Musquodoboit Harbour

Musquodoboit Harbour, NS, Unincorporated Place. Musquodoboit Harbour is located 40 km northeast of HALIFAX and is part of the regional municipality. The community takes its name from the river that flows through it and in Mi'kmaq (Mooskudoboogwek) means either "rolling out in foam" or "suddenly widening out after a narrow entrance at its mouth." Musquodoboit Harbour lies at the base of the Musquodoboit Valley, which also comprises the communities of Upper, Middle and Centre Musquodoboit. The valley was mostly settled by LOYALISTS and second-generation "planters" from TRURO.

Industries today include lumbering, and harvesting and exporting Christmas trees, an industry begun in the 1930s. Musquodoboit Harbour is still an agricultural area today, with farming mainly devoted to raising livestock. Nearby gold mines (Caribou Mines, Mooseland and Moose River), active from the 1860s to the early 1900s, brought prosperity to the valley as it developed service industries. LIMESTONE extraction is now a major industry, and the valley is known for its good hunting and fishing. From 1916-82 a railway operated in the valley but today the station in Musquodoboit Harbour is a museum and part of the railway bed has been converted into part of the TRANS CANADA TRAIL. The international importance of the outer estuary of Musquodoboit Harbour (the harbour of the same name) for WATERFOWL was recognized in 1987 when it was designated as a Ramsar site (wetland of international importance).