Bid launched to rename N.S. river honouring contentious historical figure
KENTVILLE, N.S. — A debate sweeping the country over the naming of monuments and places after contentious historical figures has found a new flashpoint in rural Nova Scotia.
A Scottish immigrant has launched a bid to change the name of the Cornwallis River, a roughly 50-kilometre tidal waterway that meanders through the Annapolis Valley, as well as the name of a bridge that crosses the river.
Isobel Hamilton of Centreville, N.S., said Edward Cornwallis, the former governor of Nova Scotia who issued a bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps, also played a brutal role at the Battle of Culloden, violently suppressing the Jacobite rebellion in her Scottish homeland.
But she said her motivation isn’t about scrubbing Cornwallis’s name from history, but rather recognizing the province’s Indigenous roots.