Hall’s Harbour

The second destination on the find-all-the-places-with-harbour-in-the-name road trip is Hall’s Harbour: this is a new addition to the attract the tourists by feeding them lobster in a place where they watch the tide come in circuit. It has popped up in all the travel guides and now attracts just as many people as Peggy’s Cove… or so the written materials say.

What I did see was…

They come in droves (many on motorbikes). They eat the lobster. They wander down to the water. They get stuck in the mud around the harbour while trying to take a selfie by one of the boats. They freak out because they think the tide is going to come in suddenly. They make it out. They are pissed because their shoes are now caked in mud. It’s true. I saw it happen.

The more interesting thing about this place is the number of caves that run up and down the waterfront. And, when you find caves in Nova Scotia that means you’re also going to find pirate stories. The stories from this particular area are of Captain Samuel Hall who reputedly plundered the farms and settlements along the Nova Scotia coast.

From the book Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia: HALL’s HARBOUR, King’s County. This settlement is located on Hall’s Harbour on the south side of Minas Channel in central Nova Scotia. It was named for Samuel Hall a native of the county who went to New England but returned to raid the new settlements in Kings County [in] about 1779. While on the raid inland, he was cut off from his boats, at what became Hall’s Harbour by the local militia and had to make his way overland to Annapolis and so back to New England.

And, what is a good pirate story without tales of treasure? The local lore says that when Hall was cut off from his ships, he was forced to bury treasure in pits around the nearby surrounding woods. It’s this story that attracts treasure hunters to the area.

No one has ever found a physical treasure, but the area itself is incredibly beautiful and is ripe with photographic opportunities.

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