Salt Springs is a small rural community located in the central-western part of Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The community shares a valley with the upper reaches of the West River (of Pictou), with the surrounding mountains being the eastern extension of the Cobequid Hills. The community is directly east of Mount Thom and is named after saline springs which bubble up from the foot of the mountain.
Salt Springs Provincial Park is located along the West River in the community. The park includes camping areas, forested trails, and a pioneer cemetery.
Pictou County and much of northeastern Nova Scotia came to be settled by Scottish immigrants fleeing the Highland Clearances during the late 18th century and into the early 19th century. Numerous small family farms were established after clearing the abundant first-growth Acadian Forest.
The Salt Springs area was settled by the 1770s by passengers from the Ship Hector and a property referred to as the "Salt Springs Lot" was settled by the early 19th century. Attempts were made in 1813 and 1823 to recover some of the salt from the springs. In 1822, the community, led by Ebenezer McLeod, petitioned to the government for the establishment of a bridge to cross the West River. [1]
The community became home to a Presbyterian church in 1822 (St. Luke's) and a seceding group which formed under the Free Church of Scotland in 1845-1846 (Ebenezer). The St. Luke's and Ebenezer congregations reunited in 1908 (under St. Luke's) and part of the congregation merged into the United Church of Canada in 1929.
Industrialization came in 1825 when a clothing or fulling mill was established in 1825 at the confluence of Six and Eight Mile Brooks. A carding machine was subsequently established at Salt Springs by 1832. A woolen mill was established over the location of the fulling mill by 1879.
Salt Springs was on the stage coach route from Pictou to Halifax and a hotel named Twelve Mile House was built in 1838. This was renamed Prince of Wales Hotel after the Prince of Wales (HRH Prince Albert) stayed on a brief visit through the area in 1860 and it closed around 1900. A post office was established in 1864 and Salt Springs became home to a school in 1909 when a replacement to the Six Mile Brook school, which had been lost to fire, was built in the community.
The population of the community in 1956 was 75. In the early 1960s, the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 104) was built through the community, causing outmigration. Today's population is roughly 50 inhabitants, most of whom commute to work in nearby centres of Pictou, New Glasgow and industrial Pictou County, or west to Truro.
On September 20, 2005, former Salt Springs resident J.D. Fortune, was named lead singer of internationally acclaimed rock and roll band INXS after winning the CBS reality television show Rock Star: INXS . The maternal family of Fortune, who goes by his mother's maiden name, hails from the Salt Springs area and he returned with his mother at a young age from his birthplace in Mississauga, Ontario to be raised in this Pictou County community.
Pictou County is a county in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It was established in 1835, and was formerly a part of Halifax County from 1759 to 1835. It had a population of 43,657 people in 2021, a decline of 0.2 percent from 2016. Furthermore, its 2016 population is only 88.11% of the census population in 1991. It is the sixth most populous county in Nova Scotia.
New Glasgow is a town in Pictou County, in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is situated on the banks of the East River of Pictou, which flows into Pictou Harbour, a sub-basin of the Northumberland Strait.
Pictou is a town in Pictou County, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Located on the north shore of Pictou Harbour, the town is approximately 10 km north of the larger town of New Glasgow.
The Presbyterian Church in Canada is a Presbyterian denomination, serving in Canada under this name since 1875. The United Church of Canada claimed the right to the name from 1925 to 1939. According to the Canada 2001 Census 409,830 Canadians identify themselves as Presbyterian, that is, 1.4 percent of the population.
Pictou Island is a Canadian island located in the Northumberland Strait approximately seven kilometres north of Nova Scotia and nineteen kilometres south of Prince Edward Island. The island has a length of 9.5 km, a width of 2.5 km and a total area of approximately 12.8 km2. The island is administratively part of Pictou County. The island's highest elevation is 24 metres above sea level, and its current full-time resident population stands at 28, with the seasonal population rising and lowering.
The Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada of the Anglican Church of Canada. It encompasses the provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and has two cathedrals: All Saints' in Halifax and St. Peter's in Charlottetown. Its de facto see city is Halifax, and its roughly 24 400 Anglicans distributed in 239 congregations are served by approximately 153 clergy and 330 lay readers according to the last available data. According to the 2001 census, 120,315 Nova Scotians identified themselves as Anglicans, while 6525 Prince Edward Islanders did the same.
West Pictou Consolidated School (WPCS) is a Canadian public school serving the central-western part of Pictou County, Nova Scotia.
Wood Islands is a rural farming and fishing community located in southeastern Queens County, Prince Edward Island on the Northumberland Strait. It takes its name from several small forested islands, then located several hundred metres offshore in the Northumberland Strait. The community of Wood Islands falls within the larger PEI Township of Lot 62, which had a population in 2011 of 470 residents, a 13% decrease from the 2006 census count of 540. While the named islands are located on maps by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin: Karte Bellin, 1744: 'I a Bova' and Louis Franquet: Cartes Franquet, 1751: 'Isle a Bois', it was Samuel Johannes Holland who correctly surveyed and depicted the islands, about their basin. The 'European' settlement of Wood Islands began in 1803, but saw its most noted arrivals in 1807 with the arrival, after wintering in Pinette, of a large party of Scottish settlers from the Spencer.
Lyons Brook is a Canadian rural community in Pictou County, Nova Scotia.
Black Nova Scotians are Black Canadians whose ancestors primarily date back to the Colonial United States as slaves or freemen, later arriving in Nova Scotia, Canada, during the 18th and early 19th centuries. As of the 2021 Census of Canada, 28,220 Black people live in Nova Scotia, most in Halifax. Since the 1950s, numerous Black Nova Scotians have migrated to Toronto for its larger range of opportunities. Before the immigration reforms of 1967, Black Nova Scotians formed 37% of the total Black Canadian population.
White Hill is located in Pictou County in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It was once a rural farming community with a history of Scottish settlement. The population is around 300.
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.
Pictou Landing First Nations is a Mi'kmaq First Nation band government in Nova Scotia, Canada. Their territory spans five reserves that have a combined area of 527.6 hectares. As of September 2017, the Mi'kmaq population is 485 on their own reserve, 23 on other reserves and 157 living off-reserve.
Garden of Eden is a small community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Pictou County.
Durham is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Pictou County on Nova Scotia Route 376 alongside the West River of Pictou. The centre of the village is about 10 km up-stream from the town of Pictou. The Durham Presbyterian Church is located near the bridge on the west side of the river, and the Durham Community Hall is on the east side of the river, adjacent to the cemetery.
Bailey Brook, also referred to as Bailey's Brook was a dispersed rural community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Pictou County. The name was officially rescinded in 1961. Originally known as Baillies Brook, the area was settled by Scottish immigrants in 1790 and again in 1802. It was the childhood home of military nurse Margaret C. MacDonald.
Dr. Thomas McCulloch was a Scottish-born, Presbyterian minister, author, educator, and education reformer. He was the founder and principal of Pictou Academy and the first principal of Dalhousie College from 1838-1843. He is the author of The Stepsure Letters (1821-1823), considered to be the first major work of humour in English Canada humour.
Karla Michelle MacFarlane is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in the 2013 provincial election. A member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia, she represents the electoral district of Pictou West. MacFarlane is a graduate of Husson University in Maine with an associate degree in Business Communications. In 2016, MacFarlane was named "Legislator of the Year" at the non-profit Springtide Collective's Better Politics Awards. She was re-elected in the 2017 provincial election.
Pictou Harbour is a natural harbour in Nova Scotia on the Northumberland Strait.
A township in Nova Scotia, Canada, was an early form of land division and local administration during British colonial settlement in the 18th century. They were created as a means of populating the colony with people loyal to British rule. They were typically rural or wilderness areas of around 100,000 acres (400 km2) that would eventually include several villages or towns. Some townships, but not all, returned a member to the General Assembly of Nova Scotia; others were represented by the members from the county. Townships became obsolete by 1879 by which time towns and counties had become incorporated.