When we decided to buy our house, 25 years ago, one of the reasons was the harbour view framed by an overgrown cemetery across the road. See a few stones poking through the vegetation? That's the old refinery area of Dartmouth on the other shore. And just over to the left is the container port.…Read More

There was a time when most people in Halifax could look at the photo below and know exactly what was happening and where. Today, I'm guessing, not so much. It was taken on a Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1958, and that's 11-year-old me in the centre, leaning on a pole with my older…Read More

Let it shine In many winters we have traveled to somewhere warmer, but not this year. So let me show you some things that are brightening up our lives in this cold and dark and northern place we choose to live. Sheila and I went downtown one evening last week because I spoke some magic…Read More

In the 1970s I spent a lot of time wandering in downtown Halifax and the old South End, observing and pondering the choices people had made about the design and construction of their homes and businesses. One peculiarity, that you may well have noticed too, is that many of the oldest masonry homes in Halifax…Read More