They were a necessity at one time, in the period when sections of the dykes were fenced to contain cattle and horses.

The Oxford Canadian Dictionary defines them as an “arrangement of steps allowing people but not animals to climb over a fence or wall.” We knew them simply as “stiles.”

I climbed over a few stiles in my day but if I remember correctly, by the late 1950s there were few to be found in the upper area of the Canard dykes. The stiles and fences disappeared when dyking of cattle in the fall was discontinued.

The stiles I remember were made of rough-hewn lumber; definitely sturdy, they were constructed to last, and you’d never believe they could attract people or were romantic in any way.

But think again.

Over a hundred years ago, give or take a decade, a ritual began of having graduation day breakfasts at Acadia University. I’ve scoured University bulletins from the early 1900s, trying to determine when the ritual started, but I had no luck.

So where did stiles come in?

Eventually, the breakfasts were moved to an expanse with an incredible view of the Gaspereau Valley and the Minas Basin. This was just off Ridge Road, up Highland Avenue above the University, where originally there were farm fences and a stile. Over the years the area became known as The Stile and the University breakfasts became a tradition. Back in the day, the stile became the social focus of Wolfville as well. Eventually, a park was established there by Wolfville’s Rotary Club.

On the social aspect, in the book Blomidon Rose, Esther Clark Wright says that thousands have come to the stile over the years “laden with kettles and pots, with baskets and rugs” to hold picnics in the summer and corn boils in autumn.

Wright devoted an entire chapter in Blomidon Rose on the Rotary Park stile, where” lovers came hand in hand.” On the romances the stile inspired, she wrote that “no one has yet determined how many proposals were made at the stile, how many were accepted, how successful and how happy were the marriages resulting.”

When Blomidon Rose was published in 1957 the stile and fence no longer existed. “The rail and steps on which so many generations of students carved their names were long ago replaced,” Wright said, “and now the replacements have disappeared.”

Today, the area is fenced off and overgrown and it is no longer possible to reach the site where the stile once stood and look at the view. Like the stiles on the dykes, only memories remain.