Media Coverage

Letter: Could Owls Head follow Trump’s Scottish template?

This American promised 6,000 jobs, a five-star hotel with 450 rooms, shops, a sports complex, time-share flats and two golf courses.

The reality? There is currently one golf course, open about 6-7 months, a practice range, a small clubhouse and renovated house with 16 rooms. Locals insist that they were deceived, their nearby sand dunes and plant life endangered and their peaceful existence irrevocably ruined.

Although this is the story of Donald Trump’s foray into Scotland, it could easily be the fate of Owls Head on the Eastern Shore.

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By Save Owls Head, ago

Group urges Rankin to revisit Owls Head property sale decision

“We are hoping that once Iain Rankin is sworn in as premier, he will reverse his decision on the sale of Owls Head Provincial Park,” said Sydnee McKay, who now lives in Gaetz Brook, 40 kilometres west of Little Harbour, where she grew up next to Owls Head on the Eastern Shore.

“His (Rankin’s) motto is listen, learn and lead so we are hoping he will listen to the thousands of Nova Scotians and the scientific data about the ecological values of the park and put it back on the Parks and Protected Areas Plan with a full designation as a provincial park,” said McKay, whose 89-year-old mother still lives near Owls Head, along with her brothers, aunts and uncles.

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By Save Owls Head, ago

Jim Vibert: Rankin brings ambitious plan to build back better

Protecting parks

Rankin has early opportunities, particularly on environmental files, to burnish his bona fides.

He’s committed to protecting the 100-plus places in the Parks and Protected Areas plan that have yet to be designated for protection. Early action to move those sites along in the process would help cement his environmental credentials.

And, if he includes the controversial Owl’s Head land, which the McNeil government surreptitiously removed from the list to make way for a proposed golf resort, among the areas for protection, he’ll send a loud message that when he balances potential economic activity and the environment, the environment stands a fighting chance. That hasn’t been common in these parts.

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By Save Owls Head, ago

JIM VIBERT: Finally, Nova Scotia hits land protection landmark, barely

All the sites in the Parks and Protected Areas plan – including the 20 announced this week – got there after extensive consultation, so the places in question have already cleared that hurdle once.

Plus, most folks living near those sites will likely be surprised to learn that they aren’t already protected, just as folks on the Eastern Shore were shocked to learn that Owl’s Head provincial park wasn’t a park at all, but prime real estate for a golf resort.

The Liberal government surreptitiously removed Owl’s Head from the Parks and Protected Areas list a couple of years back to clear the way for a golf development, unleashing a firestorm of protest that still rages on.

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By Save Owls Head, ago
view of Owls Head shoreline

Letter: Owls Head, It Takes a Village

The McNeil/Rankin  “Sweetheart Deal for Owls Head” (Cooperator, December 2020) is an insult to all Nova Scotians, starting with Little Harbour residents like me.

Do they think we are a bunch of backward hillbillies? The citizens of Nova Scotia do not have to stand back and allow an American billionaire, Beckwith Gilbert, working behind closed doors with the former Minister of Lands and Forestry Iain Rankin, to destroy Owls Head Provincial Park and its rare ecosystem, all for just a few pennies.

Take the outrageously low selling price for hundreds of acres and miles of ocean front: $216,000. I paid more than that 6 years ago for less than an acre when we bought our property in Little Harbour. And Rankin let Lighthouse Links, Beckwith’s company, pay an appraiser to come up with this low estimate?

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By Save Owls Head, ago