Stewiacke () is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

located in southern

Colchester County Colchester County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. With a population of 51,476 the county is the fourth largest in Nova Scotia. Colchester County is located in north central Nova Scotia. The majority of the county is gover ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, Canada. The town was incorporated on August 30, 1906.

Geography

The town is located in the

Stewiacke Valley The Stewiacke Valley is a Canadian rural region in central Nova Scotia running from western Pictou County through southern Colchester County to the Shubenacadie River . The Stewiacke River flows through the length of the valley. The economy is p ...

, at the confluence of the Stewiacke and

Shubenacadie River The Shubenacadie River is a river in Nova Scotia, Canada. It has a meander length of approximately 72 km from its source at Shubenacadie Grand Lake to its mouth at the historic seaport village of Maitland on Cobequid Bay, site of the buildi ...

s, and is a service and support centre for local agricultural communities as well as a service exit on Highway 102. The town is noted as being located halfway between the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Ma ...

and the

Equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can also ...

(which is actually in

Alton, Nova Scotia Alton (2006 pop.: 1,906) is a rural community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Colchester County. Originally named Polly Bog, the name was changed in 1880. Alton is the location of a natural gas storage facility currently und ...

). Controversy in the past over that claim stems from the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere and so the halfway mark lies approximately 16 km north of the 45th parallel.

History

Stewiacke was named in the language of the local

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the no ...

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

and is a word meaning "flowing out in small streams" and "winding river" or "whimpering or whining as it goes". During the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the st ...

, the British built Fort Ellis in the area to protect New England Planters from Mi'kmaq raids. SimplifiedPealeMastodon

In the late 1990s, a tourism attraction named Mastodon Ridge opened near the town's highway exit, based on a local discovery of a

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the ...

skeleton. The Mastodon Ridge Complex features a craft store, toy store, a mini golf and

interpretive centre An interpretation centre, interpretive centre, or visitor interpretive centre is an institution for dissemination of knowledge of natural or cultural heritage. Interpretation centres are a kind of new-style museum, often associated with visitor ...

which displays several of the mastodon's bones. Stewiacke is home to a bar, a pharmacy, a grocery store, a pizzeria, numerous fast food restaurants, two gas stations, a hardware store, an 18-hole golf course and a newly built elementary school that consolidates 2 former local schools. Stewiacke is also home to a volunteer fire brigade that was the first department in North America to use specialized foam as a fire suppression agent, alongside other achievements involving the implementation of certain fire apparatus. The town's most notorious event occurred on April 12, 2001, when a local teenager, at home on a school in-service day, tampered with a railway switch on the

CN Rail The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN ...

Halifax-

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

mainline, causing

Via Rail Canada Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

's ''

Ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wor ...

'' to

derail A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, or a train) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock. ...

several minutes later when it passed through the centre of the community. Several buildings and rail cars were destroyed and many people were injured, including some severely, although no fatalities resulted.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultu ...

, Stewiacke had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Parks & Trails

* Dennis Park * Stewiacke River Park * Stewiacke Recreation Grounds * Barking Lot - Off Leash Dog Park * John Crawford Trail * Stewiacke River Country Trail * Fish Shack Trail * Caddell Rapids Lookoff Provincial Park

Notable residents

Hanson Dowell Hanson Taylor Dowell (September 14, 1906September 23, 2000) was a Canadian ice hockey administrator and politician. He served as president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association from 1945 to 1947, and was the first person from the Maritime ...

(1906–2000), president of the

Canadian Amateur Hockey Association The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA; french: Association canadienne de hockey amateur) was the national governing body of amateur ice hockey in Canada from 1914 until 1994, when it merged with Hockey Canada. Its jurisdiction include ...

and member of the

Nova Scotia House of Assembly The Nova Scotia House of Assembly (french: Assemblée législative de la Nouvelle-Écosse; gd, Taigh Seanaidh Alba Nuadh), or Legislative Assembly, is the deliberative assembly of the General Assembly of Nova Scotia of the province of Nova Scotia ...

References Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...

External links

Town of Stewiacke
{{Authority control Communities in Colchester County Towns in Nova Scotia