At the end of October, just before the time changed for the last time (fingers crossed), Sheila was getting a haircut and I had about an hour to ramble in the central north of Halifax. The low sun provided a particular light quality. You'll see. On the corner of Agricola at West, sunlight fell through… Read More

Have you been bold enough to travel since the plague descended upon us? In September we made our first and only venture outside of Nova Scotia, to attend a wedding in New York State (congratulations, Hannah and Nick). An extra treat was visiting three special sites with similar themes: all are located on large tracts… Read More

It hadn't occurred to me that maybe I might have something to say on the occasion of the passing of our Queen. But as I listened to commentators marvel at how the world had changed over her long reign I realized that some of my earliest memories are associated with the monarchy. They are not… Read More

Every summer we like to spend a moment or two in Annapolis Royal and renew our acquaintance with that very special cultural landscape. Like the store says, there's lots of variety. This year views of the Annapolis Basin were looking particularly sublime. It is a vista that has not changed much since the area was… Read More

In the 1860s the commercial gentry of Halifax filled the downtown with palaces of business constructed in a style reminiscent of the palazzos of merchant princes of renaissance Florence, Rome or Venice. This flamboyant Italianate style of architecture was a display of wealth and power at a moment of prosperity in the city.  In early… Read More

Sheila and I keep a soft-sided mental list of areas around town that would be good to walk. Many of these are districts we drive through but have no reason to experience on foot. Here are notes from one of those rambles. On a sunny Sunday morning we started with brunch at the atmospheric Armview.… Read More

On Sunday I wandered downtown for the first time in a while. The city was surprisingly busy and everything felt somehow bigger. Can't explain that. Here's some other things noticed. The Granville Street side of the Dennis Building is trussed with a giant steel structure that reminds us of a time when engineering could be… Read More

Here's a group of images taken in 1976-77 of the upper stories of buildings in the business blocks of Barrington Street. It was a confusing, liminal period when the street was changing; we could still remember when it was a vibrant commercial district, but the future was unclear. Yet if you looked above the tawdry,… Read More

In the 1970s I kept returning to the intersection of Barrington and Spring Garden to take pictures of the three iron fences that line the corner where two of our historic commercial streets meet. My favourite of the fences, in front of St. Matthews, has a row of flowers that could easily be converted to… Read More

This collection is photos taken in Halifax in the 1970s, of buildings on Barrington Street heading north from South Street. In the 19th century this was Pleasant Street, the road to Point Pleasant. A brick building at the corner of Barrington and South never seemed to attract much attention. I think it might have housed… Read More