Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia

Musquodoboit Harbour is a Canadian rural community in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality. The community is situated on the Eastern Shore at the mouth of the Musquodoboit River. The community lies 45 kilometres east of downtown Halifax. With a hospital, RCMP detachment, postal outlet, schools, recreational center, library, municipal office and other services, Musquodoboit Harbour is a serve centre for many of the surrounding communities.

Musquodoboit means foaming to the sea, flowing out square or rolling out in foam, or suddenly widening out after a narrow entrance at its mouth. The community is an anglicized version of the Mi’kmaq word Moosekudoboogwek or Muskoodeboogwek.

The community was settled in the 1780s mainly by Loyalists. Through the late 18th and early 19th centuries many settlers from Scotland, England and Germany immigrated to the area and they still have descendents in the area, evidenced by prominent family names such as Rowlings, Anderson, and Bayers.

Much early travel was by water as roads were rough. Beginning in 1852, the stage coach travelled from Musquodoboit Harbour to Dartmouth at a cost of 5 shillings. The first automobile was owned by Dr. Kennedy in 1909. The Dartmouth Eastern Railway commenced in 1912 to carry lumber and lime from Middle Musquodoboit to Dartmouth. A station was completed in 1918 and today houses the Musquodoboit Harbour Railway Museum, which also serves as the local tourism office in summer. The museum grounds contain a passenger car, snow plow from the Dominion Atlantic Railway and a caboose from the Canadian National Railway. The museum is on the Canadian Register of Historic Places.

The Rural Telephone system came into use around 1909.

It all began one evening in 1957 when Garth Young was sitting at the table playing crib with friends. His sister ran in and said she could see flames in a window upstairs as she was driving down the road. Garth and his father each grabbed a bucket of water and ran upstairs, but there was nothing they could do. There was no fire department in Musquodoboit Harbour. They called Lands and Forests (now called the Department of Natural Resources) who showed up later with a portable pump and some hose. But by now, the two story house was in flames and the dozen family members who lived there could only watch helplessly as it burned to the ground. The loss motivated Garth Young and other people in the community to establish their own fire department. By 1960 Garth Young was clearing land for the new station. A year later the Musquodoboit Harbour Volunteer Fire Department was born and he became one of its original members. The Musquodoboit Harbour Volunteer Fire Department formed in 1961 with the fire hall opening on October 6, 1964. The first piece of equipment they had was a trailer with a pump on it. It had compartments on each side into which they were able to put extra equipment, such as hoses. The first truck they had was a 1957 milk truck that they bought in 1963 from a farmer. The Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary formed in February 1967.

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