Yarmouth

History

Originally inhabited by the Mi'kmaq, the region was known as "Keespongwitk" meaning "Lands End" due to its position at the tip of the Nova Scotia peninsula.

European settlement

The region was visited in 1604 by Samuel de Champlain, who named it "Cap-Fourchu", meaning "forked or cloven cape." The first Europeans to make a settlement on these shores were the French Acadians. They set up a small fishing settlement known as "Tebouque" in the mid-1600s and by 1750 the population was 50 people. During the Seven Years' War the New England Planters settled at what is now the town of Yarmouth in 1759; the grantees were from Yarmouth, Massachusetts and they requested that Yarmouth be named after their former home. Yarmouth was founded on June 9, 1761, when a ship carrying three families arrived from Sandwich, Massachusetts. The ship carried the families of Sealed Landers, Ebenezer Ellis, and Moses Perry. During the American Revolution, some in Yarmouth were sympathetic to the rebellion. Following the war, Acadians originally from the Grand-Pré district who returned from exile in 1767 settled in the Yarmouth area.

American Revolution

There were a number of inhabitants of Yarmouth who supported the American rebels. Despite the American privateer raids in the Raid on Yarmouth, Nova Scotia (1775), the inhabitants still sheltered American prisoners after the Battle off Yarmouth (1777).

After the American Revolution, substantial numbers of United Empire Loyalists arrived in 1785.

Shipbuilding

Through the 19th century, the town was a major shipbuilding centre, at one point boasting more registered tonnage per capita than any other port in the world. From 1874 to 1885, Yarmouth was the second largest port of registry in Canada following Saint John, New Brunswick. In 1878, Yarmouth's tonnage peaked at 453 vessels aggregating 166,623 tons, and in 1879, the town had the second largest registered tonnage in Canada.

Yarmouth ships were found in most major ports throughout the world at this time, including ships noted for courageous crews such as the ship Research in 1861 and ships noted for great size such as the ship County of Yarmouth in 1884, one of the largest wooden hull ships ever built in Canada. John Patch, the son of a Yarmouth sea captain, developed and built one of the first modern screw propeller driven ships in 1832 (4 years before John Ericsson's patent). First demonstrated in Yarmouth Harbour during the summer of 1833, Patch was unsuccessful in a patent application in that year, but he continued to improve his propeller and received an American patent in 1849 which drew praise in American scientific circles. However, by 1849 there were multiple competing versions of the screw propeller. Patch never received money or recognition and died a poor man at Yarmouth in 1861.

The town of Yarmouth was incorporated on August 6, 1890.

Railways

As wooden shipbuilding declined in the late 19th century, Yarmouth's shipowners re-invested their capital into factories, iron-hulled steamships, and railways. The town's first railway was the locally owned Western Counties Railway which was built from Yarmouth to Digby in the 1870s. It eventually was merged into the Dominion Atlantic Railway (DAR), with a network extending into the Annapolis Valley, Halifax and Truro; the DAR later became a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The Halifax and South Western Railway was built along the south shore linking Yarmouth with Shelburne, Liverpool, Bridgewater and Halifax in the early 20th century; the H&SW was eventually merged into the Canadian National Railway (CNR). While iron-hulled steamships had led to the decline of Yarmouth's once-thriving wooden shipbuilding industry, they also made the port a vital connection between Nova Scotia's rail lines and steamships destined for Boston and New York. Rail services were abandoned to Yarmouth in stages, beginning in 1982 (CNR) and ending in 1990 (CPR).

Steamships and ferries

Tourism has been a major industry in Yarmouth since the 1880s when Loran Ellis Baker founded the Yarmouth Steamship Company. Steamship and railway promotion based in Yarmouth created the first tourism marketing in Nova Scotia. Baker's steamships operated between Yarmouth and Boston until 1900, when the company was purchased by the Dominion Atlantic Railway. The DAR and Halifax and South Western Railway offered connections for passengers arriving in Yarmouth with steamship services operating to New York City and Boston.

In 1939, examiners at Yarmouth's Merchant Marine Institution made seafaring history by issuing master's papers to Molly Kool, the first female ship captain in the Western World.

Steamship connections between Yarmouth and Boston / New York were maintained by Eastern Steamship Lines but were suspended with the start of World War II; the SS Yarmouth Castle was one of many vessels which served this route. The service resumed a few years after the war with the S.S. Yarmouth, under the same company. This service continued into the mid 1950s and was then replaced with the M.V. Bluenose.

Following the war, as the economy of western Nova Scotia improved, the need for a year-round daily service was made evident. The service was needed as a more timely route for transport of goods between markets in Nova Scotia and the United States. Demand increased for passenger traffic as well. This led citizens of southwestern Nova Scotia to undertake an extensive lobbying effort with the federal government to establish a ferry service in the Gulf of Maine connecting Yarmouth with a port in New England. In 1949 the Canadian Maritime Commission began to study the possibility of a ferry service connecting with a port in the US. After some controversy as to whether to return to the traditional Boston or New York service, a decision was made to focus the effort on a service from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor, Maine. In 1954, the federal government contracted Davie Shipbuilding to construct MV Bluenose which was launched in 1955 and began service in 1956 under the management of Canadian National Railway (CNR) and later (1977-1982) under the management of a federal Crown corporation named CN Marine.

In 1978 CN Marine started operating MV Marine Evangeline on a service from Yarmouth to Portland, Maine. In 1982 the old Bluenose was retired from the Bar Harbor service and sold. CN Marine replaced her with a newer vessel MV Stena Jutlandica which was renamed MV Bluenose to prevent confusion in tourism marketing literature.

Second World War

During the first year of the Second World War, Yarmouth was selected as the location for a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) facility. RCAF Station Yarmouth was originally opened in 1940 as three separate training sites (the East Camp, the West Camp and the Air Base).

The East Camp was home to a detachment of the Royal Air Force's No. 34 Operational Training Unit (from RCAF Station Pennfield Ridge), who trained bomber crews, as well as the Royal Navy's No. 1 Naval Air Gunners School who were located at Yarmouth from January 1, 1943, to March 30, 1945.

The West Camp was home to a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Anti-Submarine Bomber Reconnaissance Squadron and several Eastern Air Command Bomber Reconnaissance Squadrons, such as 162 Squadron.

The Air Base was home to the 9th Light Anti-Aircraft Artillery, various RCAF and RAF Bomber Squadrons and an Army Co-operation Reconnaissance Flight. Its primary function was as an administrative and logistical support base to the RAF and RCAF squadrons in the area, in addition to providing a Weather Information Section, an Armament Section and a firing range.

A Lockheed Hudson, a light bomber, from Bomber Reconnaissance Squadron 113 in Yarmouth became the first aircraft of the RCAF Eastern Air Command to destroy a submarine, sinking U-754 about 160 km (100 mi) south of Yarmouth on July 31, 1942. The sinking resulted in 43 casualties and no survivors.

Several smaller installations associated with RCAF Station Yarmouth were located in southwestern Nova Scotia, including a bombing range at Port Maitland, a fuel depot at Digby, and radar detachments at Plymouth, Tusket, Bear Point, Port Mouton and Rockville. In 1944, a detachment of the US Navy briefly came to Yarmouth to test the effectiveness of a blimp service. After a crash, the RCAF decided against this venture.

RCAF Station Yarmouth closed in 1945. The airfield was sold to the Department of Transport in 1946 and became the Yarmouth Airport. A Canadian Army training camp (known as Camp 60) on Parade Street also provided basic and artillery training for 20,000 soldiers during the war.

Culture

The town is home to the Yarmouth County Museum & Archives, which preserves the history of the town and surrounding county and operates the Killam Brothers building on the waterfront. The Firefighters' Museum of Nova Scotia, part of the Nova Scotia Museum system is located on Main Street. The privately run Sweeney Fisheries Museum is also located in Yarmouth.

The Izaak Walton Killam Memorial house, founded in 1963, serves as the town's public library. It is the largest branch of Western Counties Regional Library and houses the regional library's headquarters.

The Yarmouth Arts Regional Council was established in 1974, under the leadership of Lydia Davison, a local music teacher. Over the next five years, with the assistance of the Canada Council and many volunteers, the Yarmouth Arts Regional Centre (Th'YARC) was constructed on the site of a former garage on Parade Street. Th'YARC continues to operate to this day, with the 350-seat Lydia Davison Theatre, an art gallery and a print-making shop.

A popular but unsupported cultural belief in Yarmouth holds that the American composer Meredith Willson wrote his well-known song "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" while staying in Yarmouth's Grand Hotel.

In August 2004, a record mako shark was caught off the coast of Yarmouth during the Yarmouth Shark Scramble. It weighed 491 kg (1,082 lb) and set a new Canadian record. It is considered one of the largest mako sharks ever caught.

Seafest is an annual 7 day festival organized since 1979.

Buildings and structures

Yarmouth is known for some of the most exuberant examples of Victorian houses in the Maritimes, a legacy of the wealthy captains and shipowners of the town's seafaring Golden Age. A heritage district preserves several blocks of these residences, including the Lovitt House and Eakin/Hatfield House. On the waterfront, two historic warehouses survive from the sailing era, the Killam Brothers and Parker-Eakin's buildings, each with an associated wharf, which are the focal points of summer waterfront events.

Yarmouth's Main Street is marked by several distinctive Victorian commercial buildings such as the turreted Yarmouth Block Building. The largest building in the town is a 1970s hotel, the Rodd Grand Hotel. It is built on the site of the original Grand Hotel, a Second Empire hotel which was the town's landmark for many years.

A landmark for Yarmouth Harbour is the large Cape Forchu Lighthouse which is located a few kilometres away at the headland of Cape Forchu, the peninsula that guards Yarmouth Harbour. The tall "apple core" style is a notable example of modernist style light tower.

Climate

Yarmouth has a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb), closely bordering on an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), typical of climates surrounded by the sea but close to large continents such as southern Norway and coastal Hokkaido but with latitude variations. Being near the -3 °C isotherm in the average of the coldest month (east of the city), causing that in peninsular areas like Yarmouth Bar and Cape Forchu are between a transition band for the oceanic climates (Cfb). Winters are cool and rainy with a January average of −2.6 °C (27.3 °F) though owing to strong maritime influences, temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F) are very rare, and the average high never drops to below freezing at any point in the year. During this period of time, the weather can be unsettled and cloudy due to the Nor'easters coming up the coast from the southwest. As a result, Yarmouth averages only 68–100 hours of sunshine from December to February or 25%–34% of possible sunshine. The average annual snowfall is 204.7 cm (80.6 in), which can come from Nor'easters from the southwest with a maximum snow depth of 9 cm (3.5 in) in January, owing to its mild winters, among the mildest in Canada east of the Rockies.

Yarmouth's summers are cool due to the strong coastal influence from the sea, meaning temperatures above 30 °C (86 °F) are very rare. The average temperature in the warmest month, August, is 17.5 °C (63.5 °F). Spring and fall are transitional seasons in which falls are warmer than springs since the waters are at the warmest temperatures in fall and the coldest during early spring. Precipitation is significant, averaging 1,290.1 mm (50.79 in) a year, with July and August being the driest months on average and November being the wettest month on average. An outstanding feature is Yarmouth's late-fall to early-winter precipitation maximum, owing to the combination of intense storm activity from November to January and relatively more-stable summers, with thunderstorm activity here much less frequent than in the U.S. Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and points southward. Yarmouth averages 1,898.3 hours of sunshine, or 41.2% of possible sunshine, with summer being the sunniest and winter being the cloudiest. Yarmouth averages 191 days of fog each year.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Yarmouth was 32.5 °C (90.5 °F) on July 16, 2013. The coldest temperature ever recorded was −24.4 °C (−11.9 °F) on February 14, 1894.

Demographics

In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada, Yarmouth had a population of 6,829 living in 3,259 of its 3,569 total private dwellings, a change of 4.8% from its 2016 population of 6,518. With a land area of 10.57 km2 (4.08 sq mi), it had a population density of 646.1/km2 (1,673.3/sq mi) in 2021.

The town has long held the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the province. Many studies have been done using teenagers in the town to examine the phenomenon.

Notable people

Sara Corning (1872–1969), humanitarian, nurse, and orphanage founder during the Greco-Turkish War.

Amanda Cottreau, folk singer-songwriter

Ryan Graves, professional hockey player

Keith R. Porter (1912–1997), pioneer in biological electron microscopy, was born in Yarmouth.

Paul Smart, sailor and Olympic medalist

Allie Munroe (born 1997), Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman for the Toronto Sceptres

Brian MacKay-Lyons (born 1954), architect.