Additional Info
Nova Scotia’s economy is traditionally largely resource-based, but has diversified since the middle of the 20th century. Industries such as fishing, mining, forestry and agriculture remain very important and have been joined by tourism, technology, film, music, and finance. Read about the history.
The province includes several regions of the Mi’kmaq nation of Mi’gma’gi, which covered all of the Maritimes, as well as parts of Maine, Newfoundland and the Gaspé Peninsula. Nova Scotia was already home to the Mi’kmaq people when the first European colonists arrived. In 1604, French colonists established the first permanent European settlement north of Florida at Port Royal, founding what would become known as Acadia. The British Empire obtained control of the region between 1713 and 1760, and established a new capital at Halifax in 1749. In 1867 Nova Scotia was one of the founding provinces of the Canadian Confederation, along with New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada (which became the separate provinces of Quebec and Ontario). It was named after Scotland, and today people of Scottish descent are still the largest ethnic group in the province.
The province’s mainland is the Nova Scotia peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, including numerous bays and estuaries. Nowhere in Nova Scotia is more than 67 km (42 mi) from the ocean. Cape Breton Island, a large island to the northeast of the Nova Scotia mainland, is also part of the province, as is Sable Island, a small island notorious for its shipwrecks, approximately 175 km (110 mi) from the province’s southern coast. Nova Scotia is Canada’s second-smallest province in area (after Prince Edward Island). Nova Scotia is also Canada’s most-southern-centered province even though it does not have the most-southern location in Canada, which is in Ontario. Because part of Ontario stretches far to the north, Ontario’s centre is further north than Nova Scotia’s.
Nova Scotia lies in the mid-temperate zone and, although the province is almost surrounded by water, the climate is closer to continental rather than maritime. The temperature extremes of the continental climate are moderated by the ocean.
Described on the provincial vehicle-licence plate as Canada’s Ocean Playground, the sea is a major influence on Nova Scotia’s climate. Nova Scotia’s cold winters and warm summers are modified and generally moderated by ocean influences. The province is surrounded by three major bodies of water, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the north, the Bay of Fundy to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east. While the constant temperature of the Atlantic Ocean moderates the climate of the south and east coasts of Nova Scotia, heavy ice build-up in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence makes winters colder in northern Nova Scotia; the shallowness of the Gulf’s waters mean that they warm up more than the Atlantic Ocean in the summer, warming the summers in northern Nova Scotia. Summer officially lasts from the first Sunday in April to the Saturday before the last Sunday in October.
Rainfall changes from 140 centimetres (55 in) in the south to 100 centimetres (40 in) elsewhere. Nova Scotia is also very foggy in places, with Halifax averaging 196 foggy days per year and Yarmouth 191.
The average annual temperatures are:
- Spring from 1 °C (34 °F) to 17 °C (63 °F)
- Summer from 14 °C (57 °F) to 25 °C (77 °F)
- Fall about 5 °C (41 °F) to 20 °C (68 °F)
- Winter about −11 °C (12.2 °F) to 5 °C (41 °F)
Due to the ocean’s moderating effect Nova Scotia is the warmest of the provinces in Canada. Nova Scotia also has a fairly wide but not extreme temperature range, a late and long summer, skies that are often cloudy or overcast; frequent coastal fog and marked changeability of weather from day to day. The main factors influencing Nova Scotia’s climate are:
- The effects of the westerly winds
- The interaction between three main air masses which converge on the east coast
- Nova Scotia’s location on the routes of the major eastward-moving storms
- The modifying influence of the sea.
Because Nova Scotia juts out into the Atlantic, it is prone to tropical storms and hurricanes in the summer and autumn. However due to the relatively cooler waters off the coast of Nova Scotia, tropical storms are usually weak by the time they reach Nova Scotia. There have been 33 such storms, including 12 hurricanes, since records were kept in 1871—about once every four years. The last hurricane was category-one Hurricane Kyle in September 2008, and the last tropical storm was Tropical Storm Noel in 2007 (downgraded from Hurricane Noel by the time the storm reached Nova Scotia).
