Stewiacke () is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

located in southern Colchester County,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

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

Geography

The town is located in the Stewiacke Valley, 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 community of Maitland on the Cobequid Bay. The lower 30 km of t ...

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 rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

and the

Equator The equator is the circle of latitude that divides Earth into the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemispheres of Earth, hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about in circumferen ...

(which is actually in Alton, Nova Scotia). 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.

Parks and 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

History

Stewiacke was named in the language of the local

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

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 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

, 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, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

skeleton. The Mastodon Ridge Complex features a craft store, toy store, a mini golf and interpretive centre 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 () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue an ...

Halifax-

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

mainline, causing Via Rail Canada's ''

Ocean The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as ''oceans'' (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Indian, Southern Ocean ...

'' to derail 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. On June 30, 2021, Stewiacke was hit by an EF1 tornado. In 2023, the Boston Christmas Tree came from Stewiacke.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), 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 culture. It is headquartered in ...

, 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.

Notable residents

* Hanson Dowell (1906–2000), president of the

Canadian Amateur Hockey Association The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA; ) was the national governing body of amateur ice hockey in Canada from 1914 until 1994, when it merged with Hockey Canada. Its jurisdiction included senior ice hockey leagues and the Allan Cup, ...

and member of the

Nova Scotia House of Assembly The Nova Scotia House of Assembly (; ), or Legislative Assembly, is the deliberative assembly of the General Assembly of Nova Scotia, and together with the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia makes up the Nova Scotia Legislature. The assembly is ...

References A reference is a relationship between Object (philosophy), 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. ...

External links

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