Why are the towns in Nova Scotia named the same?
Amazing geographical discoveries or how to confound those traveling in Canada.
How treacherous the road can sometimes be! Michael vander Putten of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, saw this phrase confirmed when he once met a traveler who was lost in space and time. The traveler had planned to visit Cole Harbour, but he was on a different road and was hundreds of kilometers away from the right place:
"It was getting late in the day and that person had to turn around and go all the way back to Halifax, which was, from here, 300 kilometres. So yeah, that was an eye-opener for him."
A confusing maze of names
According to the Nova Scotia place name database, there are approximately 2000 communities in the province, among which 78 names are repeated, giving a total of 178 identical settlements. Pleasant Valley occurs as many as five times! The list of repetitions includes four Brooklyn, four Centrevilles, four Mount Pleasants. Why did this happen?
Geoff Tobin, a representative of Service Nova Scotia, explains that many of these names were in use before they were officially adopted. Local residents have no problem with duplication, he says, as communities are often in different municipalities.
Since 1897, the process of approving official place names in Canada has been overseen by a national committee. Many sites such as Mud Lake (45 to date), Trout Lake (23) and Long Lake (59) have been renamed without consultation with local residents.
Cole Harbor is where?
In the past, vander Putten, who was in the boat trailer business, has encountered delivery errors due to similarities in names. Ironically, before moving to Nova Scotia, he also lived in Cole Harbour...in British Columbia.
Cole Harbour where vander Putten now lives is not well known to many people, but the other (but also in Nova Scotia) was made famous by hockey stars Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon. The man often has to explain to people that his Cole Harbour is a very different place.
Duplication of names is less of an issue outside of Nova Scotia, especially in western and northern Canada, where more attention has been paid to the uniqueness of names in the last hundred years. Therefore, the large number of repeated place names in the province comes as a surprise even to Canadians, let alone travelers from other countries.
