New Minas

Last updated

New Minas
Village
Flag of New Minas, Nova Scotia.svg
Flag
Motto: 
"A Good Place To Live" "Shopping Centre of the Valley"
Canada Nova Scotia location map 2.svg
Red pog.svg
New Minas
Location of New Minas Nova Scotia
Coordinates: 45°04′07″N64°28′08″W / 45.06861°N 64.46889°W / 45.06861; -64.46889
Country Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada
Province Flag of Nova Scotia.svg  Nova Scotia
County Kings County
IncorporatedSeptember 1, 1968
Electoral Districts     
Federal
Kings-Hants
Provincial Kings South
Government
 • TypeVillage Commission
 • ChairDave Chaulk
 • MLA Keith Irving Nova Scotia Liberal Party
 • MP Kody Blois (L)
Population
 (2011) [1]
 • Total5,135
Time zone UTC-4 (AST)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-3 (ADT)
Postal code(s)
B4N
Website newminas.com

New Minas is a Canadian village located in the eastern part of Kings County in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. As of 2011, the population was 5,135.

Contents

Geography

New Minas borders the town of Kentville to the west and the unincorporated community of Greenwich to the east. The town of Wolfville is further east on the other side of Greenwich. New Minas is approximately 100 km northwest of Halifax. The village is located along the south bank of the Cornwallis River occupying the lower slopes of the South Mountain. Nova Scotia's Highway No. 1 runs through the village forming the main street.

History

New Minas was founded in 1682 by Acadians from the Grand Pré area, the largest of the settlements known as Les Mines or Minas after the French copper mines explored at Cape d'Or at the entrance to the Minas Basin in the 1600s. [2] As the Minas settlement grew, families moved westward up the Cornwallis River led by Pierre Terriot and founded a new settlement which came to be known to English surveyors as "New Minas". The Acadians knew their settlement as St. Antoine. [3] It was built beside a tidal island in the bend of the river, later known as Oak Island. They repeated the pattern of the Grand Pré settlement by connecting dykes to Oak Island to turn tidal marshland into productive farmland. [4] The settlement grew to include a mill, chapel and burial ground at Oak Island. However the Acadians were expelled and the settlement was destroyed during the Bay of Fundy Campaign of the Acadian Expulsion in 1755. New England Planters resettled the area in 1760s as part of Horton Township but built their farms further from the river along the Old Post Road, later Nova Scotia's Highway No. 1. [5]

New Minas was the site of one of the first accounts of a UFO sighting in North America on October 12, 1796. The diary of a merchant in Liverpool, Nova Scotia named Simeon Perkins reported that stories were circulating of ships flying in the air which "were said to be seen at one Mr. Ratchfords in New Minas" by a young woman and two men who at sunrise saw as many as fifteen "ships in the air ... and a man forward with his hand stretched out." Perkins continued, "the story did not obtain universal credit but some people believed it." [6]

New Minas remained a predominantly farming and agricultural community between the towns of Kentville and Wolfville. The Dominion Atlantic Railway operated a gravel quarry at Oak Island in New Minas and served a growing number of food and bulk feed plants at New Minas in the mid 19th Century. [7] However development increased with the construction of the Highway 101 expressway in the 1970s. With the village's low tax rate and the location between the population centres of Kentville and Wolfville, New Minas soon saw a shopping centre and numerous big box retail outlets and fast food shops established to make the village the retail centre for the eastern Annapolis Valley.

Recent history

The village has been a major shopping mall destination since the early 1970s. In more recent decades, New Minas has been witness to a commercial boom which has seen many large retail outlets set up shop, while pre-existing retailers and many others have rebuilt into larger venues. One of the woes of the village is its heavy concentration of minimum-wage, service industry jobs. Other similarly sized communities nearby have a much wider range of income opportunities: Wolfville is an area supported by higher-education jobs with Acadia University, and Kentville is an area which supports itself with an industrial park, hospital, and an orientation toward professional centers. Due to New Minas having no hospital of its own, citizens must travel to Kentville by way of public transit or by use of their own vehicles to go to the hospital.

In recent years, New Minas has been lampooned by many of its citizens and tourists as having notoriously poor side roads. However, in the last 2–3 years, the Village of New Minas has been working on coercing the Province of Nova Scotia to focus on repairing these roads.

New Minas played host to the film crew of the popular television show Call Me Fitz . Where the filming took place used to be the old home of the local Kia Motors, but the local branch had moved to the other end of the town, so the showroom was converted into Fitzpatrick Motors.

Recently, a rotary was installed in the middle of New Minas to accommodate the increasing number of businesses and the new highway off-ramp from the nearby Highway 101 which has since finished construction as of 2018. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annapolis Valley</span> Economic region in Nova Scotia, Canada

The Annapolis Valley is a valley and region in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located in the western part of the Nova Scotia peninsula, formed by a trough between two parallel mountain ranges along the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Statistics Canada defines the Annapolis Valley as an economic region, composed of Annapolis County, Kings County, and Hants County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfville</span> Town in Nova Scotia, Canada

Wolfville is a Canadian town in the Annapolis Valley, Kings County, Nova Scotia, located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of the provincial capital, Halifax. The town is home to Acadia University and Landmark East School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bay of Fundy</span> Bay on the east coast of North America

The Bay of Fundy is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its tidal range is the highest in the world. The name is probably a corruption of the French word fendu, meaning 'split'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kings County, Nova Scotia</span> County in Nova Scotia, Canada

Kings County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. With a population of 62,914 in the 2021 Census, Kings County is the third most populous county in the province. It is located in central Nova Scotia on the shore of the Bay of Fundy, with its northeastern part forming the western shore of the Minas Basin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kentville</span> Town in Nova Scotia, Canada

Kentville is an incorporated town in Nova Scotia. It is the most populous town in the Annapolis Valley. As of 2021, the town's population was 6,630. Its census agglomeration is 26,929.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minas Basin</span>

The Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominion Atlantic Railway</span>

The Dominion Atlantic Railway was a historic railway which operated in the western part of Nova Scotia in Canada, primarily through an agricultural district known as the Annapolis Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia</span> Community in Nova Scotia, Canada

Grand-Pré is a Canadian rural community in Kings County, Nova Scotia. Its French name translates to "Great/Large Meadow" and the community lies at the eastern edge of the Annapolis Valley several kilometres east of the town of Wolfville on a peninsula jutting into the Minas Basin surrounded by extensive dyked farm fields, framed by the Gaspereau and Cornwallis Rivers. The community was made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline and is today home to the Grand-Pré National Historic Site. On June 30, 2012, the Landscape of Grand-Pré was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand-Pré National Historic Site</span> Historic site in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia

Grand-Pré National Historic Site is a park set aside to commemorate the Grand-Pré area of Nova Scotia as a centre of Acadian settlement from 1682 to 1755, and the British deportation of the Acadians that happened during the French and Indian War. The original village of Grand Pré extended four kilometres along the ridge between present-day Wolfville and Hortonville. Grand-Pré is listed as a World Heritage Site and is the main component of two National Historic Sites of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nova Scotia Trunk 1</span> Highway in Nova Scotia

Trunk 1 is part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia's system of Trunk Highways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berwick, Nova Scotia</span> Town in Nova Scotia, Canada

Berwick is a Canadian town in Kings County, Nova Scotia. The town is located in the eastern part of the Annapolis Valley on the Cornwallis River. The town site stretches south from the river and Exit 15 of Highway 101 to Highway 1. Berwick occupies 6.80 km2 and has an elevation of 43 m (141 ft) above sea level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annapolis Valley Regional Centre for Education</span>

The Annapolis Valley Regional Centre for Education (AVRCE) (formerly Annapolis Valley Regional School Board) is the public school district responsible for the approximately 40 elementary, middle level, and high schools in Annapolis County, Kings County, and the West Hants Municipal District of Hants County in Nova Scotia, Canada. The school district was renamed following the dissolution of elected school boards and placing in Nova Scotia in March 2018.

The Evangeline Trail is a scenic roadway in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kings Transit</span>

Kings Transit Authority is a public transit agency operating buses in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. The system, incorporated in 1981, is funded by Kings County, Annapolis County, Digby County and the towns of Berwick, Wolfville, Kentville, Middleton, Annapolis Royal, and Digby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornwallis River</span> River in Nova Scotia, Canada

The Cornwallis River is in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It has a meander length of approximately 48 kilometres (30 mi) through eastern Kings County, from its source on the North Mountain at Grafton to its mouth near Wolfville on the Minas Basin. The lower portion of the river beginning at Kentville is tidal and there are extensive tidal marshes in the lower reaches. In its upper watershed at Berwick, the river draws on the Caribou Bog while a longer branch continues to the official source, a stream on the North Mountain at Grafton.

Kingsport is a small seaside village located in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada, on the shores of the Minas Basin. It was famous at one time for building some of the largest wooden ships ever built in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windsor and Annapolis Railway</span>

The Windsor and Annapolis Railway (W&AR) was a historic Canadian railway that operated in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of Nova Scotia</span> Overview of and topical guide to Nova Scotia

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Nova Scotia:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Blomindon</span>

The Battle of Blomidon took place on 21 May 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. The naval battle involved three armed U.S. privateer vessels against three Nova Scotian vessels off Cape Split, Nova Scotia. American Privateers caught two Nova Scotia Vessels. The first Nova Scotia vessel was re-captured by Lieut Benjamin Belcher. The second Nova Scotia vessel was overtaken by the captured crew under the command of Captain Bishop. The privateers were taken to Cornwallis and put on trial.

References

  1. ↑ "Browse Data by Community Profile, 2011 and 2006 censuses (Nova Scotia)". Government of Nova Scotia. December 18, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  2. ↑ C. Bruce Fergusson, "New Minas", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives (1967), p. 478
  3. ↑ "New Minas Historic Signs St. Antoine 1682" Nova Scotia's Electronic Scrapbook
  4. ↑ "Ed Coleman, "Is there a Missing Piece of New Minas History", January 30, 2002". Archived from the original on December 30, 2013. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Ed Coleman, "NEW MINAS ACADIAN SITES TO BE IDENTIFIED", Kentville Advertiser April 4, 2002". Archived from the original on December 30, 2013. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  6. ↑ Simeon Perkins, Diary of Simeon Perkins 1790-1796 Champlain Society, C.B. Ferguson ed, Vol. III, p. 431 [ permanent dead link ]
  7. ↑ "New Minas", Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Institute
  8. ↑ "Highway 101's New Minas interchange opens". CityNews Halifax. Retrieved 2022-06-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.