Like a pearl necklace flung on the floor, the tiny communities of West Jeddore, Head Jeddore, Oyster Pond and East Jeddore dot the shores of Jeddore Harbour, on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore.

It’s a beautiful drive along the winding roads of West Jeddore Road and East Jeddore Road, both of which offer breathtaking vistas of the long, deep harbour, cast a vivid blue on a sunny, warm afternoon of touring. Moms push baby carriages and seniors are out walking briskly, past tidy, century-old cottages, capes and fishing boats tied at the end of wharfs, many equipped with tables to gut fish.

The colour of choice is white, although there are more than a few houses painted a bracing magenta.

When you get up in the morning and see these incredible sunrises - words can’t do them justice. I don’t know how you can live anywhere else, says Eleanor Keeping, who has lived in East Jeddore for 37 years.

The communities may be scattered loosely along the shoreline, but Keeping says the people are close knit.

Just an hour from metro Halifax, it is an area with a strong sense of the past. Many residents still fish for a living.

Mi'kmaq woman, with baby in carrier Struck medal, probably French from Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax

Reverse of a medal dug up about 1877 on François Noel's Island [now Francis Nose Island], Halifax County, N.S., on the site of an old eighteenth-century French cemetery at the neck at the east end of the island, near Musquodoboit Harbour. According to Jeremiah Bartlett Alexis, the Mi'kmaq who sold it to the museum, the Mi'kmaq of the district were buried at this chapel. The medal is thought to be French and to have been made for the Indian trade. It was uncovered by John Baker of East Jeddore. The accession book lists it as measuring 1.26 to 1.28 inches in diameter. [Nova Scotia Museum Accession Book III, No. 6055, p. 123.] The image is thought to represent a woman, due to the presence of a baby in a highly inaccurate baby carrier (rather than a stone axe, as appears on the opposite side of the piece, with the image of a man's head).

This medal was dug up about 1877 on François Noel's Island [now Francis Nose Island], Halifax County, N.S., on the site of an old eighteenth-century French cemetery at the neck at the east end of the island, near Musquodoboit Harbour. According to Jeremiah Bartlett Alexis, the Mi'kmaq who sold it to the museum, the Mi'kmaq of the district were buried at this chapel. The medal is thought to be French and to have been made for the Indian trade. It was uncovered by John Baker of East Jeddore. The accession book lists it as measuring 1.26 to 1.28 inches in diameter. [Nova Scotia Museum Accession Book III, No. 6055, p. 123.]

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