Cow Bay’s ocean playground : the shifting landscape of Silver Sands Beach, 1860s - present

Abstract

Silver Sands Beach, in Cow Bay, Nova Scotia, has been subject to a polarized history. Beginning in the mid-1800s, it enjoyed local and non-local fame, alike, as an immensely popular summer destination. However, in the mid-twentieth century, the famous recreation and leisure site succumbed to the adverse effects of commercial sand and gravel mining. The practice had been taking place there throughout the 1940s until the early 1970s - prior to the beach’s protection under the province’s first Beaches Preservation and Protection Act (1967), in 1971, and even by provincial permit up until 1972. The negative impacts of extraction were vast – and the beach is still recovering today, under its current jurisdiction as municipal parkland. Observing this particular landscape thus brings past tensions to the forefront –most significantly, the competition between nineteenth and twentieth century notions of recreation and leisure, versus the environmental pressures of the resource extraction industry in Nova Scotia during the mid-twentieth century. Along with analyzing these trends and events, this thesis also examines the present significance of Silver Sands, as both a coveted coastal access point and as a heritage landmark. It does so by making use of a wide range of materials, within the realm of social and environmental history, geography, beach morphology, cultural studies and landscape studies. It also makes use of oral history, and includes an appendix of photographs and figures.