Maritimes - Society and Culture

Society and Culture

Maritime society is based upon a mixture of traditions and class backgrounds. Predominantly rural until recent decades, the region traces many of its cultural activities to those rural resource-based economies of fishing, agriculture, forestry, and coal mining.

While Maritimers are predominantly of west European heritage (Scottish, Irish, English, and Acadian), immigration to Industrial Cape Breton during the heyday of coal mining and steel manufacturing brought people from eastern Europe as well as from Newfoundland. The Maritimes also have a black population who are mostly descendants of African American loyalists or refugees from the War of 1812, largely concentrated in Nova Scotia but also in various communities throughout southern New Brunswick, Cape Breton (where the black population is largely of West Indian descent), and Prince Edward Island. The Mi'kmaq Nation's reserves throughout Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and eastern New Brunswick dominate aboriginal culture in the region, compared to the much smaller population of the Maliseet Nation in western New Brunswick.

Cultural activities are fairly diverse throughout the region, with the music, dance, theatre, and literary art forms tending to follow the particular cultural heritage of specific locales. Notable Nova Scotian folklorist and cultural historian Helen Creighton spent the majority of her lifetime recording the various Celtic musical and folk traditions of rural Nova Scotia during the mid-20th century, prior to this knowledge being wiped out by mass media assimilation with the rest of North America. A fragment of Gaelic culture remains in Nova Scotia but primarily on Cape Breton Island.

Canada has witnessed a "Celtic revival" in which many Maritime musicians and songs have risen to prominence in recent decades. Some companies, particularly breweries such as Alexander Keith's and Moosehead have played up a connection between folklore with alcohol consumption during their marketing campaigns. The Maritimes were among the strongest supporters of prohibition (Prince Edward Island lasting until 1949), and some predominantly rural communities maintain "dry" status, banning the retail sale of alcohol to this day as a vestige of the original temperance movement in the region.