a pilot project to investigate this alternative method of generating electricity. To date, it is so far the only working tidal power plant in North America. The generating station has created tangible environmental changes in water and air temperatures in the area, siltation patterns in the river, and increased erosion of the river banks on both sides of the dam, but after more than three decades of operation it seems to have proved viable on the whole. The rising tourism industry of recent decades has stimulated some commercial growth, and widespread broadband Internet availability in the town has attracted entrepreneurial residents from other parts of Canada and farther abroad. In 1984 Annapolis Royal elected the first female Black mayor in Canada, Daurene Lewis. Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Annapolis Royal 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. Theatre The Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia served as the cradle for both French and English language theatre in Canada. Le Théâtre de Neptune, a pageant written by Marc Lescarbot for performance at the Port-Royal Habitation in 1606, was the first European theatre production in North America. The tradition of English theatre in Canada, also started at Annapolis Royal. The tradition at Fort Anne, Nova Scotia, was to produce a play in honour of the Prince of Wales's birthday. Prior to Paul Mascarene's productions, the Boston Gazette (4–11 June 1733) reported that George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer was produced on Saturday, 20 January 1733 by the officers of the garrison to mark the Prince's birthday. Paul Mascarene translated Molière's La Misanthrope and then staged at least two productions of the work during the winter of 1743-1744. The second performance on 20 January 1744 had also coincided with celebrations in the colony to mark the birthday of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The text of the first three acts is contained in the Mascarene papers, British Library. And four years after the Mascarene production, on 20 January 1748, Major Phillips and Captain Floyer also produced a play in honour of the Prince's birthday. Unfortunately, the Boston News Letter (3 March 1748) fails to indicate the title of the play. It does reveal, however, that the same play was staged a second time