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

Reasonable Self-Esteem by Richard Keshen, an emeritus professor of philosophy at Cape Breton University (CBU), was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 1996 to critical acclaim, including laudatory reviews in major academic journals like Ethics and Mind. The book sold out, not a frequent occurrence with academic works, and thisRead More

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

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

It’s still a wonder to me that I can, from home or anywhere with internet access, go to the Cape Breton Regional Library’s website and search all Nova Scotia public library catalogs for a particular book I want to borrow, or just browse the collections to find something interesting, makeRead More

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

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

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

Since its inception two years ago, The Highland Arts Theatre has featured topnotch dancing, acting and singing but a special joy for me has been the consistently delightful work of actor Hilary Scott. Her memorable recent performances include “a bewitching Robyn” in Wesley Crawford’s Dream and “a particularly excellent MarilynRead More