What’s in a name?
The statue of Edward Cornwallis that used to stand in a Halifax park.
Sometimes things get named in Nova Scotia by combining two words.
What should we call this place?
Well, there’s a bridge. And some water. How about “Bridgewater?”
Or:
See that valley over there by the Northwest Arm?
I wouldn’t call it a valley. I’d call it a dale. A dale by the Arm. An “Armdale,” if you will.
Or:
What should we name this city?
I’m not sure. Say, is that a dart in your mouth?
When I was kid I thought Cornwallis Junior High was named that way because that’s where a Corn Wall is. Turns out it got its moniker by another common method we use here, naming a place or thing after a genocidal imperialist (See Amherst).
Confession: it’s now Halifax Central Junior High but I sometimes call it “Cornwallis” out of habit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those Proud Boys. If anything, I’m more of an Ashamed Man. It’s just that I went to school at Gorsebrook (“Hey, there’s gorse near that brook!”) and Cornwallis was a rival, a rival that crushed us at every sport. Plus everyone there seemed to do a ton of drugs though we drank more. (The crossing guard on Oakland Road would buy some of our students booze, a detail I put in a Corner Gas episode, for those of you who might give a crap.)
I don’t care that much about dead people being honoured for basically doing their job, but some people around here really carry a tiki torch for Edward Cornwallis, founder of Halifax. We had a statue of him and it was taken down, at least temporarily. It sits now in a warehouse in Burnside, its final resting place to be determined. People in the Make Nova Scotia Great Again camp want the statue returned, or even put in a place of higher prominence.
Others think it should be shot into space, directly into the sun.
OK, that’s just me.
More practically, and since we don’t know what Cornwallis really looked like, why don’t we say it’s a statue of someone else and give it to that person? Councillor Matt Whitman won’t shut up about the statue, so why not pawn it off on him?
We could tell Whitman it’s a statue of him going out for Halloween dressed up as an 18th-century genocidal imperialist. Sounds plausible.
If that doesn’t work, maybe David Hendsbee has the right idea. Hendsbee is the deep thinker on Council who made the point, while defending Cornwallis, that there was only one perfect guy in history and we crucified him.
I had no idea that Matthew McConaughey was crucified. Maybe that’s why I don’t see those weird Lincoln commercials anymore and there’s no talk of a Dallas Buyer’s Club sequel. Oh wait, maybe Hendsbee was talking about Jesus. I’m always getting guys with great abs mixed up.
Anyway, Hendsbee thinks the statue should be near the harbour. I agree, almost. I think the statue should be in the harbour. Just drop it off one of the bridges.
Then, as a bonus, we could change the name of Halifax Harbour, to Statuebasin (Because there would be a statue in the basin, not because we’re naming it after that infamous genocidal imperialist, Franklin Statuebasin)!
This story was originally published in Halifax Magazine.
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