Canso, Nova Scotia

Infobox Settlement
official_name = Canso
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settlement_type = Town
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subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = CAN
subdivision_type1 = Province
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subdivision_name2 = Guysbrough County
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government_type = Town Council
leader_title = Mayor
leader_name = Ray White
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leader_name1 = Canso Town Council
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established_title = Founded
established_date = 1604
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established_date2 = May 14, 1901
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latd= 45|latm= 20 |lats= 2 |latNS= N
longd= 60|longm= 59 |longs= 43|longEW= W
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postal_code_type = Canadian Postal code
postal_code = B0H 1H0
area_code =902
blank_name =Telephone Exchange
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blank1_name =Median Earnings*
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website = http://www.townofcanso.com
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Part of a series about Places in Nova Scotia

Canso (2001 population: 992) is a small Canadian town in Guysborough County, on the north-eastern tip of mainland Nova Scotia. In a plebiscite held on July 12,2008 residents narrowly voted to amalgamate the town with the neighbouring Municipality of the District of Guysborough. [ [http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1067522.html Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca ] ]

Geography

The town is located on the southern shore of Chedabucto Bay. The southern limit of the bay is at Cape Canso, a headland approximately 3 km southeast of the town.

Canso Harbour is protected by the Canso Islands, a small archipelago lying immediately north and east of the mainland, with Durells Island, Piscataqui Island, George Island, and Grassy Island being the largest.

Canso is the southeastern terminus of Trunk 16, an important secondary highway in Antigonish and Guysborough counties.

As the town is situated on the end of a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, Canso frequently experiences fog, particularly during the warmer summer months when continental air temperatures collide with cooler ocean temperatures offshore.

History

The name is traced to a variation of the Mi'kmaq name "camsok", which roughly translates into "opposite a high bluff or high banks opposite". The area was likely home to members of the Mi'kmaq Nation due to its proximity to excellent fishing grounds.

Although fishermen from Western Europe had been operating in the waters off Canso, beginning in the early part of the 16th century, the European discovery of the actual area of the town and its harbour is traced to French fishermen in 1604. The name "Canseau" was first mentioned in Marc Lescarbot's "Histoire de la Nouvelle-France" (1609).

The town was occupied on and off by both the French (from Acadia) or English (from New England) during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Canso, along with the rest of present-day peninsular Nova Scotia was passed from French to British control. France maintained possession of islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Ile St-Jean and Ile Royale (present-day Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton Island) and contested that the Canso Islands were included in its territory, which was coveted by French fishermen.

As New England fishermen also desired access to the fishery off eastern Nova Scotia and on the Grand Banks, Britain objected to French control of the Canso Islands and evicted French fishermen shortly after the treaty was implemented. France began construction of Fortress Louisbourg on the southeastern tip of Ile Royale to protect the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence River, as well as to provide a French naval base for protecting the Grand Banks fishing fleet.

In 1720, Nova Scotia's governor Richard Phillips ordered a small British Army garrison be established at "Canso" (actually located on Grassy Island) out of fear of a French attack staged out of Louisbourg to the east. The British government refused to pay for defence of the community leaving Phillips to build a simple earthen fort, however the fort soon fell into disrepair.

During the 1720s and 1730s, British settlement at Canso on Grassy Island prospered as it was the closest harbour on peninsular Nova Scotia to the Grand Banks. Thousands of New England fishermen flocked to Canso each summer and fall to fish; upwards of 8 million fish were pulled on average each season. Some local merchants became wealthy through smuggling of goods between Canso and Louisbourg, as trade between Britain and France was strictly prohibited.

In 1740, Britain and France went to war under the War of the Austrian Succession with their North American battles being referred to as King George's War. In the summer of 1744, a French expedition out of Louisbourg attacked the settlement on Grassy Island, burning the buildings to the ground and levelling the simple fort.

This expedition was the final straw for war-hungry British colonists in New England who feared the "growing French menace" to their fishery and livelihoods. The following spring, a large fleet of New England militia led by William Pepperrell left Boston in late March, arriving in Canso at Grassy Island which was used as a rendezvous point and logistics support base for staging an attack and siege on Fortress Louisbourg. The siege of Louisbourg began on April 28, 1745 and lasted until the fortress's defenders surrendered on June 16. The New England fishing fleets moved to Louisbourg, abandoning Canso in favour of a superior port which was closer still to the Grand Banks fishery.

Three years later on October 18, 1748, Britain was forced to return Louisbourg to French control under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The New England fleets returned to Canso and the port continued to prosper from being a British outpost on the North Atlantic for another decade. In 1758, a force of British Army and Royal Navy regulars staged out of Canso for the second and final attack and siege of Fortress Louisbourg, led by General Jeffrey Amherst and Admiral Edward Boscawen. The attack began on June 8 and ended with a French surrender on July 26. The British fleet continued to conquest the rest of Nouvelle France, leaving Britain in total control of the North Atlantic coast.

Following the removal of the French threat, Canso's status was reduced to one of Nova Scotia's numerous fishing communities, however area residents and colonial government administrators opted for a grander vision. In 1764 a town plot was surveyed south of the present-day location of the town. It was named "Wilmot", in honour of Colonel Montague Wilmot, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, however the Wilmot township was never developed.

Instead, the present-day community developed along the southern shore of Chedabucto Bay, directly opposite the former settlement at Grassy Island. The town grew under a prosperous ground fishery and was incorporated on May 14, 1901.

From 1875 until the early 1960s, Canso was the western terminus of several transatlantic telegraph cables. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Canso was selected as the terminus of several proposed railway lines. Canso is approximately the same distance from the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border as the port of Halifax, further to the west and was located approximately a half-day's sailing time closer to Europe. These proposals resulted in some railway construction in northwestern Nova Scotia, but lines never made it as far as Guysborough County.

Following the Second World War, Canso's economy reached its peak when the town became home to one of the largest fish processing plants in the world after National Sea Products received increased groundfish quotas for its offshore trawler fleet. The industrialization of the fishery created numerous jobs both on and off shore for town and area residents. During the 1980s it became apparent that fish stocks were collapsing and National Sea Products sold the plant to SeaFreeze by the early 1990s after the facility had been mothballed for a time.

SeaFreeze attempted to operate for several more years but by 2000, it too had run out options for keeping the plant going. Canso entered into a state of economic decline during the 1980s and 1990s, with many attempts by local politicians to secure the rights for the plant to process other seafood fished in other parts of Canadian waters, or internationally, but to no avail. The experience left many in the town and surrounding region with a deep-rooted bitterness toward the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which allows fishing vessels working near Canso to sell seafood to plants in other locations.

Between the 1996 census and the 2001 census, Canso's population declined 12% from 1,127 to 992. The retracting economy in the town has led to a perilous state of municipal finances with a large accumulated deficit. A provincial government-sponsored plebiscite was held on January 30, 2005 to consider merging the town with the Municipality of the District of Guysborough. It was hoped that such a move would reduce administrative costs and be able to pass more on to the community. The proposal was rejected, mainly due to an appeal to the town's heritage and identity as an historic fishing port. In a second vote, held on July 12,2008, residents voted by an 18-vote margin (248 to 230) to begin the merger process. Although the town council had earlier resolved to follow the outcome of the vote, during a meeting on July 21, 2008, several councillors questioned whether the town-sponsored "opinion poll" was valid or legally binding. Following debate, the council decided to request a legal assessment of the plebiscite from the town's solicitor. [ [http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1069378.html Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca ] ] If the merger is to proceed, terms must be negotiated with the District of Guysborough, and the town must apply to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board for deincorporation. [ [http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1067981.html Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca ] ]

Trivia

* The Stan Rogers Folk Festival is held in Canso every year to honour Stan Rogers.
* The Canso Islands National Historic Site is located in the town.
* Canso crater on Mars is named after the town.

References

External links

* [http://www.townofcanso.com Town of Canso - official website]
* [http://ns1763.ca/guysbco/cansowar.html Photographs of the Canso war memorial]