01/27/2026
Salt from the Pugwash mine saves lives every winter by making our roads and highways safer to drive on.
Here is the story of salt mining in Nova Scotia.
327-342 million years ago, global sea levels rose and fell many times. This repeatedly flooded Nova Scotia with what we call the Windsor Sea. Nova Scotia was near the equator at the time so the sea also evaporated repeatedly in the heat. The evaporation of sea water left deposits of successive layers of salt. This process was repeated for millions of years until the original salt beds were far below the earth’s surface. Subterranean pressures and heat compressed the salt into Nova Scotia’s huge rock salt deposits.
In pre-colonial times the existence of salt springs and brine pools in various parts of the province was known to the Mi'kmaq.
The first recorded attempt to extract salt in Nova Scotia occurred at Salt Springs, Pictou County, in 1813. A 60 metre shaft was sunk to find the source of the brine found in salt springs in the area. It was unsuccessful but a few years later a small amount of salt was produced by evaporating some brine.
Although salt deposits in Nova Scotia occur in an arc stretching across Hants, Cumberland, Pictou, Antigonish, Inverness and Cape Breton Counties, the Malagash-Nappan-Pugwash area in Cumberland County has historically been the focus of mineral development.
In 1912, farmer Peter Murray of Malagash drilled a well, looking for water for his cows. When the water came out, it melted the ice and snow around it and it tasted salty. The general belief was that salt water had seeped inland from the Northumberland Strait, which is only 1,600 feet from the Murray farm, but the water in the well was actually saltier than sea water.
Murray was disappointed – the well was useless for his cattle - but he later realized that it was perfect for pickling. He would put the water in a barrel with pork and it made great salted meat. Word got around about his salt brine and it attracted the interest of two men from New Glasgow: Robert Chambers and George Walker MacKay.
Robert Chambers (aka Bob, 1880-1937) had been an engineer at Wabana Iron Mines, Bell Island, Newfoundland - his father was the discoverer of the Wabana deposit - before becoming Manager of Ore Mines and Quarries for the Nova Scotia Steel Company (https://www.facebook.com/MiningNS/posts/828049112005286).
George Walker MacKay (1880 – 1972) was a civil engineer and had family money. His father, Forrest MacKay, was co-founder of the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company of Trenton (https://www.facebook.com/MiningNS/posts/946490210161175).
In 1917 Chambers convinced MacKay that searching for salt at Malagash was worth a try. The two formed a partnership and while Chambers remained in the employ of the Nova Scotia Steel Company, MacKay oversaw the drilling of test holes. A shaft was sunk and on Labour Day, 1918, the first salt was hoisted. Soon they were taking out salt at a rate of 30-40 tons a day. Horse wagons hauled the salt to the nearest rail point, eight miles away.
Malagash was Canada's first rock salt mine. Until then all Canadian salt came from evaporating salt brine.
The mine has a great origin story but running it was hard. It didn’t produce a reasonable profit for over two decades. At one point a majority of the company’s directors wanted to cease operating but MacKay and Chambers personally borrowed $50,000 from the Bank of Nova Scotia to purchase Malagash Salt Bonds and keep the company going.
The first mill was destroyed by a fire on July 28, 1923 which started from the diesel engine that ran either the hoist or mill (there were two engines). It burned for hours and consumed the mill and headframe. Each time the miners climbed up the shaft to escape they were forced to return to the bottom, 110 feet below, until the fire burned out hours later and they could finally exit the mine.
By 1948 the mine was producing 50,000-60,000 tons of salt annually, and had its own 10-mile railway, with the salt hauled out by diesel locomotives. The company also had shipping facilities on Tatamagouche Bay, near the mine site, with a warehouse that had a capacity of over 10,000 tons. Vessels up to 3,500 tons could be accommodated.
Over the years the salt was used a variety of ways, including the preservation of food, the processing of steel for ship’s plates and in the salt-fish industry.
Robert Chambers was a pioneer in investigating and advocating the use of salt on roads, and the company eventually convinced the Government of Ontario to try it in the 1950s. Ontario became an important market for the company as the practice was adopted.
Road salt reduces crashes on winter roads by 88%, according to a study by Marquette University. Its purpose is not to melt snow, but to stop it from freezing to pavement. This makes it easier to plow. Salt works by dissolving in water and creating brine on roads that has a lower freezing temperature than pure water.
With the deposit at Malagash being nearly exhausted, the company explored for other deposits, eventually finding a massive deposit in Pugwash. Work on a shaft in Pugwash began in 1954 and the mine there opened in 1959, the same year the Malagash mine shut down after producing two million tons of salt.
The Pugwash mine is still in operation, providing all of Nova Scotia’s road salt and keeping Nova Scotians safe each winter.
Salt brine was also discovered in a well at Nappan, just west of Amherst, in 1927. It was thought initially that the location might produce oil, but drilling was unproductive. Later tests uncovered the existence of huge underground salt deposits instead and these have been worked by solution mining since 1947. In this process, hot water is pumped into drill holes under pressure and the resulting salt brine is pumped back out, then sent through a settling and evaporation process at the surface to produce a high-purity salt.
Farmer Peter Murray did eventually find a good well that provided water for his cows, but it wasn’t easy - 14 consecutive drilled wells tapped brine, not drinkable water, an indication of just how big the salt deposit in Malagash was.
People have been using salt for thousands of years. Something so important has inevitably given us a number of words, expressions and customs throughout history. See some examples at https://www.facebook.com/MiningNS/posts/889222242554639
