The Shubenacadie Canal

The Shubenacadie Canal is the most significant 19th century canal development project in the Maritimes. The Fletcher Lock has been declared a Designated Special Place under Nova Scotia's Special Places Protection Act.

First Nations

For centuries, the Shubenacadie waterway, a system of 115 rivers and lakes, had been an important route for Mi'kmaq people during their travels between the Bay of Fundy and Halifax harbour. The waterway neatly bisected the province and could be travelled with only a few short portages. The First Nations people have been resident in Nova Scotia for almost 11,000 years, and the earliest archaeological site recorded so far on the Shubenacadie system dates from the Late Archaic Period, about 4,000 years ago.

The Canal - Beginnings

In 1794, Governor Sir John Wentworth recognized both the military and economic benefits of a canal through the Shubenacadie waterway:

"your territory at Kennetcook will be much improved by my plan of rendering the Shubenacadie navigable, and a communication thence to Dartmouth by a chain of lakes."

It was not until 1824, when members of the merchant class of Halifax formed the Shubenacadie Canal Company, that the plans for a canal began to take shape. Ostensibly, the motivation to build a canal was the opening up of a commercial hinterland for the merchants of Halifax. The canal company hired Francis Hall, a civil engineer, to survey the system and design a canal. Hall's original design called for a series of 17 stone locks, but, between the beginning of construction in 1826 and 1831, when the company ran out of money, only thirteen locks were completed or started. The locks were the built in the British style from granite and local stone. Masons were brought in from Scotland and laborers from Ireland worked on the canal. The canal was designed with a draft of 8 feet and was built for steam and sailing vessels.

The canal remained unfinished until 1853, when a new company, The Inland Navigation Company, was formed. Charles Fairbanks, an engineer, was hired to revise the original plans. Fairbanks re-designed the Canal based on the American style, which included fewer locks, the building of two marine inclined planes, and only a four foot draft.

The Company employed two types of vessels; a sailing boat based on the boats of the Jersey and Orwell Navigation in England; and a side wheel steamer boat, the Avery, designed by John Ward who Fairbanks had brought from New Jersey to assist with the inclined planes and vessels. By 1856, within two years of beginning the revitalization of the old canal works, Fairbanks had parts of the canal in operating condition.

The Canal ran with modest success carrying lumber, pottery, bricks, and ironically, even the railway iron used to construct the Nova Scotia Railway which eventually put the canal out of business. Canal boats and rafts continued to ply the waterway until 1870 when the railway replaced its old draw bridges with fixed bridges that had spans so low boats could not pass beneath them. This, combined with the Town of Dartmouth's appropriation of a canal reservoir for drinking water, provided the immediate cause of the demise of the canal.

The Shubenacadie Canal is the longest Maritime canal with substantial extant structures dating from either the Maritime Province's participation in the canal construction fever which swept British North America in the 1820's, or the canal building revival of the mid-19th century. The Canal reflects two radically different attitudes towards canal construction during that time. The earliest construction phase (1826) followed the British model, where substantial permanent structures were built using the best men and material available. The initial cost of this type of construction was excessive. The second phase of construction (1853), under C.W.Fairbanks, followed the American model, where a small canal is built quickly and cheaply using available materials and skills. Once it was operating, it could be expanded and more permanent structures added later.

Most of the canal properties are controlled by the Shubenacadie Canal Commission. Their mission is to preserve the historic features of the Canal and to provide access to the canal system for the education and enjoyment of the public. The Commission has partially restored one of the locks and has developed an extensive trail system throughout the area which has proven extremely popular with the public. The canal has also been declared a National Historic Civil Engineering Site.

Archaeological work began on the canal in 1984, when archaeologists from Saint Mary's University excavated a forge and a Scottish "blackhouse"-style structure dating to the first construction period. Recent archaeological discoveries include the remains of the bottom quarter of a lock gate, including sluice, from the Wellington Lock, and the remains of the canal camp of Irish laborers at Port Wallace. The Wellington lock gate is presently under conservation.

The text of this page is based on two sources. The first is Robert Passfield's The Shubenacadie Canal prepared for the Historic Sites and Monument's Board in 1979. The second reference is a paper entitled "Cabins and Protest on the Shubenacadie Canal" by Peter Latta, former Director of the Shubenacadie Canal Commission, read for a Canal History and Technology Symposium at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, in 1996.