Pugwash, Nova Scotia

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Pugwash is a fishing, mining, and small-scale manufacturing community on the north shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. Its coordinates are 45°51′00″N, 63°40′00″W. The village is located at the mouth of the Pugwash River where it empties into the Northumberland Strait. As of 2001, the population was 810. Pugwash takes its name from the native Mi'kmaq word, "Paqweak," meaning "Shallow Water," in reference to the near by river.

Pugwash sits atop a salt deposit measuring 1,500 feet thick and is home to the largest underground salt mine in Atlantic Canada, with shipments from its port, as well as by rail from a facility near Oxford.

Pugwash is famous for being the site of an international conference of scholars organized by Bertrand Russell in 1957, and hosted by Pugwash's native son, steel magnate Cyrus Eaton (1883-1979), at the lodge on his estate located just north of the village. This conference brought high-level scientists from both sides of the Cold War divide to state their opposition to nuclear weapons. This meeting was a follow-up to an earlier statement of notables whose signatories had included Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. The name Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs has since been used to refer to the group, although citizens in Pugwash generally term these visitors as the "Great Thinkers." Indeed, visitors entering Pugwash were once greeted by roadside signs announcing that they were entering the "Home of the Thinkers," but the signs have since been replaced by a newer slogan "World Famous for Peace." The switch was made in response to the 1995 awarding of the Nobel Prize to the International Pugwash conferences "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms." Pugwash is also home to many descendants of Highland Scots who immigrated to the region in the 1800s. All street signs in the town are bilingual with both English and Gaelic translations. The village celebrates its Scottish heritage each July 1, with the annual Gathering of the Clans and Fisherman's regatta. The Pugwash area, and indeed, the entire north shore of Nova Scotia, is famed for its warm waters and sandy beaches. Some claim the waters in summer here are the warmest waters north of the Carolinas in the United States.

The creation of pewter crafts and souvenirs is another important industry in Pugwash. The village has an elementary school, named after Cyrus Eaton, as well as a regional highschool that draws students from around rural Cumberland County.