Like many people since the advent of the coronavirus, Shauna Walters found herself with more downtime than usual this spring, so she used some of it to landscape the back yard of her home in Whitney Pier. Unlike many people, she looked around at the finished space and saw —Read More

The pier, dear Premier Stephen McNeil officially opened Sydney’s new $20 million docking pier Thursday amid a gathering of politicians from all levels and stripes. McNeil said he’s confident the cruise industry will bounce back and that the new infrastructure, to be called Liberty Pier, will also help attract otherRead More

Daily briefing Dr. Robert Strang announced 32 new cases of COVID-19, bringing Nova Scotia’s total to 549. Nine patients are in hospital, four of whom are in ICU. Strang was asked if he was encouraged by the low hospitalization numbers and he said he was and that the “many” ofRead More

Editor’s Note: A story unfolding as rapidly as the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t lend itself to weekly coverage so the Spectator is going to experiment with a daily COVID-19 update. This content will not be paywalled, so if you find it useful, feel free to share it. I intend to continueRead More

Picnic for the Planet News that 250+ media organizations have pledged to do a week of climate change coverage in the lead-in to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23 has made me vow to pull up my socks and make a point of includingRead More

More BullSHIP? In a bit of revisionist history that would probably secretly impress the government of the People’s Republic of China, Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP) CEO Albert Barbusci has erased all mention of the Chinese from his latest Novaporte container terminal press release. I figure the next step willRead More

Celtic Serenade Donnie Campbell — or “Sydney River musician,” as the online edition of the Cape Breton Post identified him — has been awarded a 2019 Stompin’ Tom Award by the East Coast Music Association (ECMA). (Full disclosure: Donnie is my first cousin once removed on my mother’s side. FullerRead More

I have been trying to determine how, exactly, we decided to locate the new CBRM central library on the Sydney waterfront and as best I can figure, it happened like this:   Architectural & Facility Planning In June 2011, the Cape Breton Regional Library (CBRL) Board initiated a study toRead More

Lord of the Dance The Cape Breton Post devoted three pages — including the entire front page — to the late John Allan Cameron on Tuesday, inadvertently giving new meaning to the phrase “slow news day.” The hook for the multi-page extravaganza? It’s been 50 years since Cameron’s first albumRead More

I have undertaken to erect in the Town of Sydney a building intended for a Convent Boarding School for the county of Cape Breton. The need of such an institution is an acknowledged one. On several occasions during the last fifteen years I have been urged by persons from variousRead More