The New Acadian Heritage Room

 On my recent trip to Nova Scotia, I stumbled upon the grand opening of the New Acadian Heritage Room at the O’Dell House Museum in Annapolis Royal. I had not known anything about it, but was in the right place on the right day. The room is primarily a collection of maps from the Acadian period between 1686 and 1755. 

There are only about 9 maps but they are beautifully illustrated and highly detailed. Above is a photo I took from the earliest map of the French houses of Port Royal (renamed Annapolis Royal by the British for Queen Anne) and “where a considerable town can be made”. This “very exact” map is at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF) and can be seen completely online here.

Above is a detail of the fort and town from the “Plan de la riviere du Dauphin et du fort du Port Royal a l'Acadie en 1710”. Like the town, the Dauphin River was (I assume) renamed the Annapolis River when the British took control of the area. This map is also available from the BNF and can be seen here. It is worth a look to see the detailed close ups of the fort and river mouth as well as a linear depiction of the entire lower course of the river at the bottom.

Here is another nice detail of the town from a map that I did not document well enough to provide much more information on.

From the Annapolis Heritage Society Archival Collection, here is a 1744 map by “N. B. Ing De la M.”

Finally, from the same archives here is a somewhat darkly photographed “Part of North America including the Harbor of Annapolis Royal” by Nat Blackmore, 1712.

If you’re in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia and want to get your fill of historic maps, a trip to the O’Dell House is highly recommended.