North Hills celebrates Loyalist heritage

By Lawrence Powell

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

A good crowd turned out for music, singing, dancing, and lots of food Sunday in Granville Ferry as North Hills Museum hosted a Loyalist Community Picnic that would have made the area's United Empire Loyalist's ancestry proud.

Musique 400, a troop of musicians, singers, and dancers dressed in period costume, performed both Acadian and Loyalist dances with Brian Dickinson introducing the cast and leading the dances, while Amery Boyer on violin, Kurt Haussecker on recorder, and Syd Read on drum performed music from the era.

The Granville Ferals, a community based band that has developed to include numerous instruments and vocals, performed various songs and Jeanne Doucette-Currie and Wayne Currie performed as the afternoon drew to a close.

The event was a celebration of the 225th anniversary of the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists in this region. In 1783 approximately 1600 refugees landed on the shores of the Annapolis Basin. These refugees were part of a group which would become known to history as the United Empire Loyalists. In Nova Scotia, what began as a trickle of people looking to remain loyal to the British Crown at the start of the American Revolution, had, by 1783, developed into a deluge which would greatly tax the resources of this province.

Despite many early hardships, the Loyalists brought with them a culture and range of skills and that have greatly influenced the development of Nova Scotia.

North Hills Museum is operated by the Annapolis Heritage Society on behalf of the Nova Scotia Museum.

See pictures.