Wallace, Nova Scotia

Wallace and near-by Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia were the first villages in Acadia to be burned because they were the gateway through which Acadians supplied the French Fortress Louisbourg.

Construction of the Montreal and European Short Line Railway Company began on the north shore of Nova Scotia in 1888, with the aim being to link Oxford with Pictou and onward to a superport under consideration for Canso.

By the post-war years, Wallace's importance for marine traffic declined and its small shipping port fell into disrepair—the Canadian Coast Guard even began decommissioning its lighthouses there.

Wallace remains a small service centre for northeastern Cumberland County and has an elementary school, volunteer fire department, several stores and businesses, and a community hall.

Wallace is the birthplace of Simon Newcomb, the astronomer and mathematician, and the hometown of figure skater John Mattatall as well as the retirement residence of 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics co-winner Willard Boyle co-inventor of the charge-coupled device or the CCD imaging chip at the heart of digital cameras.