I’m not positive this is the correct year but around 1968 or 1969, Kentville Publishing Company purchased The Acadian, Wolfville’s weekly newspaper, and shortly after started printing it as a section of The Advertiser.

While The Acadian wasn’t the first newspaper to be published in the town, it ran for over 70 years and was truly a Wolfville creation. A handful of other publications made a stab at publishing newspapers in Wolfville but for the most part, they were short-lived, some lasting less than a year.

The founder of The Acadian was Arthur Stanley Davison who was born at Long Island, Grand Pre, in 1865. Davison should be recognized as an Annapolis Valley newspaper pioneer. However, he had an abbreviated career as a publisher and also a tragically short life, dying at the age of 23.

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Writing about the old Halifax-Annapolis Road in the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society some 50 years ago, Mrs. G. R. Evans points out errors that were made when it was “relocated and marked” by officer cadets from CFB Cornwallis in 1967.

This was a commendable effort Evans wrote, but she doubted that even the best surveyors of the province “could now locate the whole course of the Halifax- Annapolis Road with any degree of accuracy.” First of all, the road which was supposed to connect Halifax with Annapolis Royal was never completed. A sign posted by the cadets noting their achievement contained an error as well, Evans noted, which attributed the wrong person as the original surveyor.

The main purpose of the Halifax-Annapolis Road was to eliminate the supposedly more difficult and longer route to Annapolis Royal via the Annapolis Valley. The fact that a route through the Valley existed and an attempt was made to provide an alternate route has led to all sorts of confusion between the old Halifax-Annapolis Road and a road known in various communities as the Canaan Road and the Nictaux Road. Despite the two names, this is one road and it isn’t the old Halifax to Annapolis highway. The confusion came perhaps because a start had been made at Annapolis Royal on the Halifax-Annapolis Road. And adding to the confusion, records indicate that a road from Annapolis Royal had also been roughed out that leads to Nictaux.

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