several national retailers including Walmart, Sobeys, Atlantic Superstore, Canadian Tire, Kent Building Supplies, Giant Tiger, Dollarama, Home Hardware, and Hart, in addition to various fast food restaurants and seven auto dealerships. The Amherst Centre Mall is home to retailers Coles, Northern Reflections, Mark's, Eclipse, Charm Diamonds, Bell Aliant, Telus, and EastLink, as well as the Amherst Artisan Gallery. The heritage downtown draws visitors to speciality retailers Deanne Fitzpatrick Studio, Mrs. Pugsley's Emporium, and Birkinshaw's Tea Room. Dayle's Grand Market houses several businesses in a historic department store with a grand staircase and tin ceilings. Shops include an antique coin dealer, a vintage clothing shop, a ladies clothing and shoe store, and a collaboration of more than 100 local artisans. Sports Amherst is home of the Amherst Ramblers, a Junior A Hockey League team from the Maritime Hockey League. All home games are played out of the 2,500 seat Amherst Stadium. The season usually runs from mid-September to early March every year. The Ramblers draw some of the largest crowds in the Maritime Hockey League, and have placed third in average attendance over the past few years. They won the Atlantic Championship in 1989 advancing to the Centennial Cup tournament in BC. They also hosted the Centennial Cup in 1993 and the Fred Page Cup in 2019. Every August, Amherst hosts an eight-team little league baseball tournament, featuring four teams from New England. Climate Amherst experiences a humid continental climate (Dfb). The highest temperature ever recorded was on 18 August 1935. The coldest temperature ever recorded was on 18 February 1922. In 2020, Amherst only recorded of precipitation. Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Amherst had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. In the period between 1996 and 2006, Amherst lost over half of its Black population. The African Nova Scotian community has lived in the area since 1783, largely settled around the south end of the town in an area called Sand Hill. Notable citizens Roger Stuart Bacon, former Premier of Nova Scotia Willard Boyle, co-inventor of the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which he shared a 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics Bill Casey, politician Edward Barron Chandler, politician Robert C. Coates, politician Alex Colville, Painter George Cove, inventor