February 1, 2023 at 12:06 pm
The year before I started school in 1960, there was a field at the bottom of Matilda Street in Sydney with a path that led to the back door of an old house on the next street over, Dominion. One of my earliest memories is of escaping the backyard ofRead More
November 30, 2022 at 11:45 am
In early April 1974, on an unusually pleasant morning that promised to help deliver a big voter turnout, Pat and Roy and I, young volunteers all, began working Polling Station 16 in Cape Breton Nova. The poll was at the bottom of Matilda Street in Whitney Pier, where I hadRead More
July 19, 2017 at 11:45 am
On 10 July 1970, three young Cape Breton men — 20-year-old Terry Burt of Sydney, 17-year-old David Burrows of Sydney River and 15-year-old Kenny Novak of Sydney River — were run over by a freight train on a track in Maine, about 45 kilometers from the Canadian border. It happenedRead More
April 26, 2017 at 12:10 pm
Ed’s Books and More on Charlotte Street in Sydney is a secondhand bookstore with wildly varied stock and many labelled bookshelves in lots of sections—rooms, corners, alcoves, a dead-end book alley. Last Wednesday, while I was there for this article, I almost collided with a customer hectically emerging from theRead More
April 12, 2017 at 11:57 am
Librarians, in my experience, are often bearers of good news. For example, last year, while spending a day in the country, I dropped into the local library just to have a look around. The librarian was friendly and helpful, and not only informed me that I could borrow items thereRead More
January 11, 2017 at 12:08 pm
I got my introduction to theater at the movies. There wasn’t much doing for us in Sydney, culture-wise, when I was in high school, apart from visiting the McConnell library and arguing the relative merits of Keith’s versus Moosehead beer. People watched a lot of television, but I didn’t enjoyRead More
November 30, 2016 at 12:06 pm
In February of last year, I arrived back in Cape Breton after 10 years away. The first evening home, I picked up a newspaper from my sister’s kitchen table and saw a publicity photo for the Boardmore Theatre’s production of The Pillowman. The play, a celebrated and controversial black comedy,Read More
October 19, 2016 at 10:49 am
Cape Breton artist Onni Nordman is enjoying a growing reputation these days. His work is already popular in Nova Scotia, where it often appears in gallery shows and events like last month’s Lumière. And now Nordman is becoming known in Europe, where he recently had exhibitions in Munich and Helsinki.Read More