Lake Lewis — A Historical Sketch
By Roy Bishop (2007)
Physiography
Lake Lewis lies near the centre of mainland Nova Scotia —
about halfway between Yarmouth and New Glasgow, halfway
between Minas Basin and Mahone Bay. Lake Lewis is the top
lake in the drainage basin of the east branch of the Gold
River. The Gold River flows into the Atlantic. The
microwave tower 3 km east of Lake Lewis stands on the
highest point along the New Ross/Vaughan highway. Rain
falling to the east and north of that tower flows in the
opposite direction, into Avon River which empties into the
Bay of Fundy at Windsor.
Gold Brook, exiting Lake Lewis between lots A and E is the
first piece of the east branch of the Gold River. The river
flows into Nova Scotia Lake, then Long Lake, Grassy Lake,
Wallaback Lake, and Camp Lake. Below Camp Lake and before
it reaches Harris Lake, it joins the north branch of the
Gold River. Past Harris Lake, the Gold River enters De
Adder Lake, followed by Lake Lawson near New Ross, and then
on to the ocean at the community of Gold River on Mahone
Bay. In the 1960s Gold River was studied by Nova Scotia
Light and Power Company (now part of Nova Scotia Power) for
possible hydroelectric power development. Fortunately this
development did not take place, and Lake Lewis today is
much as it has been for the past 10 000 years, since the
last ice sheet melted.
Geology and Ice
Lake Lewis lies on Devonian granite, the 380
million-year-old basement rock of a long-gone mountain
range. Those vanished mountains were pushed up when the
North American and African plates collided, closing the
predecessor to today’s Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean
began to re-open 190 million years ago and erosion swept
away those mountains, although remnants are still visible:
the Appalachians of eastern North America and the
Caledonian mountains in Scotland and Norway. In southern
Nova Scotia, ice sheets have removed most of the sediments
subsequently deposited on the granite core of those ancient
mountains.
The light grey colour of the granite is due to large white
crystals of plagioclase feldspar mixed in with smaller
crystals of clear quartz and black mica. The large size of
the crystals is indicative of the slow cooling that took
place deep beneath the mountains 380 million years ago.
Granite typically contains small amounts of uranium —
around 10 parts per million. About 11 km northeast of Lake
Lewis, near Millet Brook, an area particularly rich in
uranium was discovered in 1976, although the provincial
government placed a moratorium on commercial development.
The name “Gold River” may have originated from the
yellow-brown colour of the acidic water typical of the
poorly-drained, rocky soils of the region. However, the
name may have come from gold discoveries made on the east
shore of Wallaback lake, about 3 km northwest of Lake
Lewis.
Evidence of the last immense ice sheet that covered Nova
Scotia 20 000 years ago is visible around Lake Lewis. The
many granite boulders that rest randomly in the lake, along
the lake shore and within the forest are glacial erratics,
carried along by the ice and then dropped where they lie
today when the ice sheet melted 10 000 years ago. We view
the debris field of the last ice age. Granite bedrock in
exposed locations was ground almost flat by the motion of
the ice sheet (for example: the tip of lot 34, the rocky
islet near lot 32, part of the shore of lot 23). Weathering
has removed the finer scratches in this bedrock made by
stones imbedded in the ice, but gouges, oriented
north-south, can still be found.
The island in Lake Lewis was created as that great mass of
ice ground southward: the long axis of the island lies
north–south, along the direction of motion of the ice, with
rocky debris strewn on the down-stream (south) side of the
largest rocks forming the island. The island itself is
probably the debris shadow of the large granite boulder at
its north end.
After the ice sheet melted leaving the Lake Lewis
topography much as it is today, a small hummock of rocks
and soil formed along many sections of the edge of the
shoreline as lake ice shoved against the land during each
of the succeeding 10 000 winters.
There is evidence based on variations in Earth’s axial tilt
and the shape of its orbit that we are now between two ice
ages, and that perhaps in another 20 000 years (a mere
0.0004% of the age of our planet) Nova Scotia will again
lie beneath an ice sheet. If global warming does not
override this cycle, the Lake Lewis we have today will be a
transient thing, although not so transient as an individual
human life!
Sawmills and a Dam
The forests in this region were cut early in
the 20th century. As a consequence, there is no old-growth
forest near Lake Lewis or Nova Scotia Lake. There was a
sawmill at the east end of Lake Lewis where lots 1 and 2
exist today, and a second sawmill on the northwest shore in
the vicinity of lot 30. Remnants of these mills were
obvious in the 1940s, but the forest has now reclaimed
these sites. In a few locations one can still see large
logs beneath the water that sunk before they reached the
mills. On the south shore of Lake Lewis east of the island
there is an iron ring in a large boulder that was used to
hold a log boom for the mill on that part of the lake.
Following the sawmill activity, the forests were untouched
for about 70 years, up until the 1990s when large areas
were cut south and east of the lake, and also to the
northeast. Fortunately, this time, the forest in the
vicinity of the lakes was spared.
In the sawmill era, to float logs from Nova Scotia Lake to
the sawmills, a dam was placed on Sugar Brook at the exit
of Nova Scotia Lake to raise that lake to the level of Lake
Lewis. Also, rocks were removed from the upper end of Gold
Brook joining the two lakes. By the end of the 20th
century, ice and time had destroyed nearly all of Sugar
Brook dam. Also, because Gold Brook had been deepened for
log transport, without a rock barrier in place, in the dry
part of the year (late summer) Lake Lewis will drop lower
than its historical level. To keep both Lake Lewis and Nova
Scotia Lake near their pre-sawmill, historical levels, the
MPHA maintains small rock barriers on Gold Brook and Sugar
Brook, respectively.
Cottages and Changes
The first cottage on Lake Lewis was the one
that still exists on the island. It was built 70 years ago,
in 1936, by my uncle Frank Huston (1896–1959) and Charles
Townsend of Wolfville. Townsend sold his interest to my
father, Lovett Bishop, about 1940, and I took over the
island in 1961.
A second cottage on Lake Lewis appeared in the early 1950s
by the highway on the southeast shore. In the mid-1960s the
cottages on the east sawmill site (lots 1 and 2) were
built, and in the 1970s the rather crowded development on
the southwest shore took place. The Maritime Parklands
development (lots 3 through 45, plus A through H) began in
1987. The two houses near the shore south of the island
appeared in the 1990s. Above these two houses, the house
beside the highway was built on the site of an earlier home
that burnt about 1950. Other than the cottage on the
island, up until the 1950s the latter home was the only
dwelling within a mile of Lake Lewis.
In addition to 80-odd building lots appearing around Lake
Lewis, other changes since the mid-20th century have
included the straightening and paving of the highways in
this part of the province, including the Vaughan/New Ross
road, and the erection of the microwave tower east of Lake
Lewis. A more subtle change has been the increasing sky
glow to the southeast, light pollution from the Halifax
metropolitan area. Smaller light domes have also appeared
to the northeast (Windsor) and north (Kentville/New
Minas/Wolfville). At Lake Lewis, most lot owners have not
brought city lights with them, and around much of the lake
night still comes with its stars, owls, and fireflies.
