In the recent column about my great uncle John Coleman, the Kings County jailer from 1896 to 1928, I mentioned a ballad about the jail during his tenure there. While my father knew a few lines of the ballad, I assumed most of it had been lost or forgotten over the years. Why would anyone save a minor song about a county jail, especially when it was of no historical significance?

I didn’t reckon with the likes of Gaspereau historian, Murrille Schofield. Mr. Schofield, whose historical notes on Wolfville, Gaspereau, and nearby communities was my topic last week, had a copy of the ballad in his papers. I discovered this thanks to Lexie Davidson whose history of Forest Hill-Gaspereau Mountain was mentioned in this column recently.

The ballad of John Coleman’s jail was written by two young men from Gaspereau Mountain who came from one of the first families to settle the area after the Acadians. Apparently, they spent one or two nights in jail for creating a disturbance by shouting. Kentville’s then chief of police, Rupert Davis, did the honours, and he is the “Pup Davis” mentioned in the first stanza.

“Oh Mr. Pup Davis, the cop of the town/With his brass button coat you’ll see him step round./He’ll hop on a stranger and take him to jail/Then search all his pockets and lock up the cell.”

To the chorus of “And it’s hard times in John Coleman’s jail, and it’s hard times they say,” the ballad continued for four more stanzas. None of it is complimentary. The food is cold mush, the Parson charges for a visit, bedbugs are plentiful. All of which must be taken with a grain of salt, of course. The sour notes of the ballad contradict what I’ve discovered about the way John Coleman ran the jail. Besides, if you are one of the tenants, what else is there to say about time spent in jail, especially a jail of the early 1900s?

According to Murrille Schofields’s notes, the ballad of John Coleman’s jail was written by some of his relatives. I believe the version in his files is authentic. The melody is unknown but it was probably sung to the tune of one of the old ballads that have been around for generations.

There’s more to the story about the balladeers who slurred John Coleman’s jail. Some of Murrille Schofield’s relatives were notoriously skilful and biting when it came to writing poems about the people of Gaspereau Valley and Gaspereau Mountain. They had a knack for portraying in rhyme the foibles and traits, both good and bad, of the people in the region. The poems were witty and humorous, but only if you weren’t the victims of their often biting satire.

Recently I had the opportunity to read a few of these poems and I can understand why Gaspereau people were “scandalized.” As for how the verses came to light, the way I heard it was that they were mailed one or two at a time to various households. The “perpetrators of this purple poetry” wished to remain anonymous, so the mailings were done from outside areas. I believe that at the time a number of the verses were posted in public places around the Gaspereau Valley.

From what I can ascertain, all this poetry writing took place over half a century ago and the people mentioned in them are deceased. The uproar they caused is still remembered, however. The verses have been preserved but given their nature, there’s little chance any of them will be published.

The late Murrille Schofield, writer and historian, was the author of a series of historical pamphlets that the old Nova Scotia Light & Power Company mailed out with utility bills. Mr. Schofield was a lifelong collector of local history and his special interest area appears to have been Wolfville, Gaspereau and the adjacent south mountain communities of Bishopville, Greenfield, Newtonville and Black River. He notes in one of his essays that it would be impossible to write a history of Gaspereau without including these communities. “Gaspereau,” he explains, “is too intertwined with the entire mountainside.”

Some of Murrille Schofield’s research – a series of historical trivia from Wolfville and the greater Gaspereau area – has been included in the work Lexie Davidson recently compiled on Gaspereau Mountain. While of no historical significance, this trivia gives us a look back at life in one of the first Valley areas to be settled after the Acadians were removed. Some of the more interesting trivia follows:

“A delightful legend has it that Gaspe, a musical Acadian in the 17th century, traveled the settlements along the river singing his songs troubadour fashion, and the grateful settlers named the river ‘waters of Gaspe’ or in French, Gaspereaux. When the New England Planters arrived from 1758 on, they called it Salmon River, as is attested on the old grants and deeds.

“September, 1884. William Benjamin purchased property near the Gaspereau bridge from James A. Coldwell. He built a dyke or breakwater and removed an island from the middle of the river. He then engaged in wool pulling and the manufacturing of kid calf gloves with sheep wool linings.

“There was considerable cider making in Gaspereau, 400 bushels (of apples) a day being chomped and crushed for the tasty… beverage.

“1886. R. Pratt of Wolfville has family flour at $5.25 to $6.00 a barrel. The barrel and flour together weighed 219 pounds. The story is told that Bill Thompson, lumberman, miller, stonemason and barn builder, shouldered a barrel of flour at the Gaspereau store and carried it up the mountain… about a two mile lug, most of it uphill.

“1888. The Acadian advertised lime at $1.50 a cask. It was mostly used for mortar work (walls, ceilings and chimneys) and in outhouses at that time.

“1889. In Gaspereau the sawdust from the S. P. Benjamin Mill at White Rock was causing pollution and there were letters to the Acadian.

“1890. Silas Baker shod about 120 yoke of oxen (in Gaspereau) between December 1 and March 7.

“1892. Wolfville had some new winter technology, a snowplow, only used after 3:00 p.m.

“1896. The Willow Vale Tannery was paying 6 cents a pound for hides. No doubt Valley farmers and mountain men took advantage of this market. My great grandfather, James Schofield, used to tan his own hides and make shoes for his family and others.

“My paternal grandfather, Emory Schofield, was in charge (of the Fullerton Lumber Mill at Moosehorn Lake). He had his son Austin working as a cook. The boy noticed a peculiar looking bone in the salt meat barrel and dug around until he pulled it out. It was a horse leg with an iron shoe on the foot.

“March, 1904. Wolfville had an earthquake.

“1914. The Boot Island Fox Company was incorporated with $100,000 capital. it was another financial pipe dream, as investors soon realized.”

Kings County farmer Louis Millett tells me he laughs when he hears someone sending tourists down to Hants County to see the tidal bores. “We have a tidal bore in Kings County and few people seem to be aware of it,” Millett says.

Millett is referring to the tidal bore – or more accurately mini-tidal bore – on the Cornwallis River, which while not as awesome as the one on the Avon or Shubenacadie, can be quite a show at times. Millett farms the dykeland along the Cornwallis in New Minas where he says he has witnessed some impressive, fast-moving bores on the river at tide change. “At times,” Millett says, “the crest reaches as high as (an estimated) two and three feet.”

Like our Minas Basin tides, which for a long time were neglected as a tourist attraction, the tidal bore on the Cornwallis may simply have been overlooked. It appears that the bore on the Cornwallis is more evident higher up the river where the banks are narrow and the tide waters constricted. One of the best place to see the bore is the Middle Dyke Road extension which crosses the Cornwallis at New Minas.

Magnetic Hill

“Old-timers in this vicinity recall the days when it was thought the hill at the foot of the mountain possessed some fantastic illusion, while others failed to believe it was more than the exaggerated imagination of pleasure-seeking holiday makers,” A. Marie Bickerton writes in the history she compiled in 1980 on Canning and Habitant.

Ms. Bickerton was referring to another little-known phenomenon, the “magnetic hill” located on the road running from Canning to the Look-Off. Ms. Bickerton places the magnetic hill at the base of the Look-Off mountain and that’s where I began my search for it some 30 years ago. With the help of residents, I found the section of road where vehicles appear to be magically drawn uphill when placed in neutral.

Actually, it’s an optical illusion. The “hill” appears to be an uphill rise in the road, but if you look at it from different angles you can see that it’s a downhill grade. But illusion or not, Kings County’s “magnetic hill” should be marked or at least noted. Perhaps this is this another tourist attraction we’re overlooking.

Great Views

While the view from the North Mountain at the Look-Off is undoubtedly the most spectacular and most popular in this area, Kings County has other vistas worth investigating.

If you appreciate pleasant, sweeping scenery, check out the Ridge Road which runs from Wolfville to White Rock. If you drive up the highway that passes the Old Orchard Inn and new Horton School and turn east on the Ridge Road, there are several magnificent views of the Minas Basin and the mouth of the Cornwallis River with Blomidon and the North Mountain in the background. Drive farther along the Ridge Road and at the Stile near Wolfville there’s an interesting view of the Gaspereau Valley.

At the east end of the Gaspereau Valley take the road up West Brooklyn Mountain for a look at the Minas Basin from a different angle. The ridges along the West Brooklyn Mountain road are among the highest in Kings County and the view almost rivals that of the Look Off.

Other views worth checking out in this area, especially when fall foliage is on: From the Gaspereau Valley drive up the Wallbrook Mountain road and look north when you reach high ground. From the village of White Rock drive south to the top of White Rock mountain for a look at the Gaspereau Valley and the ridges that define it.

When I was talking with Clementsvale writer Reg Baird this summer he told me about an outing with his late father when they went into the woods and “snigged out a few logs.”

I knew exactly what he meant. Around this neck of the woods lumberjacks and farmers have been snigging logs for as far back as I can remember. “Snig” or “to snig out” is a common expression, meaning simply to attach a chain or heavy rope to a log and drag it out of the woods, usually with a beast of burden or tractor. If you talk to people who work in the woods today, especially people of the older generations, you will find that they still speak of snigging out logs. In some cases the word has also come to mean to move something that may be stuck, as in “We snigged the car out of the ditch.”

Snig may be a word born in the lumberwoods and farmlands of the Annapolis Valley and it undoubtedly is slang. As mentioned, I’ve heard snig and its variants snigged and snigging used often in various ways and accepted it as a legitimate word associated with lumbering. People tend to accept a word as legit when their fathers, grandfathers, friends and peers use it in their everyday speech.

Having literally grown up with the word, imagine my surprise when snig was rejected by the Scrabble program on my computer The computer informed me, in effect, that there was no such word as snig. After the game, which the computer won because snig was rejected, I consulted several dictionaries and couldn’t find the word. I was perplexed; how could so common a word not be recorded anywhere? Anyway, I decided snig must be a word coined here and forgot about it.

Recently I had the enjoyment of reading a history of families in the Forest Hill (Gaspereau Mountain) area by Lexie Davidson. While writing the history, Ms. Davidson came across the word “sneg,” which as it turned out, meant the same as “snig.” Like me, Ms. Davidson was stymied when attempting to learn more about this word. However, the following from her history confirms that “snig” is or was once in common usage.

“Pearley (Davison) was telling me about working in the woods and he mentioned… driving the sneg (rhymes with fig) horse. I wanted to jot this down. However, I wondered how to spell sneg. I scoured the two dictionaries we have and all the ways of spelling it that I could think of. I failed to find it anywhere. I asked (Pearley) if it could be that the word was sneak horse, instead of sneg horse. Pearley assured me that it wasn’t, that the horse didn’t sneak the log out, he snegged it out.”

Ms. Davidson contacted Lloyd Duncanson and explained that she wanted to use the word ‘sneg’ but couldn’t find it in the dictionary. Mr. Duncanson was surprised, she writes. “He had always heard others use the term… and he used it himself. So he explored his dictionaries and called someone he felt might know. Nevertheless, none of us was able to find such a word, even though it was and is widely used in this area.”

Ms. Davidson’s conclusion was that “sneg” (or more commonly “snig”) is a word or expression unique to this area. A friend suggested that “snig” might a corruption of the verb “snake,” to drag a log or limb forcibly along the ground.

This may be so but I like to think that people in this part of Nova Scotia invented a new word; or simply applied an Old World word to the pioneer activity of clearing out the forest.

P. Redden (a descendant of one of the pioneer families of Kentville) and Rupert Davis, Kentville’s police chief for 45 years who used a bicycle while patrolling: Redden and Davis will be the subjects of upcoming columns and I mention them in hopes that readers will remember an anecdote or two about these illustrious citizens. Your assistance would be appreciated.

As well as asking for help from readers, I mention Mr. Redden and Mr. Davis to explain how I happened across the trivia in this column. Most of the trivia was discovered while digging through files and scrapbooks at the Old Kings Courthouse Museum and books on local history. I was looking for information on Redden and Davis; while researching I found some interesting and in some cases weird tidbits from the past.

In the fall of 1931, for example, a gale swept the coast in southwestern Nova Scotia and like the old tales about storms that rained toads, it rained frogs. Countless frogs suddenly appeared in Clark’s Harbor during the peak of a storm and residents claimed that they actually rained down from the sky. “Thousands of the small frogs whose appearance is a complete mystery… literally covered the town, filling the streets so that one could hardly walk without stepping on them, invading even the houses and stores,” read a news report on the strange occurrence.

“It has wool and is of the size of a sheep, its head and nose like a moose; its neck stands awry.” A 1774 newspaper description of a “strange beast” found in the woods near Windsor.

In 1941 the Berwick Register reported the death of a 91 year old Kings County native, Holmes Samuel Chipman. His name may not ring a bell but Mr. Chipman has a claim to fame – he pioneered modern printing in Japan. “In 1870,” reads a clipping from the Register, “Mr. Chipman went to Japan with Ito, later the celebrated Prince Ito, Premier of Japan. There he introduced the modern system of printing, made the first type and printed the first newspaper in Japanese.”

Growl if you will about postage rates and the slow postal service but things were much worse in the “good old days.” Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton reports that the cost of posting a letter from Nova Scotia to the United States in 1840 was so high – 15 cents – that people sent letters by “private hand” whenever they could. “Private hand” meant trusting a letter to a chance traveler or a roving peddler who happened to be going in the same direction one wanted the letter to travel.

Ever hear of the Sabbath Observance Statute, which in Nova Scotia forbids working on Sundays? This Statute was in effect as recently as 1931 when under the Statute one Sydney Waters, a Kings County native, was fined $2. plus the wages he earned for laboring on a Sunday. Mr. Waters paid his fine without appealing.

It’s possible that the Sabbath Observance Statute is still on the books but other, much harsher laws that were in effect three or four generations ago have been removed. In 1841, for example, an act was passed by the government making it unlawful to punish people with public whippings, nailing their ears to a pillory or cutting off their ears. Forgery and theft were crimes that once were punished with these cruel measures. (From the Western Chronicle, 1892.)

The Annapolis Valley almost had a gold rush of its own. In 1861 gold fever hit the Valley when traces of the yellow stuff was discovered in a brook south of Wolfville. The find turned out to be of little consequence and the fever quickly subsided.

In her book, The Devil’s Half Acre, Mabel Nichols, noted that my great uncle, John Coleman, was the Kings County jailer from 1896 to 1928, a period of 32 years.

While there is a contradiction in his obituary, which said he was the jailer for 30 years, there is little doubt that John Coleman served in this capacity for at least three decades. Before he became the jailer, Coleman worked as a Kings County constable for 25 years; he was employed in law enforcement or some aspect of it in the County for over half a century.

Imagine the tales John Coleman could have told about his half century of observing the lower levels of Kings County society. The drunks, rabble-rousers, tramps, layabouts, cheats, swindlers, murderers and miscreants of all types would at one time or another have passed through his jail. Coleman ran the jail during the last execution in Kings County, the Robinson murder case in 1904.

Over his long term, when he associated with people who for the most part were unwilling tenants of his establishment, it’s natural that John Coleman would be unpopular and perhaps even hated. I expected to unearth a few tales about an iron man with an iron, oft-used fist when I decided to look for details of his employment at the jail.

I found nothing of the sort. In his day, John Coleman was known for his hospitality and kindness. No one was turned away if they need a meal or a place to sleep overnight. His wife’s cooking was famous throughout the county, testimony perhaps that more than the criminal element sat at his table.

John Coleman’s obituary spoke of him being “one of the best police officers this municipality ever had.” Born in Hall’s Harbor and only one generation removed from Ireland, Coleman served as jailer under five different Sheriffs – John Coldwell, Stephen Belcher, Charles Rockwell, Fred Porter and J. D. Dewolfe; he retired three years before he died at age 93. His longevity and the fact that he served as jailer several decades after normal retirement age, speaks volumes about the service he gave.

Over the years I’ve heard many stories about John Coleman’s jail and most spoke of him being compassionate and humane. There was even a ballad written about the jail as it was in Coleman’s time but all that’s remembered of it today are a few lines.

Retired Kentville school teacher, Gordon Hansford, is a descendant of John Coleman through his mother. He recalls one of the stories his mother told him about visiting her Uncle John at the jail. Hansford’s father and mother walked from Wolfville on a Sunday afternoon in 1922 and were met with open arms.

“John was overjoyed to see my mother and father and Aunt Jenny (John’s wife) soon had the tea kettle on and a fine spread of goodies. Jenny was renowned as one of the finest cooks in Kentville. The inmates of the jail ate well and it was said that John Coleman’s jail was ‘the best restaurant in Kentville.’

“John had a great sense of humor and despite his official position as jailer, was very kindly to all. When asked why he was so kind to prisoners, he used to say, ‘I’ve got to be; half of them are relatives of mine’.”

After a brief illness, John Coleman passed away at his home on Brooklyn Street on Christmas morning, 1931. He was survived by Jenny, three sons, and six daughters. One of his daughters was the late Jenny Skaling, the wife of Elmer, who for many years operated one of Kentville’s best-known eateries, Elmer’s Lunch.

“How often have I sat and listened as a boy to my relatives and friends telling of (Acadian) money found in different places in Kings and Annapolis Counties,” A. L. Morse wrote in a letter penned in 1935.

This is how Mr. Morse introduced his topic, Acadian treasure, in a letter to the Berwick Register. Mr. Morse went on to give an account of how his ancestors unearthed a pot containing coins or gold secreted by the Acadians during the Expulsion. As you will note when you see excerpts from this letter below, the Acadian treasure was found by Mr. Morse’s great-grandfather. In other words, the account he gives is supposed to be true.

Nova Scotia is rich in tales of buried treasure, by pirates, by visitors from foreign shores, by religious and semi-religious groups and, of course, by the Acadians. During the turmoil of the Expulsion say some of the local folk tales, the Acadians, expecting to return, buried prized possessions. Many of these possessions, which in some cases were small fortunes in coins, supposedly still lie buried in various parts of Kings and Hants County near Acadian homesteads. Another common folk tale tells of these secret hoards being discovered and bringing instant wealth. Mr. Morse’s tale of his great-grandfather’s find is in this vein.

Stories of Acadian treasure can be found in various areas of the Valley. I reviewed an unpublished history of Sheffield Mills in this column a while back, for example, and the writer mentioned an “Acadian treasure mound.” References to Acadian treasure are not uncommon in the stories and community histories that have been published over the years. It’s a given that if there was once an Acadian settlement in an area, there’s also a legend about buried treasure. Even though the Acadians were, for the most part, simple farm folk with few earthly possessions – and certainly no hoards of gold and jewels – people like to believe that they hid great treasures at the time of the Expulsion.

The possibility does exist, however, that a few Acadians were wealthy and it’s also possible that this wealth was hidden and never recovered. The fortune discovered by Mr. Morse’s great-grandfather may have been the savings of several Acadian families who pooled and hid the few coins they possessed.

How much of a fortune in Acadian coins did Mr. Morse’s ancestor discover? We are never told but Morse gives us plenty of details on the actual discovery. His great-grandfather is plowing one day, using a team of oxen that once belonged to the Acadians, and the plow struck something solid which at first was thought to be root. “It proved to be the bail of a huge iron pot which caught the point of the plow …. and brought the team up very suddenly,” Morse wrote.

Morse’s great-grandfather quickly discovered that he had found something of great value. According to Morse his ancestor sat on the pot to hide its contents and sent home the neighbor’s boy who was working with him. “My ancestors, young married people, as soon as possible unearthed the pot,” Morse continued, “the contents of which enabled them to erect a fine house.”

Morse added that when his great-grandparents died, which would most likely be late in the 18th or early in the 19th century, they left property valued at $12,000. This was a considerable sum for the time and gives credence to Mr. Morse’s tale about the discovery of Acadian treasure

In 1761, while preaching the Gospel in Kings County, Daniel Hovey apparently uttered remarks indicating he wasn’t in favor of the British Monarchy. For expressing his opinions freely in public, Hovey was slapped into jail without trial and in addition, was forced to post a bond guaranteeing his good behavior for one year.

On appeal, Hovey’s conviction was overturned immediately by the Halifax courts. In his history of Kings County, Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton said that it was not known “what treasonable utterances Daniel Hovey had made in preaching the gospel.” He said, however, that the higher courts took a milder view of the case and found the actions of the County courts to be “irregular.”

You will find the odd case of Daniel Hovey in Eaton’s history under the “Current Events” chapter. This is the most interesting section of Eaton’s book and if history can be considered entertaining, the most readable. In this chapter, Eaton writes about the trials and tribulations of the ordinary citizens of Kings County. While it is a valuable work, most of Eaton’s book is dry history. In the Current Events section, however, there are a few personal glimpses and Eaton gives up his scholarly tone to become chatty and gossipy.

Eaton noted that winnowing machines were introduced into Kings County “about 1803,” for example. This labor-saving device should have been greeted with enthusiasm by Kings County farmers but it wasn’t. “These simple agricultural implements worked so mysteriously,” Eaton observed, “that people felt there was some witchery about them.”

When the Court of General Sessions for Kings County opened on October 13, 1812, before it were a number of trifling matters. Eaton tells us there were “bills against persons for tying a bush to the tail of Samuel Lilly’s horse and throwing stones at people’s houses.” Previously the Court had dealt with election rigging which apparently was on a par with practical jokes involving horses. Two elected officials were accused of manufacturing votes by “giving deeds of (their) own and other people’s lands to persons fraudulently to qualify them to vote.” This matter, Eaton said, was treated lightly by the Court.

Eaton appears to have tongue in cheek when he records the reaction of Governor Wentworth to an illegal seizure of liquor and other goodies. Eaton tells us that the Governor advertised for the “apprehension of persons who in disguise …. had forcibly entered the dwelling house of Archibald Thomas at Five Islands, Kings County, and there with force and violence took and carried away a quantity of wine, spirits and other conterband (sic) goods, which Charles Fraser, Esq. Inspector and Searcher in that district had seized according to the law.”

Practical jokes, election tomfoolery and skullduggery …. Eaton treated them equally in recording the comings and goings of Kings County’s early citizens. In passing he mentions much more serious events, however: A smallpox outbreak in 1775, a diphtheria epidemic in 1861 when whole families were wiped out and 144 persons died in Kings County alone; in 1844 the appearance of the “weevil or wheat fly” which eventually wiped out the wheat crop; a general failure of the potato crop in 1847, “caused by the rot.”

There are natural disasters, man-made catastrophes, crimes, shenanigans, ordinary people, leaders, lawgivers, and lawyers. This is the only chapter in Eaton’s history that best tells us what the early days were like in Nova Scotia.

When I played the bagpipes at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for Hall’s Harbour’s new wharf, Kings County councilor Madonna Spinazola said in her opening address that I had, in effect, become the area’s official piper.

I appreciated this remark and at the risk of appearing immodest, I have to say that I’m delighted to be associated with Hall’s Harbour as a piper, official or otherwise. I’ve been piping for events at Hall’s Harbour for several years and always look forward to the annual celebration and barbecue in July.

When Ms. Spinazola mentioned my Hall’s Harbour connection, she didn’t realize there’s an association that goes farther back than the time I’ve piped there. Hall’s Harbour has been one of my favorite haunts for over 50 years. Exploring the ancient shoreline, swimming in the bone-chilling Harbour waters, picnics, boating, fishing, rock hunting and courting…. I’ve done all these things and more at the Harbour. My great-grandfather is said to have landed there when he came from Ireland. Two years ago I piped when one of my daughters was married on the old wharf.

As you can see, there are many reasons why Hall’s Harbour has a special attraction for me. For others, the attraction may be its picturesque setting in a rugged Fundy coastline and the relief it offers when the Valley is sweltering in the heat. Its heyday as a fishing village may be long gone and little of real historical significance can be found in its rocks and pilings, but Hall’s Harbour retains enough folksy atmosphere and charm to appeal to tourists and residents alike.

Except for brief mentions in history books, tourist literature, and the occasional newspaper article, relatively little has been recorded about Hall’s Harbour. The paucity of written references can’t be rectified in this column but there are places to look if you’d like to know more about the old harbour.

The Old Kings Courthouse Museum in Kentville has an excellent file on the Harbour which, as well as a series of newspaper stories, has some historical references and a partly fictional article about pirate treasure. The adventures of Hall’s Harbour’s most famous son, Ransford Buchnam, are chronicled in the file in an article by The Advertiser‘s Brent Fox. For anyone interested in tracing ancestors who once lived in or around Hall’s Harbour and may rest in nearby graveyards, there is a cemetery file at the Museum.

Ever wonder how Hall’s Harbour got its name? Eaton’s History of Kings County devotes a page to the adventures of Samuel Hall, a Kings County native who guided a band of New England privateers in raids on the Valley; the privateers used the Harbour as a base. Eaton mentions a mill, the first store (opened “about 1830”) and some shipbuilding in an all-too-brief paragraph, but most of his account is devoted to the battle between the privateers and the local militia. Through his account, we learn that Hall’s Harbour is named after a scoundrel!

One of Nova Scotia’s most famous photographers, A. L. Hardy, recorded Hall’s Harbour as it appeared near the turn of the century. Hardy’s Harbour shots have been used on various post cards and are cherished by collectors. In recent times, photographer Dick Killam has taken some spectacular pictures of Hall’s Harbour and these are on display at his studio. As well as capturing the beauty of Hall’s Harbour on film, Killam has recorded the last days of its old wharf as it was eroded by high winds and high tides.

Last but not least are the craggy, rugged cliffs at Hall’s Harbour, cliffs that someone likened to primeval sentinels. Well, ancient they are. Geologists tell us the cliffs are at least 190 million years old.

The blossom festival parade seemed to drag on forever this year and when our pipe band finished marching, a pit stop to replace lost body fluids was a necessity. There was an added inducement to go for a cold draught when someone announced that the pipe bands were stopping at Rosie’s in downtown Kentville and there would be playing galore.

While I was physically wiped out and a coffee would be more invigorating than a brew, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity of hearing some of the best pipers in eastern Canada. For me, the next best thing to playing the pipes is listening to them. So anticipating some fine music, and ignoring my burning feet, I struck out for Webster Street.

I would like to report that I enjoyed a cold brew and good piping at Rosie’s but I only stopped for a moment. For the first time ever bagpipe music turned me off, literally, figuratively, any way you want to put it; and not because it was being poorly played. The pipers on Rosie’s patio were excellent and it wasn’t what they were playing that made me shun them but how it was being played.

To explain why this was a turn off we have to talk for a moment about the work of piping historian and well-known piper, Barry Shears, of Halifax. Mr. Shears has published two books of Cape Breton pipe music with old photographs and is currently working on a history of Nova Scotia pipers. In his earlier writing Mr. Shears bewailed the fact that the pipes have been pushed aside as a “social dance instrument,” thanks to the increased usage of amplified instruments (i.e. the electric guitar) and the increasing popularity of the fiddle.

While this was happening piping became standardize and written music appeared. This eventually led to the advent of pipe bands and the disappearance of what Mr. Shears calls “learning pipe music in the oral tradition,” that is learning it by the music being sung with Gaelic words or in a form of mouth music. Pipe music played in this old style was more lively and happy and as Mr. Shears points out, much more expressive of the Gaelic culture in Nova Scotia.

The upshot is that much of the pipe music, or so-called pipe music, being heard today is played in a pedantic, mechanical style that is little better than rhythmic exercises. While the pipers playing this music are excellent technicians and are good at what they do, their playing, for the most part, lacks emotional expression.

Many of the tunes pipe bands favor today remind me of someone counting with bagpipe notes. I heard this band or competition style being played at Rosie’s after the blossom festival parade and it was actually depressing; I made a hasty retreat up the road to Tim Hortons.

The new style of piping (as opposed to the traditional style Barry Shears writes about) is entrenched firmly today. There is hope of a revival of the old style, however. Since the Cape Breton style of fiddling has become popular, musical groups here and there are adding bagpipes to their ensemble. The pipes we hear nowadays in these bands skirl out the old jigs and reels in a lively style that was once played a few generations ago in Nova Scotia.

There are many of us older pipers and lovers of pipe music who are happy indeed that this is happening.