Pictou and Antigonish Counties are located on the northern coast of mainland Nova Scotia, across the Northumberland Strait from Prince Edward Island. The largest communities in the area are Antigonish, New Glasgow, and Pictou. The earliest inhabitants of the area were the Mi'kmaq, from whom both counties received their names. The first Europeans to arrive were French traders and missionaries who established fishing and fur trading stations in the mid-17th century. This French presence led Acadians to establish settlements in the area. These were abandoned in the aftermath of the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755, but many exiled Acadians eventually managed to return to the province. In 1762, some of them established the community of Pomquet, near Antigonish. The next year six families and several slaves from the American Colonies sailed into Pictou Harbour aboard the Betsey to take possession of a large land grant owned by the Philadelphia Company. These early American settlers were soon joined, in 1773, by nearly two hundred Highland Scots who arrived aboard the Hector. More Scottish immigrants soon followed and settled along the Northumberland coast. To see a map of the area, click here.

In 1783 the American Revolution ended and the population of the area grew as both Loyalists and former British soldiers moved north to settle. Several of these soldiers established a small community at Antigonish Harbour, naming it Dorchester, while a number of Black Loyalists settled in Tracadie. Immigration from Scotland continued and a larger community was established several miles inland from Dorchester. In 1821, the area assumed its Mi'kmaq name and was thereafter known as Antigonish. Scottish immigrants continued to arrive in large numbers between 1773 and 1830, settling first in the Pictou/New Glasgow area and then dispersing towards Antigonish. The first Scots to arrive were Presbyterians, though many later immigrants were Catholics from the Highlands and Western Islands. While some of the later arrivals were forced from their land during the Highland Clearances, most Scottish immigrants to the Northumberland shore were simply seeking a better life in the New World, and came, not only from the Highlands, but from all regions of Scotland. Throughout the period of Scottish immigration, Protestant Scots tended to populate the Pictou area, while Catholics generally settled around Antigonish and on Cape Breton Island, establishing a pattern that is still reflected in Pictou and Antigonish Counties today.

By the early 19th century, most residents of the area earned their living by farming, although many were also involved in a timber trade that flourished during the Napoleonic Wars. Along with timber went shipbuilding, an industry that was to thrive in the area for over a century. The first mines in the region were also sunk during this period. By 1820, Pictou and Antigonish were connected by road to Halifax, the provincial capital. A school, Pictou Academy, was founded in 1817; another was established in Antigonish a few years later. A university followed in 1855, when St. Francis Xavier University moved to Antigonish from Arichat, on Cape Breton Island, where it had been founded two years earlier.

In 1867, Nova Scotia joined the new country of Canada. That year also marked the completion of a rail line between Pictou and Truro, which linked north-eastern Nova Scotia and Halifax. According to Patrick Walsh's The History of Antigonish, the population of the area (including Cape Breton Island and Guysborough County, as well as Pictou and Antigonish) had grown in a century to over 140,000, of which more than 93,000 were Scots. There were also 15,000 French Acadians, nearly 15,000 Irish, and slightly over 10,000 English. No mention is made of either Blacks or Loyalists, however, and a mere 735 Mi'kmaq are recorded, making the veracity of these figures—including the large number of Scots—rather questionable. Nevertheless, the region was heavily Catholic; while Nova Scotia as a whole was 44% Catholic, this percentage was 55% in the northeast.

The last four decades of the 19th century were ones of continued population growth as new immigrants arrived to work in the coal mines, which began to expand in the 1860s. New communities, including Thorburn, were established as mining, and, in the 1880s, steel, began to dominate the economy of the region. By the beginning of the First World War, New Glasgow was producing half of all the steel used in Canada. While industrial growth brought prosperity, it also brought hardship. Nearly 120 men died in mine explosions between 1873 and 1885, and the standard of living in mining communities lagged behind the rest of the region. These conditions led, in 1883, to the formation of the Provincial Workmen's Association (PWA), one of the first trade unions in Canada. In 1887, the PWA went on strike for 18 weeks and succeeded in defeating a company attempt to reduce wages. Soon after, miners in Stellarton started the first co-operative store in Canada. While much of the industrial growth was taking place in Pictou Co., Antigonish was also experiencing an increase in population, as the railroad, small industry, and the expanding university brought new people to the town.

The end of the First World War saw the industrial expansion of the previous decades slow considerably, and the period was marked by labour strife. One six-month strike in 1925 at the Acadia mine saw workers eventually accept an 8% wage cut. Meanwhile, in Antigonish, two priests attached to St. F.X. began what came to be known worldwide as the Antigonish Movement. Through the vehicle of the Extension Department of the university, Dr. J.J. Tompkins and Dr. Moses Coady organized co-operatives, unions, and adult schools in rural communities on both the mainland and Cape Breton Island.

One of the immigrants who came to the region in the 1870s was Montrealer Louis Rice, who started a photography studio in New Glasgow. The studio was purchased around 1890 by G.R. Waldren, who soon opened a second studio in Antigonish. For close to five decades, Waldren documented the people and places of north-eastern Nova Scotia. He took photos of many groups, including townspeople and their rural counterparts, the descendants of Scots and Black Loyalists, and later immigrants. He took hundreds of photographs at the Eastern Car Company: opened in 1913, Eastern Car exported its rail cars around the world. He also took portraits--of individuals, teams, teachers, and graduating classes--at St. F.X. and at Mount St. Bernard, the girl's school adjacent to the university campus. When, the region sent its men to war, Waldren Studios took their photos. He captured Nova Scotians at work and at play, documenting the industry of the region while also taking group portraits of the many lodge groups, fraternal organizations, religious communities, trade unions, musical groups and sports teams that were active in the area. Waldren died in 1939, the year that also brought the beginning of the Second World War. The business was taken over by Corson MacKenzie. MacKenzie continued to take photos and his family continues in the business to this day.