Digby Pines

Digby Pines Resort Hotel

The Pines was built in 1905 just outside Digby on a hill overlooking the Annapolis Basin and Digby Gut. The DAR purchased the hotel in 1917. It was expanded rebuilt by the railway in 1929. A seasonal operation from June to September, it included 31 cottages, large landscaped grounds with an ornate outdoor swimming pole. An 18 hole golf course was part of the hotel which included some old railway cuttings of the original approach tracks to Digby from the old Western Counties Railway.Twice a day, hotel bell boys would dip the flag to salute the CPR steamer SS Princess Helene as she steamed by the hotel en route to the Digby Wharf. Vans and "station wagons" collected passengers and luggage from the Digby Station. Although the DAR trains and steamers are long gone, the hotel still operates today, run by the Government of Nova Scotia. It is the last surviving DAR hotel as the Lakeside Inn closed in 1960 and the Cornwallis Inn closed in 1976.

Gallery

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  Digby Pines viewed from the Digby Wharf in 1954.

References and Footnotes

• Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, page 143, 145-147.
• Mike Parker, Historic Annapolis Valley: Rural Life Remembered, Nimbus 2006, page 87.