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Sober Island

Talk about passionate; Sober Islanders couldn’t be prouder to be surrounded on all sides by rocky coastline, beautiful views, and the calming sound of the ocean. (Srsly, come and listen to it sometime—it’s no wonder the folks who live here love this place so much).

I hear you out there in internet-land: how did Sober Island get its name, you may ask? Well, it kinda depends who you ask. We know that, back in the prohibition days when goods came on sailing schooners, Sober Island was a prime location for drop offs. Who knows, there may still be hidden bottles on the island to be found while adventuring. One of the stories told by the ‘old timers’ at the time was that the ‘revenuers’, working for the crown, landed on Sober Island as it had been reported there was illegal liquor coming by boat to the island. When the revenuers arrived on the island, they did not find any contraband, however what they did find was a number of inebriated people and from the revenuers point of view, the only thing sober was the island. Hence the name. Is it true? We can’t dispute the story as we weren’t here, but it sounds about right.

Sober Island was home to a lobster factory back in the 1930’s, through to the 1950’s.

Sheet Harbour

Originally known as “Port North”, our first roots were laid in 1784. Not that that name was boring, but it sure didn’t jump off a map—”Sheet Harbour” takes its moniker from a giant lighthouse-bearing rock at the mouth of our harbour (we’ll gladly show it to you). Our town’s history is an epic saga of pulp mills, hurricanes, lumber runs, and a cookhouse that was floated into the community in the late 1890s. These days, the town of Sheet Harbour is known as “the hot spot between the West River and East River bridges”. Our industrial port ships everything from wood chips to wind turbines, and is a point on the major shipping route known as the Great Circle Route. But on to the real show: the miracle of nature just off our shore called the “100 Wild Islands”. It’s an archipelago, and it’s one of the last remaining intact and ecologically rich island groups of its size in North America. It’s pretty much unchanged since the ice age, it’s protected by the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Hop aboard, and we’ll prove it to you.