Pictou Harbour
Pictou Harbour is a natural harbour in Nova Scotia on the Northumberland Strait. It is roughly 5km long.
The distance between the town of Pictou on the north shore, and the community of Pictou Landing to the south is about 1km. The harbour then opens into the broad mouth of the East River of Pictou which flows inland through the towns of Trenton and New Glasgow. The south-west end of the harbour is terminated by the Harvey Veniot causeway that carries Nova Scotia Highway 106. Prior to the opening of the causeway in 1968, the harbour continued into the confluence of the West River and Middle River.
The body of water immediately outside the harbour is known as the Pictou Road. The entrance to the harbour is protected by two sandbars and is about 400m wide. The sand bar on the southside is an 8ha Provincial Nature Reserve, comprising beaches and dunes that provide habitat for the endangered piping plover. A lighthouse was installed on this bar in 1834 and lost to fire in 1903. Its replacement, a 55 foot octagonal tower was also destroyed by fire on July 5, 2004.
Being an estuary, the water is considered brackish, with a density of about 1019kg/m3 that varies seasonally.
The first settlers arrived in Pictou Harbour in 1767 on the Betsey from Philadelphia. The Hector arrived in 1773, bringing the first Scottish settlers to arrive in the province directly from Scotland. Timber was being exported to Britain from Pictou harbour as early as 1777 and the first ship was built there in 1788 by Thomas Copeland. By 1803, fifty vessels loaded squared timber for Britain. The Harriet was launched in 1798 with a registered tonnage of 422 tons and is believed to be the largest built in Nova Scotia at the time.
By 1830 coal was being brought from the inland towns by steamboat for transshipment and soon coal and iron were the chief exports through the harbour. Pictou opened as a port of registry in 1840 and at that time was registering between 20 and 40 ships a year. In 1874 the Customs House was built by the Dominion Government to collect tariffs and duties, and control goods and people flowing through the port, which was a significant port of entry at the time, and the main passenger connection with Upper Canada.
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