Every once in a while, if I’m in the microbiology lab in A wing at Cape Breton University, I remember the late Dr. Erwin Zodrow, walking by with a fossil or microscope slide in his hand. In his last few years of research at CBU, he had a geology researchRead More

Editor’s Note: I caught myself looking rather bleakly at the snow yesterday and decided I needed a timely reminder about embracing winter, so I re-read Paul MacDougall’s 25 November 2020 piece on coping with the cold and I thought you might like to too.   There is probably as muchRead More

A few days after James is released from hospital following a terrible motor vehicle accident in JG Ballard’s novel Crash, he ventures out of his apartment for the first time. Beyond the forecourt of his building he reflects that, “the tree-lined avenue which led to the neighborhood shopping center wasRead More

This is an article about two things you may not have realized CBRM once had: an American Consul and a a film industry. From 1911 to 1924, the US State Department operated an American Consulate in Sydney (prior to this, Sydney was home to a lesser, Consular Agency). Very detailedRead More

Nearly 100 years after the Maritime Motion Picture Company (MMPC) was making movies in Sydney, local filmmakers are achieving great success. Locally shot with homegrown actors, Werewolf (Grassfire Films: Nelson MacDonald, producer, Ashley McKenzie, director) was shown at many film festivals, featured in numerous reviews, including the Globe and MailRead More

I am certainly not a world traveler, more a visitor, but I’ve been lucky enough to see a few great cities in North America and Europe over the years and am grateful for it. I am often intrigued by what a novelist has had to say about a city whereRead More

Back in April, CNN reported that the governor of the Kenyan capital city, Nairobi, was including small bottles of Hennessy cognac in COVID-19 care packages being distributed to citizens. He erroneously claimed the cognac would act as a “throat sanitizer” and help combat the coronavirus. Both the World Health OrganizationRead More