Three Celebs and a Baby I recently swore off home reno shows after a friend pointed out to me that they are the worst thing you can possibly watch when you’re looking to improve your own living space because the key to their miraculous design transformations is the removal ofRead More

Buy buy Writing about Destination Cape Breton and the Cape Breton Partnership these past couple of weeks has been like returning to earlier, simpler times when publicly funded agencies and their dubious achievements occupied a lot of my brain space. But it all feels a little darker these days. TourismRead More

When last I spoke to Shauna Walters in these pages, it was November 2020 and she was coming off a successful series of summer concerts, staged in her own backyard. I knew (because we’ve talked about it) that her goal was to one day launch a full-fledged spring festival soRead More

More than 100 years after shipyard workers in Lunenburg, N.S., shaped wood and metal to build the Bluenose schooner, the tradition of local, hand-built excellence lives on. But now, instead of fishing boats, it’s fighter jets — Brett Ruskin, CBC, 6 April 2022   It’s such an apt comparison. LikeRead More

Innkeeping In terms of sheer words per minute, I think Episode 11 of Annette Verschuren’s Bet On Me podcast — “The Power of Place: The connection between culture and economy with Zita Cobb, Innkeeper of Fogo Island Inn” — has to be the winner. Because man, can Zita Cobb talk.Read More

I have never had the time to focus as much as I’d like to on local arts and culture and if I make any New Year’s resolutions for 2022, this might be it. But I am, in my personal life, an enthusiastic consumer of movies and TV and podcasts andRead More

One of the great fears of St. Lucians critical of Cabot Saint Lucia — Ben Cowan-Dewar’s newest golf, resort and real estate development — is that they will lose access to some of the island nation’s best beaches. Finola Jennings Clark, a sustainable travel writer and and vice-chair of theRead More

Shore Road Sessions I wrote last year about The Shore Road Sessions, Shauna Walters’ summer series of mini-concerts in her Whitney Pier backyard. The sessions returned this year with a whole new lineup of performers, and I was lucky enough to catch the final show on Tuesday night. I amRead More

Bridging Update In case you’re wondering what’s happening with Bridging Finance Inc (BFI), the private debt firm that lent Membertou First Nation $6.8 million to buy a stake in Albert Barbusci’s Novaporte container terminal project, here’s the latest: David Sharpe, the founder and former CEO of BFI, who was firedRead More

Well played, Air Canada Remember back in December, when Cape Bretoners were signing petitions and sending video pleas to the prime minister to bail out the airlines and save our airport? And I warned that we were being played like a 12-string guitar? Well, listen to this music: Air CanadaRead More