them there. This used to be just our work area, where the person nearest you was also a fisherman. Now, there are lots and lots of other people here, and fishermen are way out-numbered. And, there are parking problems here that we never would have imagined before.”

Hauling fish nets back and forth. Loss of privacy in the workplace. Difficulties finding parking. You might think that Wayne would be less than pleased with the recent changes at Fisherman’s Cove. But you’d be wrong. “This development has helped breathe new life into the community I’m a part of. You’ve got to love that.” Québec

For more on Fisherman’s Cove, visit www.fishermanscove.ns.ca, or call 465-6093. For more on McNab’s Island Ferry and Nature Tours, visit www.mcnabsisland.com, or call 1-800-326-4563. For more on the Friends of McNab’s Island Society, visit www.mcnabsisland.ca.

As someone with an ear that tries to be sensitive to the nuances of life in rural and small-town Nova Scotia, there’s one habit of both Halifax’s daily newspapers that’s particularly annoying to me: it’s their repeated reference to “a Musquodoboit couple” or to some happening “in the Musquodoboit area.” Anyone who dares to venture east from metro Halifax will soon come upon Musquodoboit Harbour, where a left turn and 40 kilometres of driving will take you Middle Musquodoboit. Another 20 kilometres north and east will get you to Upper Musquodoboit. The three communities – the Harbour, Middle, and Upper – though they all snuggle the Musquodoboit River – are really quite distinct from one another: while Upper looks largely to the forests for its livelihoods, Middle is firmly grounded in an agricultural tradition, and the Harbour is a mix of suburbia and families rooted there for generations. Each has its own personality, and its own physical space. But, Halifax journalists rarely take the time to make such distinctions. (This laziness toward accurately describing communities isn’t limited to journalists: a friend of mine from Upper Musquodoboit once came to Halifax to renew his driver’s licence and was issued one that listed his address as “Upper Musquodoboit Harbour,” seemingly erasing the 65 kilometres of road and countryside between Upper and the Harbour in a single sleight of bureaucratic hand.)

I set off east from Dartmouth early one September morning to learn as much as I can about the community of Musquodoboit Harbour. It takes just over 20 minutes for me to drive along Highway #107 to its end at Highway #7 and, continuing east, find myself almost immediately in the village. The first thing I notice is that, unlike most communities in Nova Scotia with the word “Harbour” in their names, a drive along Highway #7 through Musquodoboit Harbour gives little evidence of the sea. In fact, the centre of the community’s focus seems to be a brief stretch of road lined on one side by an Irving station, a fish-and-chips shop, the public library and an elementary school, and on the other by a railway museum and an RCMP station. The East Petpeswick Road runs twelve kilometres south along the seaside to beautiful Martinique Beach, while another to the north leads to the interior of the province and those other Musquodoboits that the Halifax media never seems to be able to get straight.

I drop in on Dale Stevens, who manages the Eastern Shore Community Centre, which boasts a hockey rink, two ball fields, a day park, and both a bingo and a community hall. When I mention the lack of a marine presence to someone getting a first impression of the community, Dale remarks, “There are some people who fish from a wharf down the East Petpeswick Road, but tourism keeps more people busy here. And the complex shared by Twin Oaks Memorial Hospital and an adjacent seniors’ home is probably the biggest employer in the area.”

Dale tells me that the Community Centre is home every July to the week-long Eastern Shore Summer Fair. The community hall also regularly hosts private functions such as weddings, receptions and the like. The ball fields are well used by both organized little leaguers and informal pick-up games, while the rink is home to minor hockey teams as well as a craft fair during the Christmas season.

Dale was born and raised in Musquodoboit Harbour, but he now lives in Cole Harbour, where he and his wife are raising a family. “Things haven’t changed much here over the years as far as I can see,” Dale remarks, “but there’s sense around the community that that’s about to change. Sobey’s has bought land in the centre of the village, and they are considering building a big, new store. And, land is being bought up all over the area by developers who plan to build subdivisions.”

To find out more about changes on Musquodoboit Harbour’s horizons, Dale directs me to the home of Ron and Paula Milsom, about ten kilometres down the East Petpeswick Road from the centre of the village. (A brief chat with Ron over our shared family name turns up a common ancestor who came with the British army to Halifax in the 1850s.)

Ron and Paula meet me with a warm welcome and hot coffee. Paula is President of the Musquodoboit and Area Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association, and she sees big changes coming for the community. “Sobey’s has gone through a process with the municipality and has gotten a Development Agreement. We hope the development happens, but we also want to make sure that we don’t end up with urban blight here ten or fifteen years down the road. This place is simply too beautiful to let that happen. We want people to know, just by looking, that the people who live here take pride in where they live.”

Like other communities on the edges of greater Halifax, Musquodoboit Harbour will deal in the coming years with both the problems and the opportunities development is sure to bring. “Property values have already gone through the roof in this area,” Paula says. “As property assessments rise, some people born here are now finding it difficult or impossible to stay here. Still, we all think progress is a good thing: we just want to know what it will look like when it gets here. We want to have input into how it happens.”

Ron Milsom is Chair of both the East Petpeswick and Area chapter of Ducks Unlimited and the Nova Scotia Professional Guides Association, and is also Chair of the Eastern Shore Outdoor Heritage Association, which works to assure public access to protected areas. “Lots of Germans and Americans – and a lot of people from the Halifax area – have been buying land in this area, and we welcome them all,” Ron says. “All we ask from newcomers is respect for local ways.”

We are soon joined at the kitchen table by Gary Young, who serves as Chair of the Ratepayers’ Association’s Planning and Development Committee, and who also works for the Halifax Regional Municipality as a parklands planner. “We feel we are listened to when we have input into proposed developments in this area,” Gary says. “We want to preserve the rural character of the community while encouraging development in a responsible manner. We got Sobey’s to make adjustments in their development plan: they came to the recent meetings we held, and they seemed to listen. They told us that it was the first time they had ever consulted with ratepayers prior to a development. When the development will happen is now up to Sobey’s head office. There’s a development plan in place that both they and the community are happy with. So, the timing of it is just a matter of economic priorities on their part.”

“Our Association has been a largely reactive organization in the past,” Paula tells me. “But we’re working now to become more pro-active. And, though we often sense that we’re being listened to, it doesn’t change the fact that urban rules often aren’t practical in a rural setting. They say that all dogs have to be on a leash. Well, for a dog up in the Musquodoboit Valley herding sheep, that would have to be one very long leash.”

Having learned a bit about what is probably in store for Musquodoboit Harbour’s future, I head back toward the centre of the village to visit the library, and the Musquodoboit Railway Museum directly across the street from it, in an effort to learn something of the community’s past. The Mi’Kmaq, of course, were the first to visit Musquodoboit Harbour, and its present-day name is derived from the Mi’Kmaw word “Mooskudoboogweek,” meaning “suddenly widening out after a narrow entrance at the mouth.” The first ancestors of many of those who today call the community home arrived in the 1770s, and these were joined by Loyalists in the following decade. While a few chose the sea for their livelihoods, most looked to the forests. A box factory and several sawmills provided employment in the nineteenth century, and small gold and silver mines peppered the hills surrounding the community.

I drive north about six kilometres from Musquodoboit Harbour on Highway #357 for a visit to the home of Gail and Bob Potter. As I pull into their front yard, Bob is at work on a sign that reads “Yard Sal.” He’s preparing for the annual “50-Mile Yard Sale,” in which people all along the Musquodoboit Valley, from Upper to the Harbour, empty their basements and barter with one another, and with people from elsewhere who are attracted to the event. (Perhaps this one weekend each year is a time when one could aptly speak of “Musquodoboit” as a community. Now, if the Halifax media would only get it right the rest of the year.)

Now retired, Halifax-raised Bob served in the Royal Canadian Navy until 1968, then moved to Ottawa for six years to work as an electronics trouble-shooter. There, he met and married Gail, who describes herself as “an Ottawa Valley girl through and through.” In 1974, Bob found work in the electronics field at Dalhousie University, and the couple lived in Porter’s Lake until moving to the Musquodoboit Harbour area in 1979.

“I consider myself as part of Musquodoboit Harbour in a lot of ways,” says Bob, an avid woodsman and hunter. “But this stretch of road here is a sort of ‘dead zone.’ There’s no way to get cable service here, and don’t even think about a broadband internet connection. We pay the same municipal taxes as people in Halifax, yet there’s no water or sewage service. But I guess that’s the price I pay to have the bush in my backyard. It works out as a bargain.”

“I remember in the 1980s, when Highway #107 was extended to the outskirts of the village,” Bob recalls. “There was a lot of speculation back then that there would be a big boom here. People thought that development would snowball. Land prices rose, but the boom never happened. Now, though, you get the sense that it’s right around the corner.”

Bob shows me a small horseshoe he found on his property several years ago. He tells me it’s a donkey horseshoe, and that his property, which is on what locals know as “Silver Mine Hill,” was the site of a nineteenth-century silver mine. “The original mine shaft is where my driveway is, and I’ve had to fill it in a number of times. And I’ll probably have to fill it in again as the land settles.”

Bob has high praise for twelve-bed Twin Oaks Hospital in Musquodoboit Harbour, which also offers 24-hour emergency services. “I was in there for three days with ulcer troubles not long ago,” Bob recalls. “Though they’re probably under-staffed a bit, they nevertheless did a top-notch job. They do fantastic work there with the limited resources they have.”

After my visit at the Potters’, I stop in at the Irving station – actually, Rowlings Service Station Limited – back in the heart of the village and meet owner Scott Rowlings. “My family has owned businesses in Musquodoboit Harbour since the mid-1800s,” he tells me. “This service station has been here since 1934, and it’s always been in the Rowlings family. Back then, the road was little more than a dirt track, and a half dozen cars meant a busy day. Things have sure changed since then.”

And things are going to keep changing, of course. Scott Rowlings owns a considerable stretch of land near the end of Highway #107 on the outskirts of Musquodoboit Harbour that he has sub-divided into residential plots. He’s already sold several of them, and he welcomes the inevitable growth that’s coming to the village. Scott Rowlings embodies both Musquodoboit Harbour’s past and its future.

My final stop is at Musquodoboit Harbour Elementary School. It’s three o’clock and the end of the first day of school, and Ann Dacey is lining up her Grade Two class for the waiting school bus. This is Ann’s 27th first day of school here. Once the children have been seen safely on board the bus, we return to her classroom, and she explains to me the rather complicated route Musquodoboit Harbour kids take through Grades Primary to Twelve. “The students start out here for Grades Primary to Two,” she tells me. “Then they go to two other elementary schools farther east on Highway #7 before they do junior-high grades at Gaetz Brook, then finish Grades Ten to Twelve here in the village at Eastern Shore District High School.”

There’s one question I’ve been unable to get answered definitively during my day in Musquodoboit Harbour: just what constitutes the village of Musquodoboit Harbour? To Paula and Ron Milsom, it includes a stretch of Highway #7 and also the twelve miles of the East Petpeswick Road that leads to beautiful Martinique Beach. To Bob Potter it extends – at least in some ways – the six kilometres up Highway # 357 to include Silver Mine Hill. To Scott Rowlings, it’s the four kilometres from the end of Highway # 107 to the Ostrea Lake Road. To Ann Dacey, it includes all of Highway #7 from the Forest Hills Mall (that’s about a kilometre east of the Ostrea Lake Road), to Tranquility Cottage, a good two kilometres to the west of the end of Highway #107, and almost a kilometre past the highway sign that reads “Gaetz Brook,” the next community to the west.

But, regardless of the differing ways people might draw a mental map of Musquodoboit Harbour in their heads, those who live in the area are very aware of big changes coming their way in the very near future. They appear more than ready for those changes – ready both to deal with the problems that come with them and to take advantage of the opportunities those changes must also inevitably offer. All to help build a better Musquodoboit Harbour.

To find out more about the Musquodoboit Harbour and Area Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association, call Paula Milsom at 889-2435. To contact the Musquodoboit Railway Museum, call 889-2689. To reach Rowlings Service Station, visit www.rowlings.ca, or call 889-2675.