- Farhad Vladi’s Connection To Cape Negro
By Andrew Macdonald
Man about Halifax & Hamburg & New Zealand, the latter where he raises sheep on an island, but does not slaughter them has a connection to last fall’s sale of Cape Negro.
Farhad Vladi, who rents and sells islands across the globe and has been selling Nova Scotia islands since 1976 is connected to the sale of Cape Negro.
NS Nature Trust bought Cape Negro last September.
“The owners of Cape Negro had been friends from Nova Scotia and the U.S. Royal LePage office was involved as a broker and the Nature Trust has bought the island for a fair market price. The island was not donated,” Vladi tells The Macdonald Notebook.
Piping Plover chick (Credit: Scott Leslie)
Shelburne County’s Cape Negro. (A for Adventure)
“The Nova Scotia Nature Trust announced the largest acquisition of privately owned coastline in the province’s history. They celebrated both the successful purchase of Cape Negro Island, one of the province’s largest coastal islands, and a deal to acquire the adjacent Blanche Peninsula, one of the best remaining coastal wilderness opportunities of its size in the province. In all, the Nature Trust will add nearly 1,034 hectares (2,556 acres) to Nova Scotia’s coastal legacy,” said the Nature Trust.
Canadian Warbler. (Credit: Steve McGrath)
Cape Negro Island Saved
“The first remarkable and much-needed win for coastal conservation is Cape Negro Island, one of the province’s largest coastal islands at 317 hectares (784 acres), located at the southwest tip of Nova Scotia. This scale of undeveloped, intact coastal habitats is rare, and beyond size, the island is highly significant ecologically,” said the Trust.
“Comprised of two markedly different landscapes linked by a sand bar, the island provides important habitat for a diversity of birds, including many migratory, nesting and overwintering species. The island also holds historic and cultural value, once supporting a year-round community including dozens of homes, a church and a school, still evident in the remnant foundations, rock walls, roads and cemeteries. Local community members on the mainland have expressed their happiness that the island, privately owned and at risk of development, is now protected forever, and available for future generations to enjoy and to help steward.”
The Nature Trust is supporting the renaming of Cape Negro Island, through a provincial derogatory placename process. The protected area will be known by the new island name.
Cape Negro Island’s protection was made possible by the Government of Canada through the Natural Heritage Conservation Program (Land Trust Conservation Fund), the Nova Scotia Crown Share Land Legacy Trust, and generous community donations.
Cape Negro Antique Map
Farhad Vladi, who also operates a mapping store on Lower Water Street called Maps & More, which also retails original antique maps and also sells economy scale reproductions, has a 17th-century map of Cape Negro.
It was part of the 2024 antique map calendar Vladi gave out to his business confreres.
“As to Cape Negro.: we did the calendar to highlight the antique maps and we are showing that in the 17th century the cartographers were able to map even islands without having balloons, satellites, planes or Google-earth at hand. Everything was done by looking from a ship or walking around the coastline (coastline with no infrastructure at that time),” explains Vladi.
“We were highlighting Nova Scotia with Cape Negro as an extraordinary Mapping-Example.”
Cape Negro antique map – original and reproductions for sale at Maps and More, a Farhad Vladi retail shop at Summit Building on Lower Water Street. The map was produced in the 17th century. (Maps and More image).
Halifax-Hamburg business leader Farhad Vladi operates a tourist map and antique maps store, Maps and More on Lower Water Street. He is shown in this picture with a Halifax map from 1880. (The Notebook).
