INSIDE STORY
BY SHELLEY CAMERON-MCCARRON PHOTOS BY STEVE SMITH, VISIONFIRE STUDIOS In Nova Scotia’s Cobequid Mountains, halfway between Truro and Tatamagouche, Kayla Conoley and Brent Halverson are living a dream — young entrepreneurs running a very oldschool business. The couple are the proprietors of the Earltown General Store, a business serving its community from its perch just off Highway 311, at the crossroads in downtown Earltown, since the 1890s. Pull open the door to the one-and-a-half storey red-sided general store and it’s like a step back in time. Inside, shelves that groan with beckoning baked goods, have a gingerbread detail work you wouldn’t find today. The floor is “quite wavy,” laughs Kayla, 32, who’s run the store with her partner Brent for the past eight years. “It’s an old building and it’s shifting with the ground. “The bones of it are still intact. It looks like an old store. It has the original shelves and definitely a nostalgic feel,” she says. “It’s taken on a piecemeal vibe as different parts have been added. It’s a mix of antique, retro, and modern.”
The North Shore
ah! Summer 2021 - 22
