The Nova Scotia Tartan

The Nova Scotia Tartan

The Nova Scotia Tartan is both not really a folklore story and not just from the Annapolis Valley area, but I still think it deserves a mention so I added it here.

This tartan was the first provincial tartan in Canada. The name Nova Scotia is Latin for New Scotland and the tartan reflects the importance of the Scots to the founding of the province.

In 1953 an Englishwoman, Bessie Bailey Murray, was asked to weave a fabric display for the Nova Scotia’s Sheep Breeders Association booth at the Farm & Fisheries Exhibition held in Truro. With the help from some other crafters they made a fourteen foot fabric mural. The mural depicted scenes of a Highlander on a hill tending to his sheep. The background showed scenes of the Nova Scotia shoreline.

Not wanting to cause any problems over which tartan she should put on the kilt of the sheep herder she designed her own tartan. The new tartan depicted themes from the highland Scots new homeland. She choose the colors carefully. She used blue to represent the ocean, both a light and dark green to represent our trees, a white strip to show our ocean surf, yellow-gold to represent the Provincial Royal Charter and a red line representing the Heraldic red “Lion Rampant” on the Nova Scotia flag.

The mural panel went over big, people loved it. It was presented to the Highland heritage of Angus L. Macdonald who presented it to Cabinet and then to Lord Lyon, King of Arms in Scotland. The Province was so taken with the new tartan it was made an official part of the Heraldic Armorial Bearings of Nova Scotia in the Nova Scotia Tartan Act. The original panel Mrs. Murray made now hangs in the Barrington Woollen Mill Museum in Shelburne County.

The new tartan became a legally controlled substance, a new act – “The Act Respecting the Nova Scotia Tartan” was passed in 1963 and updated in 1990. This act controls the manufacturing and distribution of the tartan. Only those companies authorized by the government may either make or sell the tartan. Any non-authorized making or selling can face a five hundred dollar fine.

Even though the tartan is made all over the world, there is only one company who has the legal authority to manufacture the Nova Scotia Tartan. That would be the Bonda Company located in Yarmouth. This company does not make the fabric but orders it from a company in British Columbia.

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