5 Best Sights in South Shore and Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

When Shelburne's population exploded after the Revolutionary War, Black Loyalists were relegated to land 7 km (4½ miles) northwest of town. The community they created—Birchtown, named for the British general who oversaw their evacuation from New York—became the biggest free settlement of African Americans in the world. Birchtown's virtually forgotten story was told in Lawrence Hill's award-winning novel The Book of Negroes, adapted for a CBC TV miniseries in 2015 and filmed locally, and its founders are now honored at this site, which includes a national historic monument, a 1½-km (1-mile) interpretive trail, and the modern Heritage Centre that features a multimedia presentation, archaeological relics, and a genealogical research facility (some of the docents there are descendants of the Black Loyalists).

With award-winning vintages and sigh-inducing Fundy views, a stop at Domaine de Grand Pré is doubly pleasing. Vineyard tours and tastings are offered twice daily, at 11 am and 4 pm; reservations are not required (but call ahead to confirm they are happening on any given day). They take about 45 minutes, but you'll likely want to linger on the picturesque 10-acre property, so plan to have a meal at Le Caveau Restaurant or sip a glass of wine under the pergola. Live Music under the Vines events take place on certain evenings in July and August, weather permitting, and other events are detailed on the website.

Flanked by sailing ships and painted a brilliant red, this museum on the Lunenburg waterfront strikes a dazzling pose. An aquarium features 14 tanks with native species and tidal touch tanks, and there are themed films in the Ice House Theatre, daily activities, and three floors of displays about shipbuilding, whaling, and other maritime endeavors. Demonstrations cover topics such as sail-making, boatbuilding, and dory launching, and dockside you can visit a restored 1938 saltbank schooner and a 1962 steel-hulled trawler. The Bluenose II, the province's sailing ambassador, is also based here. Built in 1963, it's a faithful replica of the original Bluenose, the Lunenburg-built schooner prominent during the 1920s and 1930s as the North Atlantic fleet's fastest vessel, which sank in 1946 after striking a reef.

You'll have to veer inland to see this 381-square-km (147-square-mile) national park, which is about halfway between the Atlantic and Fundy coasts. The Mi'Kmaq used these gentle waterways for thousands of years, a fact made plain by the ancient petroglyphs carved into rocks along the shore. You can explore "Keji" on your own or take a guided interpretive hike—perhaps spying beavers, owls, loons, white-tailed deer, and other wildlife along the way. Guided paddles and children's programs are also available in summer, and leaf peepers can see the deciduous forests blaze with color in autumn. Designated a Dark Sky Preserve by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the park conducts nighttime programs for stargazers.

Downriver from Annapolis Royal is this reconstruction of Sieur de Monts and Samuel de Champlain's fur-trading post. The French set up shop here in 1605—two years before the English established Jamestown—making this the first permanent European settlement north of Florida. Port Royal also set other New World records, claiming the first tended crops, the first staged play, the first social club, and the first water mill. Unfortunately, it didn't have the first fire department: the original fortress burned down within a decade. At this suitably weathered replica, which is ringed by a log palisade, you're free to poke around the forge, inspect the trading post, pull up a chair at the dining table, or simply watch costumed interpreters perform traditional tasks in the courtyard. The heritage of the Mi'Kmaq people, who assisted the early settlers, can be explored in a wigwam.