HALIFAX — Nova Scotians are struggling to get their hands on salt and other abrasives to cope with ice after this weekend’s storm turned many driveways into skating rinks.
Signs that say “no salt, no sand” can be seen at many hardware stores, and sellers on Facebook Marketplace are selling bags of salt at inflated prices.
Andrew Woodworth from Falmouth, N.S., said he drove about 100 kilometres on Sunday in hopes of finding salt to spread on his elderly father-in-law’s slippery driveway, to no avail.
"He can't get in the driveway, can't get up the stairs to the house. So I went on a hunt and looked everywhere," he said in an interview Monday.
Salt was sold out near his home, and a hardware chain's website indicated it had more than 300 bags of salt at its location in Stewiacke, N.S., but when he showed up there was no salt left. As of Monday afternoon, Woodworth said he was still on the lookout for salt or sand.
Dan Kennedy, the owner of Route 7 Excavating in Porters Lake, N.S., said he and his team decided to dig up some traction sand from under a layer of ice and make it available for free.
“There’s obviously a huge need for it, and it’s not a big deal for me to be able to do this for the community. I mean, we live here, we’re part of the community … so we want to help out," Kennedy said in an interview Monday.
Nova Scotia was hit by a combination of snow, ice pellets and freezing rain Sunday. By Monday morning, Kennedy said, it became clear that salt and sand were in high demand.
“We heard the local hardware stores were all out of salt. We have a commercial guy that comes here to spread sand, and he told us the supply of crusher dust — a fine rock gravel — and salt has dried up. People can’t get any more until tomorrow," he said.
In the first two hours after posting about the free sand on social media Monday morning, about 300 cars had pulled into the property, and by 3:30 p.m. nearly all of the 45 tonnes of sand put out for residents had been claimed.
Photos posted to social media over the weekend show long lineups at hardware stores and residents with shopping carts filled to the brim with bags of road salt. A number of ads on Facebook Marketplace offered salt at well above retail price.
Woodworth said he can appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit of reselling salt, but after a storm like the one that hit Nova Scotia, "it's the time when people should be considering others."
"To be good Canadians and Nova Scotians is to be looking out for each other and be taking only what we need," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2025.
Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press
