TRURO, NOVA SCOTIA Canada

Thursday, July 31- At 8-am we left our beautiful park across from St. Margaret’s Bay, Wayside Family Camp Park, Glen Margaret, Nova Scotia. We arrived at our new location around 10-am.

Scotia Pine Campground, Truro, Nova Scotia is a quiet, well-managed family campground. The pine trees are everywhere, so we are using the park’s cable. The RVs were leaving sites around us, but by late afternoon all the big rig sites were filled again. It is very tight between sites, but we have cable, WIFI, and cell phone service.
Truro Motto: Begun In Faith, Continued In Determination - The town was first settled in 1761 by Presbyterians of predominantly Ulster Scottish origin who came from Ireland via New England. It is named after the city of Truro in Cornwall, England. Originally, a small farming community, the construction of the Nova Scotia Railway between Halifax and Pictou in 1858 caused the municipality to experience a fast rate of growth. It was officially incorporated in 1875.
Truro was once known as the "Hub of Nova Scotia" as it is located at the junction between the Canadian National Railway, running between Halifax and Montreal, and the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway, running between Truro and Sydney. Until the 1980s, Truro also hosted a junction between the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railway's former Dominion Atlantic Railway line running through Windsor and down the Annapolis Valley to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
Friday, the weather was cloudy with sunshine at times so we drove into the town of Truro to see the sights. Prince Street buildings reflect the prosperity and economic development through the choice of rocks used for building stones and the architectural style of the buildings. Rocks from local Nova Scotia sources provide a link to the long and interesting geological history of the region.
The use of stone for building construction began in the 1700s in the Truro area. Many of the older buildings on Prince Street are constructed with sandstone and brick.
St. James Presbyterian Church, 629 Prince Street: The church cornerstone was laid in 1928 and the plaque above commemorates the centennial of the formation of the Presbyterian church in Canada (1875). The building is composed of rough-cut, grey to olive grey sandstone blocks from Wallace. The sandstone exhibits bedding, exfoliation (peeling) and black staining from air borne pollution.

Berlin Wall - Six concrete sections of the Berlin Wall that separated the German city for nearly five decades during the Cold War now stand in an empty lot in this central Nova Scotia town. The oddly placed icons of Soviet occupation have been sitting on an unremarkable plot of grass and dirt in downtown Truro for the past six years, after a local entrepreneur bought them while visiting Germany and asked the town to display them. However, officials in the community of 12,000 say the time has come to find the slabs a new home, and many believe another Cold War relic -- a so-called Diefenbunker fallout shelter a few kilometers away would be the perfect spot.
Tree Sculpture Project - For more than 100 years, the streets of Truro have been adorned with beautiful large elm trees. They discovered Dutch elm disease more than 30 years ago. A committee was charged with the task of removing any diseased trees in order to slow its spreading to healthy elm trees. From November 1999 to November 2000, there were 27 tree sculptures completed. As of June 2008, 43-tree sculptures have been created and 32 pieces are still on display around town.
GIRL GUIDES, Past, Present & Future



The Nature of Tidal Bores - The Bay of Fundy, which holds the world record for the greatest difference in water levels between low and high tides, is one of the most thrilling places in the world to experience a tidal bore. These hydrological marvels tend to be most powerful around a new or full moon, when tidal amplitude is at its greatest. We were in a new moon when we saw the incoming ocean tide enter the basin where we stood. Many people come everyday to different parts of Nova Scotia to see this “bathtub effect” called seiche. Truro is near the head of Cobequid Bay. The location to see the tidal bore is also the location of the First Landing in 1760-62 of English speaking settlers of the townships of Onslow and Truro. Of Ulster, Irish, Scottish and English stock, these pioneers where among those brought to Nova Scotia from New England by the government to take up the lands formerly occupied by the Acadians.
We were told to be at this site around noon and the tidal bore would be in around 12:46-pm. Although it is not as spectacular as some tidal bores can be at times, it was still fun to watch along with about 75 other people lined along the bank of the river. The rush of the water can be heard distinctly. Tour busses plan their routes according to the timing of the tidal bore and there was a bus filled with Amish couples from Indiana.
The deeper the water the longer the waves are faster and get ahead of the shorter wave lengths. The tumbling wave (the bore) turns into a series of large swells. The surge only took a matter of minutes to fill the basin from empty to almost high tide.b:if cond='data:blog.pageType !="item"> >