Sherbrooke Village
 (©gendoo, flickr.com)Take the kids to experience a taste of the past at Sherbrooke Village. |
Set on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore, Sherbrooke Village will take you back to life as it was 100 years ago, when gold-rush fever and strong demand for shipbuilding and timber sparked a boom in the area.
Today things are a lot more tranquil and the 80 buildings that make up the village form Nova Scotia’s largest museum.
Spend anything from 2 hours to a whole day checking out the period shops and exhibits, including a sawmill, a photography studio, a doctor’s office, the blacksmith’s forge and a pottery shop.
Horse-drawn wagons trotting up and down the streets complete the illusion that you really have gone back in time to the period between the 1860s and World War I, the era that Sherbrooke Village depicts.
You can even grab a meal in the tea room and shop for locally made crafts in the Company Store, making Sherbrooke Village a more than pleasant place to break up the journey between Halifax and Cape Breton, especially if you’re taking the more tranquil coastline road and not the main highway.
Aside from letting the kids run off some extra energy, you can also take your dog along, allowing the whole family to stretch their legs.
Directions: There are several ways to reach Sherbrooke Village. From Halifax, you can take Highway 107 to Musquodoboit Harbour and then Route 7 to Sherbrooke. Otherwise, from Highway 104, take Exit 26 (near New Glasgow) and follow Route 347 to Highway 7. Finally, from Antigonish you can access Route 7 directly at Exit 32.
Admission fees: Adults $10, kids $4.25, under 6 years old free, family $27.50
Opening hours: 7 days a week, 9:30am to 5pm, June through mid-October.
Website: Sherbrooke Village
Telephone: 1-888-743-7845