The long and winding road

In late 2017, Mapannapolis.ca attracted national attention with recognition for Excellence in History Programming by the Governor-General of Canada at an awards gala in Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

Even as Mapannapolis was still in shock but delighted just the same from this unexpected award, another phase of its volunteer-driven work already underway would prove to have an equally unexpected outcome.

The Garrison Graveyard in Parks Canada's Fort Anne National Historic Site served its communities from early in the 1600s to 1940.

Around 2,000 people are buried in the graveyard, only 234 English grave markers are standing today. A retired teacher assembled a volunteer Mapannapolis team in order to create a definitive inventory of the stones, and those whose burial sites they marked. The result was an interactive web map, a joint project of MAPANNAPOLIS and Parks Canada, featuring a search function by stone # or alphabetically by surname.

Parks Canada's Fort Anne National Historic Site , Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.

Wooden crosses had stood at the head of the earliest graves, but had not withstood the ravages of time. The presumption was that "empty" areas of the Graveyard contained these early graves, but no formal attempt had been made to determine the facts.

That is, until Boreas Heritage Consulting surveyed the “empty” area with ground-penetrating radar in November, 2018.

The invitation to the reveal. Mapannapolis and its partners announce the results of the ground-penetrating radar survey, January 30, 2019.