Hubbry Logo
search
logo
Joggins
Joggins
current hub
1954719

Joggins

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
Joggins

Joggins is a rural community located in western Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Canada. On July 7, 2008 a 15-km length of the coast constituting the Joggins Fossil Cliffs was officially inscribed on the World Heritage List.

The area was known to the Mi'kmaq as "Chegoggins" meaning place of the large fish weir, a name modified by French and English settlers to Joggins. Situated on the Cumberland Basin, a sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy, Joggins was a long established coal mining area. Its coal seams which are exposed along the shore of the Cumberland Basin were exploited as early as 1686 by local Acadian settlers and by the British garrison at Annapolis Royal in 1715.

The first commercial mine was set up by Major Henry Cope in 1731, but was destroyed by the Mi'kmaq in November 1732. Samuel McCully opened a mine in 1819 with much of his production being shipped by sea to Saint John, New Brunswick and other markets, but went out of business in 1821 having mined less than 600 tons.

Large-scale industrialization came to Cumberland County under the General Mining Association, which held the rights to the area's coal fields. Commencing at Joggins in 1847, production increased after the construction of the Intercolonial Railway in the 1870s, followed by the 1887 opening of the Joggins Railway, a 12-mile rail line from mines at Joggins to the Intercolonial mainline at Maccan, through River Hebert.

Old coal mine working are eroding out of the sea-cliffs at Joggins. Recently dendrochronology had been employed to date the timber pit props. A late nineteenth century age has been inferred, with most props dating from the 1860s and 1870s.

The coal mines attracted a diverse number of workers, some as young as 12 years. French-speaking Acadians returned from New Brunswick, and were joined by Irish and Scottish immigrants. Joggins Mines expanded rapidly to include three churches, two cemeteries, a hotel, a roller ring, movie theater, fire department, general store, post office, railway station and school. Coal mining grew in such importance that the community was incorporated as a town in 1919, a status that it maintained until 1949, when the decline of local coal mines resulted in out migration and economic decline.

Coal mined at Joggins during the first decades of the 20th century primarily fed two electrical generating stations near Maccan, however these plants were outdated by the 1950s and the mines closed shortly after the Springhill Mining Disaster in 1958. Rail service was abandoned to the community in the early 1960s.

The Joggins area was well known in the 19th and early 20th century for the quarrying of limestone grinding wheels, lumber, fishing and dairy production. The Bay of Fundy also boosts a rich tradition of shipbuilding. In the 1800s, wooden coastal schooners were built on the shore to carry coal and mill stones to the United States. Several of the older homes in the Joggins area display the sturdy, practical, yet handsome woodworking of craftsmen trained in shipbuilding. Many of the beaches along the Bay of Fundy are still littered with stone ballast from the hulls of old ships. Today in addition to tourism, the area is known for the commercial cultivation of wild blueberries and agricultural food processing.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.