Before my recent Nova Scotia trip (read previous blog), I knew I had roots in Sheffield Mills, Nova Scotia – just outside Wolfville.  In fact, I had a picture of a house with some names and dates written on the back of it – and I had a copy of a book called “Sheffield Genaeology”.  This book also had a picture of “the house” – but nowhere could I find an address.  I was determined to find the place and beyond that – who knew?

My great-great-great grandfather (Stephen Sheffield) bought the house in 1779, lived in it until his death, his son and family then lived in the house, followed by his son and family – and finally by my grandfather, his wife and their son, my Dad – until my grandfather passed away when my Dad was only 4 years old.

A helpful gentleman involved with Nova Scotia “Valley Tourism” responded to one of my many emails I sent out and asked me to send him the picture.  I did – and also sent a rough hand-drawn map from the genaeology that showed housing in Sheffield Mills in 1864 – each house identified by who lived in it – not by street name and number. This kind person went out of his way (that’s what Maritime folk do) and not only found the house – he went there himself and took a current picture of it for me, sending along with that, the latitude and longitude co-ordinates so I could find it myself.

Google provided me a street name and address (which turned out to be incorrect).  After settling in to Roselawn Cottages in Wolfville, we headed to Sheffield Mills in search of the house.   My GGGG bought the house from Christopher Knight whose wife was said to have been a witch.  The front doors of the house were identified as “Dutch Christian – Satanic” with an inverted cross on them.  Apparently they are of much interest to tourists today!!

After stopping at an incorrect house – we were helped along by friendly folks and then there it was.  THE HOUSE.

Several efforts to knock on the door provided no response, and after taking a picture of the outside, we prepared to leave.  Before we could do so a car pulled into the lane.  I identified myself and my interest in the house and we were immediately invited in.  Oh my!  It was emotional and overwhelming.  The floors were original.  The ceiling beams were original.  The front door was original.  Some neighbours were called and arrived in short order . I guess a visiting Sheffield was an event.  The neighbour (Jim) had lived in the house himself for 60 years and prior to that, his family, for generations, had been next-door neighbours and friends of my family.  I had some family and house history with me.  The new owner is an archaeologist and had a keen interest in the history of the house and family and is hoping to restore much of it.  Jim was also the “about-to-retire” editor of the local bi-monthly news – and it sounded very much like my visit was going to be included in the next edition!!

We stayed several hours and were made to feel completely at home. I came away with 2 hand-made nails from the original construction, lots of stories and a keen sense of family.  There wasn’t time to do more – and there was so much more to do – historial aerial photographs, cemeteries to investigate, etc. etc.

Another visit to Sheffield Mills just might be in order!!

This was definitely a trip highlight for me!

Sue

Just got back from a fabulous road trip to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton in particular. There is a lot to tell but I’ll try to cover just the  highlights.

We landed in Halifax and rented a car (a Ford Edge – loaded).  After the much-needed 15 minutes to figure out how this magnificent vehicle worked (lots of buttons and options), we headed for St. Peter’s, Cape Breton Island where we stayed at The Bras D’Or Lakes Inn for 2 nites. Did you know that Bras D’Or Lake is the largest salt water lake in the world?????

I would highly recommend the Bras D’Or Lakes Inn – the owners went out of their way to be friendly, the service was excellent, the beds extremely comfortable and the food was absolutely yummy.  We roamed upwards to Sydney and stopped at Rita MacNeil’s Tea House in Big Pond – where, to our surprise, coffee, tea and oatcakes were “on the house”.

Our next stop was the Glenora Inn & Distillery having driven up the beautiful Ceilidh Trail, and stopping at The Red Shoe Pub in Mabou (owned by The Rankin family).  This is the ONLY distillery of single malt whiskey in Canada.  We learned that they had single-handedly (i.e. no help from the Canadian whiskey folks)  won a 9-year law suit launched against them by the Scottish Whiskey Distillers Association against their use of the word “Glen” in the name of their Whiskey.  It does mean dale or valley and the Distillery is in Glenora.    The Inn has 9 guest rooms and some cottages – the grounds are absolutely lovely and the rooms very comfortable.  The pub (dining room not yet open for the season) was just OK in terms of food but we did have music to dine by – a fiddler and a piano player whose foot stomped to such an extent I wondered if he would be rendered incapable of playing if his foot was tied down!

On up the Cabot Trail (breathtaking scenery), through Cheticamp to Pleasant Bay where we had a date with Captain Mark to go whale watching IN A ZODIAK.  We were poured into (and I mean with assistance) floatation suits.  We felt like astronauts – we even walked as if we were on the moon – and waited for our craft to return with a previous group.  Man oh Man – it was SMALL.  Seven of us went off with Captain Gilles (as it turned out Captain Mark was busy lobster fishing).  Who would have thunk we’d have 3 gentlemen from Ottawa seated behind us???  After an hour or more of pounding across waves and enjoying fabulous rock formations on shore and some intriguing sea caves, we returned to the area we started from having seen not a single whale.  A radio call to Captain Mark (who was now back on shore) to go up on the hill and look for whales resulted in instruction to “head straight out”.  We did – and there was a whole pod of pilot whales and one minke whale.  What an adventure.  The minke whale (the larger of the 2 species) glided back and forth under the rubber boat about 10 ft down – you could see it clearly, only surfacing once in a while and seen only by those who happened to be looking in the right direction when it did so.  The pilot whales seemed to be simply frolicking and enjoying putting on a show for us.  There were 7 or 8 of them and they ventured quite close (approx 20 ft ) to the boat. We happily floated out there with the whales for nearly an hour before heading back to shore – a happy group.

A special of fresh lobster and crab was on the menu for this evening – a messy but most enjoyable treat at The Rusty Anchor in Pleasant Bay.  Our hotel was The Midtrail Motel – all pink and blue with views of the ocean!

The next day we continued on the Cabot Trail through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park (we were alerted to watch carefully for moose and bear – we saw neither) – beautiful in its own way – dense forest – every shade of green imaginable and on through Ingonish and Ingonish Beach to Baddeck where we stayed at The Inverary Resort – a beautiful and quite large resort with a good restaurant overlooking the water –  more fresh lobster and a banana split that involved a banaba crepe thing and all sorts of ice-cream.  Good thing we were sharing!!

Back on the mainland we headed for Pictou, Nova Scotia.  Our “hotel” here was a delightful B&B called The Evening Sail – well worth a double mention.  We headed down to the harbourfront area and ran into none other than Peter McKay (our Minister of Defence) who was there to announce funding for a special project.  We managed a photo opp with himself.  You never know who you are going to run into when “out and about”.   Our dinner that night – more lobster, of course – was at the Pictou Lodge – a very old lodge once owned by the CN Railway – sort of a Nova Scotia cousin to Montebello.

Our last stop was in Wolfville – but I’m going to save that one for a separate blog involving my trip back in family history.  All I will note here is that the wineries in the Wolfville area are plentiful – we managed to stop at two of them!!

Speaking of wine, along the way we consistently ran into a Nova Scotia winery called JOST.  Although we never got to Amherst to visit the winery itself, their excellent wines ended up at our daily happy hours or on the dinner table more than once during our journey.

I have decided I will miss the keyless start on our rental car and I will really miss the back-up camera – loved that feature!!

If you’ve never been to Cape Breton – GO SOON!  It is just as everyone says it is – breathtakingly beautiful, friendly, welcoming, and restful.  They say you can drive the Cabot Trail in 5 hours – but I would highly recommend doing both the Ceilidh and Cabot Trails and more –  and taking your time.  Every “look-off” as they call them provides a view that just has to be admired and not rushed, the food is incredible, the artists’ studios plentiful, the beaches calling to be walked on…..etc. etc. etc.

Sue