Before Your House Was Built
Same place, different times.
What was my house doing before people arrived?
Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures may have napped in your backyard. Mastodons, too.
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23,000 years ago, your house in Halifax was covered by a kilometre of ice. 15,000 years ago, the glacier had retreated. For a slide show, go to this website, click on the Regional Deglaciation image, then click on the arrows to scroll through the images.
The land on which your house now sits was once part of the Acadian Forest Region, described in this report on old-growth forests in Nova Scotia. In the Halifax area, this forest was cleared several hundred years ago, but a few patches still exist in the province.
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Who occupied the property before my house was built?
Human settlements in the Halifax area began around 10,000 years ago, after the end of the last Ice Age. Ancestors of Mi'kmaq people moved seasonally across the land, rather than establishing a permanent settlement in one place. Halifax Harbour was originally called Jipugtug (great harbour; Kjipuktuk), later anglicized to Chebucto.​
In 1746 the British government planned a settlement on the edge of the harbour that would be called Chebucto, later changed to Halifax. The city was founded in 1749, as described in this map from 1750, which shows forested land outside the city wall, where your house is now located. This land was never ceded by the Mi'kmaq to the British.​
Public Archives of Nova Scotia
Another map from 1817–18, described in an article from the Nova Scotia Archives, shows roads leading from Halifax toward Windsor. (These roads are described in Joan Dawson, Nova Scotia's Lost Highways.) This map also shows farming in the north half of the Halifax peninsula.
The 1865 map of Halifax by A.F. Church shows roads beginning to spread across the peninsula. The 1878 City Atlas of Halifax (Hopkins Atlas) shows more roads and buildings. Property lines have been established, anticipating that houses would be built soon, but much of the peninsula is still farmland or undeveloped.
The Nova Scotia Archives has 284 historical maps of Halifax, some of which show where your house is (or will be) located. Many of them show streets, but not houses.
The best maps showing individual buildings in Halifax - including your house - are the series of fire insurance plans from 1878 to 1971. As a series, they show the gradual development of your neighbourhood. Due to copyright ownership, these maps have not been digitized, but they are available for viewing on microfilm at the Nova Scotia Archives.
Explore HRM shows your house as it is now. Go to the website, enter your address into the search field, then click on your house to see its property information.
