Our band name, Shag Harbour, was suggested by a friend of a friend. The more we said and heard it, the more we liked it. So here we are and there it tis’. Our original name, Good-ta-Go, was abandoned because we feared it would conflict with another band in Ottawa, whose spelling created similar pronunciation.

The Shag Harbour band logo was designed by a friend of the band. The Celtic knot (top center) signifies a musical tie to that genre of music, which of course is a big part of our East Coast musical content. The contoured shapes above and below the name are somewhat similar to the outline of a space ship (Shag Harbour is also home of a UFO sighting in October of 1967). The left and right sides are open, signifying our ability to be open-minded and flexible in music genre choices.

Shag Harbour is not just a band name. It is also a small fishing village on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada, about 68 kilometers from Yarmouth, in rural Shelburne County. It is so small that it rarely appears on most maps, but if you find Clark’s Harbour and Cape Sable Island, you’re in the right area.

A “shag”, from which Shag Harbour gets its name, is a bird, a cormorant, and the double-crested cormorant which seems to be the most common in the area. Fish and shellfish are also numerous in the Shag Harbour area, and their gathering is a major means of livelihood there. Years ago, pirates operated along this coastline and preyed on American vessels to the south. Probably the most famous buried treasure in the world, the “Money Pit” of Oak Island, is a little further north, in Mahone Bay near the provincial capitol of Halifax. There’s a lot of folklore attached to the villages and islands along the south coast of Nova Scotia. Stories of sea serpents and ghosts and mysterious ghost ships are abundant.

In Shag Harbour, usually at any time of day during the week in the summer, you can see fishing boats unloading at the local wharves. The lobster season starts here on the last Monday of November and goes until the last day of May, and the fishing season lasts for all year, however, most fish only from June to November. During the summer most either fish or harvest Irish moss. The biggest source of income in the area is the Fishing Industry.

On a fine day you can see 5 lighthouses from the observation tower at the Chapel Hill Museum, Shag Harbour.

If you are hungry and would like something to eat, you can try Bonnie’s Takeout, which specializes in seafood.

Other areas that are of interest to vacationers are Peggy’s Cove (crash site of Swiss Air Flight 111), The Cabot Trail, Brier Island, Annapolis Valley , Halifax and Dartmouth.