Nova Scotia Archives maintains an online maps database that aggregates catalogued maps, surveys, and architectural plans across its holdings. The Oak Island search filter returns results bearing on the island and surrounding Mahone Bay across multiple periods, including eighteenth-century land surveys and grants, nineteenth-century property and survey maps tied to the various treasure-hunting companies, and twentieth-century cadastral and engineering plans.
The maps database operates as a portal into the broader Nova Scotia Archives holdings. Each search result links to the catalogue record for the specific item and, where available, a digitized image. Items not yet digitized are described at catalogue level and accessible in person at the archive's reading room.
The search-results URL is preserved here as the canonical entry point because it functions as a topic-specific finding aid rather than as a single document. Individual map records may also be catalogued separately within this Research Archive where editorial value warrants.
What this source documents
Cadastral surveys, land grants, plot maps, treasure-hunting company surveys, and architectural plans of Oak Island and Mahone Bay across the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Specific holdings vary as the database is regularly updated with new accessions and digitization work.
Why it matters
The map collection at Nova Scotia Archives is the principal repository of cartographic and survey material on Oak Island in public hands. For research questions involving lot boundaries, ownership history, the locations of past excavations, and the relationship between the island and its mainland surveys, the maps database is the necessary first stop.