In 1784 Sydney County, Nova Scotia was created by carving it out of Halifax County. Then in 1836 Sydney County was broken up into the two counties known to us today as Antigonish and Guysborough. This website offers a point of view to the area once known as Sydney County from someone who comes from away. Although I am an outsider (currently living in North Carolina) I have developed a deep affection for the eastern most part of mainland Nova Scotia and I consider it my home away from home. I became aware of Guysborough and then Antigonish counties back in 1973 when I bought 5 acres of land in the Tor Bay area. Since then I have visited the area more than a dozen times and have experienced much of what this region has to offer. And still, with each trip, many new points of interest have revealed themselves to me and without exception - I have always started to plan my next trip while on the flight back home.
Today, Guysborough and Antigonish counties are connected not only by their shared history and adjacency but also by the economic burdens of outmigration and being off of Nova Scotia’s beaten tourism path. Since I frequently speak of these two counties as a single entity it has become convenient for me to refer to them as Sydney County. And in keeping with a long standing tradition of reductive monikers - think SoHo (South of Houston Street in NYC) or J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez) – I have found it even more convenient to reduce Sydney County to SyCo.
Antigonish and Guysborough counties regularly rank at or near the bottom in tourism revenue in Nova Scotia. Perhaps the biggest hindrance to more tourism dollars is the stiff competition that SyCo gets from the rest of the province and the rest of Atlantic Canada. It is hard to lure tourism dollars away from places within Nova Scotia like Halifax, Lunenburg, Peggy’s Cove, the Cabot Trail and Fortress Louisburg – plus the rest of the Maritimes; New Brunswick, PEI, the Magdalen Islands and , Newfoundland. But in Sydney County you will find a wide variety of landscapes and plenty of empty beaches to comb, trails to hike, rivers, lakes, estuaries, and bays for water related activities along with a wide range of museums and cultural amenities within reach.
In my opinion Sydney County is a genuine vacation destination. This website is dedicated to bringing awareness to the pristine natural beauty and many cultural and historical sites that Sydney County has to offer. And I should note that all my SyCo trips have proven to be good for my sanity.