Antigonish is town located in the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The town was incorporated in 1889 and has a population of 4754. It is the county seat of Antigonish County and the episcopal seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish. The town is home to St. Francis Xavier University and the oldest continuous highland games in North America. # The name Antigonish is of Mi'kmaq origin and is believed to refer to the place where tree branches are torn off by bears gathering beech nuts. The first European settlement took place in 1784 when Colonel Timothy Hierlihy received a large land grant surrounding Antigonish Harbour. Hierlihy and his party founded a settlement called Dorchester, named in honour of Sir Guy Carleton, Governor of Canada, and subsequently Lord Dorchester. In 1796 a local settler, with the assistance of a native guide, blazed a trail from Antigonish Harbour to Brown's Mountain, using the shortest route. This trail became a guide for travelers and eventually evolved into a winding Main Street. By the late 1820s, Dorchester was commonly referred to as Antigonish. St. Francis Xavier University was founded in 1853 and moved to Antigonish, from Arichat, Cape Breton, in 1855. It was originally a Catholic seminary. St. Francis Xavier was granted full university powers in 1866 by an act of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. The local newspaper, The Casket, was first published on January 1, 1861. The first Antigonish Highland Games were held in 1863 to raise funds for the construction of St. Ninian's Cathedral. Sydney County was renamed Antigonish County in 1864.

New Glasgow is the largest town in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is situated on the banks of the East River, which flows into the Northumberland Strait, and which was once a commercial trade route. New Glasgow together with the neighbouring towns of Stellarton, Westville, Trenton, and Pictou make up the province's fourth largest urban area. Deacon Thomas Fraser first settled the area that would become New Glasgow in 1784. It was officially named "New Glasgow", after Old Glasgow in Scotland, in 1809, the same year its first trading post was developed. In 1840, George MacKenzie started the town’s first shipbuilding company, which eventually built or owned 34 vessels. Hundreds of ships have since been built along the East River. Scottish immigrants, including those on the Ship Hector in 1773, heavily settled the area.