 Nova Scotia's tartan was designed by Bessie Murray, the President of the Halifax Weavers' Guild, with the help of Isabel MacAulay, Canada's expert on Clan Systems, tartans and traditional Scottish wear.Isabel was owner of Bond Textiles in Yarmouth, The Tartan House in Halifax, the Gaelic College Craft Centre in St.Anne's, Cape Breton, and was once the president of the Women's Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.Bessie had originally displayed the tartan on the kilt of a shepherd in a panel at a breeders' convention in Truro in 1953, but the design was so admired that it was afterwards used as the province's tartan.