Halifax is a fine place, a city by the sea, full of history and culture, with a growing presence in Canada and abroad, economically resilient even in hard times. The future of those who live there looks good. But how are things elsewhere in Nova Scotia? What’s happening in the hinterland?

I live for much of the year in Queens County, on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, a 90-minute drive from the big city, down Highway 103. Those of us who’ve moved to Queens from somewhere else are called “come from aways” (sometimes with affection; sometimes not). It’s great for us: we lounge about, enjoying the rugged coastline, beautiful beaches and casual way of life. But there’s not much fun if you’re a local, needing a job, trying to run a small business or searching for a decent career.

Businesses are disappearing in Queens County. The biggest employer is still the newsprint mill, but it’s in dead trouble, with far fewer employees than a few years ago and frequently shutting down for weeks at a time. Many think it’s only a matter of time until the mill closes up for good. The second biggest employer used to be the Stenpro shipyard, which went out of business years ago. Worst of all, the fishery, which for a long time was the South Shore’s economic engine and helped define the region socially and culturally, has almost disappeared. Once there were two fish-processing plants in my village and another across the estuary; one has closed, one has been torn down and the remaining plant operates sporadically and is for sale. There used to be a procession of fishing boats passing by my house all the time, on the way out to sea or returning with a good catch. No longer. Even the mighty lobster fishery is faltering. Last season, lobster prices were the lowest they’ve been in 20 years.

What is to be done? The politicians search for a silver bullet. They have tried, with little success, to attract new businesses to the county (a telephone call centre came but is struggling). An announced, but as yet unbuilt, government-funded recreation centre is supposed to breathe new life into the region. There’s been some success in promoting tourism (a new hotel has opened), but the season is short. The general approach seems to be: hang on and wait for a miracle. But none is coming.

A solution lies under everybody’s noses. For a small and poor place, Queens County has a strong cultural life. Serious artists of all kinds live here. There are literary and music events galore. Every two years, an international theatre festival attracts theatre companies from around the world. So, the raw material exists to turn Queens County into a provincial, even a national, cultural destination. This would lead to a greatly expanded tourism industry, with new hotels and restaurants and other spinoffs, and make the region an even more attractive place for the well-heeled looking for a place to retire.

Pie in the sky? I don’t think so. Stratford, Ont., was a no-account farming community until Tom Patterson, a local journalist, founded what has become a hugely successful theatre festival that has put the town on the map — big time. Hay-on-Wye was a small town in Wales that no one had ever heard of — until it became a literary centre with more than 30 bookshops and an annual 10-day festival that attracts a 100,000 visitors from all over the world.

Richard Florida, pundit and professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, famously argues that the future of prosperity lies with the creative class. It’s just as true in Queens County, and other places in Canada like it — as in Halifax or Toronto. Culture is the magic bullet. IE