The Harbour, owned by the Federal Government, has four deep water berths at Pictou and two at Pictou Landing, which, with the railway tracks  passing through the length of the large freight shed facing the Intercolonial Main Pier and Acadia Coal Company piers, gives it excellent shipping facilities. In order to make its water communication still better with towns further inland, the government has dredged the East River to a depth of 21 feet as far as Trenton with a turning basin 450 feet wide near where the Plant of the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company is located (Trenton Locks).  A lock 638 feet long, 55 feet wide and 22 feet deep is in course of construction, which, when completed, will not only bind the towns along the East River more closely to Pictou, but greatly increase its importance as an ocean port, the business of which amounted in the past year to more than $4,000,000.00 the largest it has ever had.

    Pictou has daily boat communication with Charlottetown through out the year, and a twice-a-week service with the other P. E. I. ports, as well as the Magdalen Islands, calling at all its principal places.  Boats also ply between Arisaig, Port Hood, Mulgrave and Cheticamp eastward, and to Quebec, Montreal, and intermediate points westward fortnightly, while a steamer runs daily to New Glasgow and all trains are met by boat to and from Pictou Landing, in addition to ferries, which run every hour.

RAILWAYS

    Pictou is the Government Railway terminus for the railway lines from Halifax and the Short Line from Oxford Junction.  the railway property, comprises about 25 acres of land.  On it are located the large freight shed facing the water front, a round house with nine stalls, enriched by beautiful flower beds, kept up by its employees, a passenger station erected in 1904, the custom house and other buildings.  The yards have seven miles of tracks.  The water tank holds 40,000 gallons of water supplied by artesian wells and the town water works, while the latter's electrical plant furnishes the electricity which the government uses at this point.

    Fourteen passenger trains and a large number of freight trains arrive and depart daily.  By means of the line connecting it with the main line at Stellarton, and the short line joining the former at Oxford Junction, it has railway communications with all parts of Nova Scotia and points in Upper Canada and the United States.

    With the completion of the railway bridge across Pictou Harbour which is expected soon to become a reality, and a short line to Moncton via Bay Verte, Pictou's isolated position would be removed.  The distance between Pictou and Moncton would be reduced by fifty miles, and owing to better grades, the haulage capacity over the old line to Truro would be doubled.  Pictou town would then have a main line service.  Its present isolated position would be removed, and with its shipping advantages it would soon become a Divisional District and a large distribution centre for trade and commerce.

    These improvements would solve the transportation problem for both eastern and northern Nova Scotia.  It would greatly increase the mechanical, mettalurgical and mining output of the Eastern Counties, and also open new farm areas for cultivation, besides making Pictou, by reason of its location and main line services, not only a great railway center, but also a harbour of even greater importance than it enjoys to-day, to which with its railways, not only the mines of Pictou County and the manufacturing industries of New Glasgow, Stellarton and Trenton, but also a yet larger uncultivated agricultural country, along the North shore would pay a willing tribute, as the most convenient and least expensive center from which to reach the ocean ports of the world.