Place Savalette The Google rating is 5

A designated Parks Canada National Historic Site Monument, Place Savalette is located in Port Felix on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore and is recognized as a pioneering location of the « dry fishery » in Acadia.

Captain Savalette, a fisherman from St. Jean De Luz, France, used the shores and islands around Tor Bay to carry out his viable fishery by catching and drying his fish in what is known today as Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore region from 1565 to 1607. It is believed that Captain Savalette made 42 voyages to the Tor Bay area, hosting many European fishermen and traders including Samuel de Champlain, Marc Lescarbot, and Nicholas Denys. Much was documented about Savalette’s hospitality and valuable knowledge of the dangerous waters in the area which was important helping researches to map this region.

Each year in early August, Acadians gather in the Tor Bay area of the Eastern Shore to celebrate Festival Savalette.

History of Place Savalette
The story begins in the 16th century in St. Jean de Luz, a small port town situated in the French Basque region of southern France. Adventurous sea captains from this area engaged in a transatlantic commercial enterprise which had them go to what is now known as the Labrador coast of Canada to whale hunt. Whales were a source of oil used to provide light to Europeans long before electricity was discovered.

One family of Basque captains was the Savalette clan. Jacques Cartier indicated at least three generations of this family participated in these annual whale hunts. Captain Savalette III, was among those who discovered another great resource which – commercial commodity-cod. Off the coast of Newfoundland, they discovered what later became known as the “tail of the Grand Banks”, one of the richest cod banks in the world. For that reason, Captain Savalette III, switched his business from whale hunting to cod fishing and made several voyages engaged in this practice. As was common for fishermen, they would follow the schools of this species which eventually brought them to the shores of what is today Cape Breton Island and its surrounding fishing banks.

In 1565, Captain Savalette III discovered the Canso Banks and chose a home port, which today is known as Port Félix. From 1565 until 1607, Savalette came with a crew of 16 men to catch, salt and dry their catch on the many small island shores found off the mainland in what is today known as Tor Bay. They would return to France each fall with over 100,000 lbs of this seafood delicacy, destined for the Catholic countries of Europe where Fridays were declared fish days. However, in 1605, l’Acadie was founded by Samuel de Champlain and a company of men landed at Port Royal to establish the first permanent settlement in America, north of St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1607, with Champlain still mapping out King Louis XIV’s overseas realm, he stopped to meet Captain Savalette at what is now Port Félix, to get information about the local areas to use on his maps that he was to bring back to the King. That year saw a historic meeting take place between these two Europeans and a band of local Mi’kmaq who spent their summers here in search of their winter supply of fish. This was a friendly meeting according to Marc Lescarbot, Champlain’s writer, and led to a new trading business between the Mi’kmaq and the Basque. Sassafras, ginseng and furs were traded for pots, pans and hunting guns.

In 1949, a local researcher named Dr. Jost, discovered this story and encouraged the Federal government to recognize its importance and erect a memorial marker showing the site of this historic meeting. Amidst a well-attended event that year, a plaque was erected on a large boulder the forest between the communities of l’Anse à Charlo (Charlos Cove) and Cole Harbour, near Guysborough town, with only two bilingual sentences denoting its story.

In 2005, la Société Acadienne de Torbé began an annual celebration called Festival Savalette in an attempt to revive and build this forgotten historic chapter. After years of celebrations taking place at this plaque site, the Society contacted Parks Canada about relocating the site to a proper oceanside location. Through additional research using Marc Lescarbot’s descriptions of the area and an evaluation by Parks Canada, it was determined that the true home port chosen by Captain Savalette III that was used for important fishing and the pioneering of the « dry fishery » in Acadia was Port Felix.

Today, the monument park in Port Felix, which opened on August 7, 2019, includes the written history of this important area along with a series of professional paintings by a local artist depicted on interpretive panels that you can view on the deck of a 75’ boat monument that was built by a local builder.