Mahone Bay

Mahone Bay is a town of just over 1,000 people on the northwest shore of its namesake bay in Nova Scotia, about 85 kilometres southwest of Halifax on Highway 103. Its postcard is the Three Churches: St. James' Anglican, St. John's Evangelical Lutheran and Trinity United standing in a row at the head of the harbour, the most photographed view in small-town Canada. Behind them, Main Street runs along the water with Saltbox and Victorian houses, galleries, cafés and inns, in a town settled by Foreign Protestants in the 1750s and built afterwards on wooden shipbuilding and trade. The bay in front of town is scattered with islands — local tradition counts 365, one for every day of the year — which is why the water stays sheltered and the harbour view keeps changing as you walk the shore.

The Mahone Bay Museum, in an 1875 merchant's house, covers the shipbuilding and settler history; the town was once a yard for schooners and rum-runners alike. The harbour is the activity: the civic marina, boat tours out among the bay's 365 islands, and kayaking from the waterfront. The Dynamite Trail and the Rum Runners Trail run the old rail bed through town, east toward Halifax and west toward Lunenburg, an easy flat ride through woods and shore villages. In August the Classic Boat Festival fills the harbour with wooden boats; in fall the Scarecrow Festival plants hundreds of figures around town, and the Father Christmas Festival opens the winter season. Main Street's galleries lean handmade: quilts, pewter, pottery and antiques in heritage storefronts, the crafts the town has traded on since the shipbuilding years.

For 1,000 people the eating is strong: chef-run bistros, a beloved bakery, cafés and a brewpub, many of them seasonal and most sourcing from Lunenburg County farms and the bay's fisheries. Evenings are a good dinner and a harbour walk; the town is asleep early, and proud of it. Reservations are the local custom in August: the bistros are small, the season is short, and walk-ins compete with the whole South Shore for a table.

Stay in heritage inns and B&Bs on Main Street and the Oakland Road, in vacation rentals above the harbour, or at campgrounds and motels back toward the highway exits. Book ahead for festival weekends, when the town fills completely. The whole town is a pleasant twenty-minute walk, and the trail handles bikes; a car connects the shore's string of villages, Peggy's Cove to the northeast and Lunenburg fifteen minutes west. Halifax's airport is about an hour northeast. Maders Cove, just west of town, is the quieter end of the waterfront, a short drive from the churches and cafés for those who want the town at arm's length.

Mahone Bay runs May to October at full strength, with August's boat festival and October's scarecrows and colour the twin peaks; many shops close or cut hours from November to April, when the town belongs to its residents. A day covers the museums, shops and a harbour tour; two adds the trail and Lunenburg. On the South Shore route, Mahone Bay is the gentle overnight between Halifax and Lunenburg, and the friendliest first stop out of the city. Give the trails their own half-day: the flat run west toward Lunenburg is the classic ride, with shore villages strung along it, and riders often lunch in one town and sleep in the other.