Digby has two claims to fame, and both end up on a plate. The first is scallops: the fleet here lands some of the finest in the Atlantic, and the town leans proudly into the title Scallop Capital of the World. The second is the Digby chicken, which is not poultry at all but smoked herring, once packed and shipped across the continent. Walk along the wharf and you will smell the sea, diesel and fried fish in roughly equal measure.
The town sits on the Annapolis Basin, a broad inlet of the Bay of Fundy, whose tides are the highest in the world. A twelve-metre swing is not unusual in some parts of the bay, and the fishing boats here sit on the mud at low water and float high against the quay at high water. The water enters and leaves the basin through a narrow channel known as Digby Gut, cut through the long wooded ridge of North Mountain, which shields the valley behind from the Atlantic and gives the Annapolis Valley its mild climate. Loyalists settled the town in the 1780s, and the name comes from an admiral who helped to carry them here.
For a rider, Digby offers a pleasing contrast. The coastline road along the basin curves gently with views of water and distant hills. If you head west onto Digby Neck, you ride a thin, wooded spine with water on both sides all the way to the ferries for Long Island and Brier Island, where whales feed in summer. Traffic is light and the pace is slow, which suits a bike. Conditions change quickly, so a morning that began in sunshine can end in fog, and the wind comes off the water with some force. A ferry crosses from here to Saint John in New Brunswick for those who want to skip the long road around the bay.
Digby has just over two thousand people but behaves like a bigger town in summer, with plenty of cafés, motels and fuel stations. Annapolis Royal, a short ride east, is the place where French settlers built Port-Royal in 1605, and it is worth the detour. Have the scallops, ask what is fresh, and enjoy the quiet.