The Maple Leaf Forever

We are travelling to the nation's capital and beyond at the moment, just before the 150th birthday celebrations. Everywhere you look there are maple leaves! Here are some to make your heart glow. The maple leaf flag atop the Peace Tower of Parliament is an obvious choice. A giant marbled leaf is painted on a staircase… Read More

Expo 67 Revisited

To celebrate our Centennial Year in 1967, Canada produced perhaps the last really great World's Fair. It was wildly popular, so fifty years ago the chances are good you would have been planning your visit to Expo67 in Montreal. Sheila still has the most desirable piece of Expo memorabilia, her Passport. Man and His World… Read More

My Centennial Project

How's the Sesquicentennial working out for you? I notice people making fun of the Canada 150 celebrations, but I'm assured by friends that there is excitement in the air. I do treasure my free Parks Canada pass! This got me thinking about 1967 when we had all the feelings about Canada's big birthday. Went looking… Read More

Halifamous, One Notice at a Time

So the other Saturday I did a long walk from north to downtown because it was Open City, when we are encouraged to be tourists in our own town. Let's see what shiny objects attracted my attention. Since we are fixated on height, it was fun to acknowledge some one-story buildings.  And wasn't the sky pretty. [caption id="attachment_6560"… Read More

What’s so special about Vorarlberg?

What stories should a region tell, to explain themselves to strangers? A small state in Austria has chosen to tell the world about its high-quality modern architecture. And there is a lot. Vorarlberg borders Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, has a population under 400,000 and is about half the size of Prince Edward Island. Yet, since the 1960s the… Read More

Gaspereau in the Gaspereau

In a world where traditions are disappearing every day, it was exhilarating to recently visit the gaspereau fishing operation of Chris and Colin Gertridge. The brothers are the sixth generation to catch this small relative of the herring each spring on the banks of the aptly named Gaspereau River. Gaspereau are also called alewives and on… Read More

Why do they hate us?

Have you noticed the heated comments about the site for a new Outpatient Centre (here is an example on Halifax Examiner)?  When I heard that the facility would be built in Bayers Lake Business Park it felt like an insult. Bayers Lake is a soulless wasteland that makes no attempt to actually welcome people. Sort of like… Read More

Roll on Big Pijinuiskaq, roll on.

Recently we made a quick trip to Bridgewater and were delighted to see that the main street had been put back together and the adjacent riverside park had been completed. When I posted a blog last summer much of the downtown was dug up for infrastructure renewal and there was a sense that folks were feeling a… Read More

Out and About in Springtime

Hibernation has ended! Time to get out of the burrow and look at the tiny wonders in the world around you. Here are a few things we noticed over the Easter weekend. It was cool and drizzly in Kentville's Miner's Marsh park for our Sunday morning walk, but we were cheered on by a chorus of bird song.… Read More