Pugwash, Nova Scotia Pugwash, Nova Scotia Pugwash (2012 population: 736) is a village in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Canada. The village is home to fishing, salt mining, and small-scale manufacturing and is situated on the Northumberland Strait at the mouth of the Pugwash River. Pugwash takes its name from the native Mi'kmaq word, "Pagweak," meaning "Shallow Water", in reference to a reef near the mouth of the harbour, making navigation through the shallow waters difficult. Pugwash sits atop a salt deposit measuring 457.2 m thick and is home to the largest underground salt mine in Atlantic Canada, with shipments from its port, as
Pugwash, Nova Scotia well as by rail from a facility at Oxford Junction. Pugwash is famous for being the site of an international conference of scholars organized by Bertrand Russell in 1957, and hosted by Pugwash's native son, steel magnate Cyrus Eaton (1883–1979), at the lodge on property owned by the Pugwash Park Commission located at the north end of Water Street in the village. This conference brought high-level scientists from both sides of the Cold War divide to state their opposition to nuclear weapons. This meeting was a follow-up to an earlier statement of notables whose signatories had included Albert Einstein and