Wolfville

Wolfville sits in the Annapolis Valley above the Minas Basin dykelands, with Acadia University at its centre giving a town of about five thousand the cultural weight of a much larger place. The valley's sheltered climate and long season made it Nova Scotia's fruit country and now its wine region, with a cluster of wineries producing Tidal Bay, a provincially defined white appellation. In summer, hundreds of chimney swifts gather at dusk and funnel into a large brick chimney on the university grounds to roost, a spectacle that draws watchers most evenings from May into August; the species is threatened and the chimney is protected for it.

History

Pierre Melanson brought his family to Grand-Pré about 1680, and the Acadians prospered by diking the salt marshes into fertile fields, the Minas region becoming their principal settlement; from September 1755 about 2,000 Acadians were deported from the area. Around 1760 the British opened Horton Township to New England Planters, who numbered 154 families by 1763 and built an economy of cattle, potatoes and grain, later apples, with lumbering and shipbuilding (Wikipedia, Wolfville).

Highlights

• The swift chimney - hundreds of birds funnelling into a roost at dusk.
• The wineries - Annapolis Valley estates producing Tidal Bay whites.
• The dykeland views - Acadian polder farmland below the town.
• Acadia University - the campus that gives a small town its scale.

When to go

May to October; the swift roost runs from May into August with the largest numbers in late spring. Harvest and wine events fall in September and October. Winter is quiet.

Good to know

The swift numbers vary night to night and the birds leave by late summer. Wineries keep seasonal hours. The town empties when the university is out.

Nearby

Grand-Pré lies east; Cape Split is north.

Key facts