Shubenacadie Canal - History

History

The Shubenacadie Canal was envisioned to facilitate transportation between Halifax, and the agricultural, timber and coal producing areas of northern Nova Scotia and the Annapolis Valley. Construction was started in 1826 by the Shubenacadie Canal Co. which went bankrupt in 1831. Several Scottish and Irish stonemasons had immigrated to Nova Scotia to work on the project but were left stranded in the colony with little resources after the project had halted. Construction started again in 1854 under the Inland Navigation Company. The new company altered the original British stonework lock designs to use more inexpensive North American stone and wooden construction. Steam boats and barges began to use the canal in 1856 and the entire system was completed by 1861. The canal enjoyed a few years of healthy traffic especially during the Waverly gold rushes of the 1860s. However the canal company showed little profit and experienced many problems relating to frigid winters which damaged the locks linking the freshwater lakes.

The canal's ongoing construction delays were partly responsible for the 1851 decision by Nova Scotia's colonial government to build the Nova Scotia Railway, which built lines from Halifax to Windsor and Truro by 1858. Railway construction created a short-term surge in canal traffic but a decision in 1870 by the Intercolonial Railway to replace a draw bridge over the canal with a fixed bridge blocked canal steamships and severely limited canal traffic, a conflict related to the frog wars which plagued rival railways crossings. A final blow was a takeover by the Town of Dartmouth of the Dartmouth Lakes for the city's water supply which ended canal operations in 1871.