Neil MacKinnon shares the story of how his donation of land on Long Island came to fruition, after more than a decade of work to ensure that his mother’s birthplace and family home would be a home for nature forever.

My grandfather on my mother’s side, John O’Handley, had a subsistence farm of about 100 acres on Long Island. My mother, the youngest of ten children, was born there and attended the little school on the Island. My grandfather died when my mother was only two years old and my grandmother eventually left the Island and moved to Boisdale when my mother was still a little girl.

My mother’s oldest brother, my Uncle Dannie, took me and my wife Valerie over to the Island in 1975. While walking the Long Island Road, which had already declined into more of a trail, he pointed to a collapsed pile of rubble and shingles and announced that “this is where your mother went to school.” Further along the trail we arrived at the foundation of the farmhouse where he, my mother, and their siblings were born. There was also the foundation of what had to be a large barn.

This visit implanted an emotional attachment to the place where my mother and her sisters and brothers were born and raised. I knew all these aunts and uncles while growing up. For example, one of her brothers had a farm in Boisdale; another in Beaver Cove, both of which are a short drive from Long Island. Another uncle and family lived in Dominion, a short distance from my childhood home in Glace Bay. Another uncle and his wife were my godparents.

Except for summer vacations, I spent my entire adult life away from Cape Breton. I moved to Ontario after high school in 1963 and obtained my BA degree from the University of Windsor in 1967. I got married the same summer and moved to the University of Illinois to attend graduate school. After receiving my PhD in 1970, I taught at the University of Minnesota for two years before deciding to move back to Canada to raise our two young daughters. I spent the rest of my academic career at the University of Guelph and continued my affiliation as Professor Emeritus upon my retirement.

I had always wanted to have a summer home in Cape Breton on or near Long Island because of my emotional attachment to the area. Uncle Dannie had ensured that the property taxes on my grandfather’s land were paid over the years with help from some of his siblings. After Uncle Dannie died, his daughter, Frances, assumed this responsibility and after a family reunion in the early 1990s I began helping her pay the taxes.

My wife and I bought a shoreline property across from Long Island in 1997 and a parcel of land of over 100 acres on the mountain across the highway and facing the Island. We were planning to build on the shoreline property but ended up buying an established house and property at the base of the mountain and across from the Island in 1998. This is when I began wondering what was to become of my grandfather’s property where my mother was born. After years of looking across to the Island from our summer home, I finally decided to do something about it around 2012. Thus began the long process of clearing the title, with the intention of eventually donating it to a land trust.

This required obtaining “quit claim” deeds from all those who had residual rights to the property. My mother and all but three children of a deceased older sister had signed over their claims to the property to Uncle Dannie in the 1970s. There were also three surviving children of Uncle Dannie. I contacted all parties and explained my plans for the Island property, after which they all graciously agreed to sign over their rights to me in 2015. After necessary surveying to determine the location and boundaries of the property, I obtained the deed in 2017. However, to firm up the Western property line before it could be migrated to the new system, I had to buy the adjoining property in 2019 from a descendent of my grandfather’s brother, Alan, who had a farm of about 100 acres contiguous to my grandfather’s property.

The surveying of the Island is a story in itself. The whole Island had to be surveyed because it had become entirely reforested. Dennis Prendergast of Island Surveys did a remarkable job. He began by obtaining aerial surveys from the late 1930s to the 1960s. The survey crew then visited the Island in 2014, 2015, three times in 2016, and once in 2017. In each case, I boated them over to the Island and often accompanied them out of interest.

As work progressed on clearing the title of my grandfather’s property, I searched online for a land trust, discovered the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, and began exploring donation of the property to this trust. I was impressed from the beginning by the professionalism and commitment of its staff. After years of working on this project, I was finally able to deed my grandfather’s property to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust in December 2025. I am continuing to work on clearing the title of my grandfather’s brother, Alan, with the intention of also donating it to the Nature Trust.

I take great comfort in knowing that the place where my mother was born will remain a forested nature reserve in perpetuity.

Neil J. MacKinnon PhD
Professor Emeritus
University of Guelph

The Nature Trust is so grateful to Neil MacKinnon for his gift of land on Long Island. Learn more about the crucial role that land donors play in our work to protect Nova Scotia’s nature.