Visitors to Nova Scotia will usually treat themselves to at least one meal of fresh lobster or Digby scallops, using their time in the province to enjoy some of the freshest seafood around.  Some tourists will take a chartered deep sea fishing trip to catch their own fish, and soak in some of the province’s history of fishing and seafaring while their at it.

Despite the abundance of seafood, for many visitors to Nova Scotia, lobster is not the primary purpose of their trip, it is to trace their roots, to seek out their ancestors and the places they lived. One might expect their ancestors to have been involved in fishing and shipping, and many of them were.   But there is another fare from Nova Scotia that is equally relevant to roots tourism, something that is just as well known to the locals but might get skipped over by visitors from other eastern parts of North America.

Apples.

Apples in Port Williams, Nova Scotia

Apples have been growing in Nova Scotia since the early 1600s when trees were first brought to Port Royal by French settlers.  In the 1700s, Planters and then Loyalists brought more varieties from New England and continued to plant them up and down the Annapolis Valley.  Many tourists coming to Nova Scotia can trace their family histories to these Planters and Loyalist migrations.  Others trace their roots to later settlers from Scotland, Ireland, and Germany who continued growing apples.  By the late 1800s, the industry was a booming trade, with millions of barrels of apples being exported from the province, mostly through Port Williams on the Bay of Fundy.

The port was developed by William Henry Chase to avoid expensive transfer fees to Halifax and ship loads of apples and potatoes directly from the Annapolis Valley.  Chase was a major apple broker, and a benefactor to public institutions across the province.  He funded the construction of the first provincial archives building in Canada, the Public Archives of Nova Scotia (now the Chase Building at Dalhousie University) and played a key role in the creation of what is now the Eastern Kings Memorial Hospital.  Chase can also be linked to the local tourism industry.  At one time he owned the property that would later become the Blomidon Inn and he built what is now Victoria’s Historic Inn and Carriage House in Wolfville.

Apple tree in Port Williams, Nova Scotia

Chase’s port and his brokerage skills contributed significantly to the transformation of Nova Scotia’s apple trade from a budding local industry to a major international trade.  A new wharf with a steamer birthing bed was built in 1930 and by 1938, annual shipments of nearly half a million barrels were leaving Port Williams via steamers to ports in Great Britain and Europe.

Things didn’t go as smoothly as it sounds though.  Apples and potatoes were being shipped to New England for some time, but like many endeavors, the first attempt to actually ship directly to London from Annapolis was a failure.  In December, 1861, A.W. Corbett, a leading merchant at the time, collaborated with a few other local businessmen on the project.  The ship never made it though.  The incident was a major loss for Corbett and his business partners, and a set-back for a trans-Atlantic apple trade that would take another two decades to get underway.

The first steamer to successfully carry apples direct to the United Kingdom from Port Williams was the Neptune.  The ship left Nova Scotia on April 2, 1881 and arrived fourteen days later with 6,800 barrels of apples, most of which were owned by  Ambrose Bent and Benjamin Starratt of Paradise, Nova Scotia.  That same year, A.W. Corbett lost his Annapolis Royal home and store in a fire, one of many that ravaged the town in the 19th century.

Gates U-Pick in Port Wiliams, Nova Scotia

Today, Port Williams and the surrounding area is still home to thousands of acres of apple orchards and processing facilities.  Apples are sold fresh, baked into pies, mashed into juice and sauce, and turned into any other product that can turn a profit.  U-pick farms like Gates U-Pick open their orchards to residents and tourists, bringing them as close as possible to the harvest.  The annual Apple Blossom Festival celebrate the beginning of the growing season and events like the Maritime Fall Fair and the Nova Scotia Agriculture Open Farm Day mark the harvest.  The industry may have shrunk in size from the peak years of the 1930s, but it is still a vital part of Nova Scotia’s agriculture economy, and an integral part of the history and culture of the Annapolis Valley.