Nova Scotia's lesser-known historical facts revealed in new book

Did you know that Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was imprisoned in Amherst in 1917, where he made friends and gained supporters before going back to Russia?

That fact, along with 99 others, were compiled by writer and freelance journalistSarah Sawlerfor her new book titled 100 Things You Don't Know About Nova Scotia.

She's hoping the book will give people a better sense of the place they live in.

"We really have a rich history," she said.

Fun facts

Here's some more quirky facts about Nova Scotia that Sawler learned:

• Joseph Howe accepted a pistol duel challenge in Point Pleasant Park in 1840. He was actually shot at, but not hit.
• The world's oldest known hockey stick was made in Cape Breton in the 1830s.
• Victor Hugothe French author best known for his novel Les Misrables had a daughter called Adele who lived in Halifax in 1863. She snuck into the province to follow the man she loved.
• The Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia crafted eastern North America's first written signposts about 13,000 years ago.

Sawler spent a year digging for these facts with some help from the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and the reference department at Halifax Public Libraries.

And for those curious about how Trotskyended up in the Nova Scotia,Sawler'sbook says he travelling from New York to Russia when he was stopped in Halifax and interrogated.

Two Canadian detectives thought he was dangerous and threw him inprison, but hewas later released and sent off with sailors and workers playing arevolutionary march.

The book's idea

The book was born out of a 2013 article Sawler wrote for Halifax Magazine called 50 Things You Don't Know About Halifax.

"It did very well and we didn't think the response would be so huge," saidSawler, so shepitched the idea of a book to Halifax's Nimbus Publishing.

"Part of our mandate at Nimbus is to tell stories that are unknown or under-reported, so that [book pitch] was very interesting to us," says Whitney Moran, senior editor at Nimbus.

Moran said that the book is aimed at a general readership.

What next?

Sawler will be launching her book this Saturday at the Halifax Central Library.

She's hoping to do a similar book about the other Atlantic provinces at some point in the future.