GUYSBOROUGH — The signs are out there – but many are bent, broken, incorrect or simply pointing in the wrong direction.
Now, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG) and the Guysborough District Business Partnership (GDBP) are mapping out a comprehensive plan to help more people – both inside and outside the area – get to where they want to go.
During its May 21 council session, Warden Paul Long confirmed that the municipality and the GDBP is part way through an ambitious project to overhaul its community signage – a move prompted by years of public frustration and, more recently, a surge of data pointing to navigational, informational, and tourism gaps across the region.
“Ashley [GDBP Executive Director Ashly Cunningham Avery] has informed us that that first phase is pretty well completed on where they’re going to be,” Long told councillors.
“It will take some time to get them all fabricated. There’s [at least] 10 different categories of signs – highway signs, civic numbers, community entry signs and so on. So, it’s quite a project to take on.”
The effort covers municipal welcome signs, but could also include wayfinding markers for facilities, trails, public buildings, and community focal points.
But, if anyone thinks this is a straightforward job of digging holes and planting poles, Long said: think again.
“It’s not an easy thing to say, ‘okay, we’re going to replace the sign’,” he told council. “There’s so many details – size of the sign, the colour, making sure you have the right information. If it’s a community, in what year [did it] originate? We discovered it’s not exactly the right year for some of them.”
During a follow-up interview on May 31, Long elaborated on the challenges, noting that tourism-related confusion is real and measurable.
“I chatted with a representative of a company [recently] who said they were coming to the Maritimes for their summer vacation,” he said. “They’re ... asking, ‘Where’s Guysborough?’ And you have to say, ‘Well, in order for you to come see us, you have to kind of go off the beaten track.’ If we don’t have the proper information out there – improved website, better signage – all those things, then people are passing you by.”
Some already have. At council, Long reported that one of the major signs along the highway near Monastery was stolen two years ago. In at least one sea bound community, District 6 Councillor Susan Cashin said “people get lost in the fog.”
Though the initiative is still in its early stages, a tentative completion target is already on the books. “Hopefully, by the end of next year, they’ll have them all completed and done,” said Long.
That timeline may prove optimistic. But, in a municipality where a missing apostrophe can confuse a map and misdirect a traveller, the push to clarify where you are – and how you got there – may be one of the clearest directions for MODG in recent times.
