I wrote last week that dealing with international waste (IW) at the Sydney Marine Terminal will involve more than simply getting in a stash of orange garbage bags. You can read the details here, but the gist is that international waste coming off vessels must be segregated from domestic wasteRead...

The CBRM has an environmental assessment of a property owned by local businessman Jerry Nickerson on which it hopes to construct a second cruise ship berth. We know the assessment exists, as Nancy King points out in the Cape Breton Post, because Mayor Cecil Clarke has referred to it, asRead...

Friday at 3:58 pm is usually when people announce news they hope will be forgotten by Monday, so I thought it a bit odd to receive a media alert at precisely that time last Friday from Elyse Mailhot, a media relations person with One Ocean Expeditions (OOE). OOE is anRead More

One Ocean Expeditions (OOE), purveyor of luxury Arctic and Antarctic wildlife cruises, hopes to make Sydney its home port, so I thought I’d try to get to know the company a little better. Obviously, the best way would be to take a cruise, but one look at the rates putRead More

There I was, looking for signs of shipbreaking on Sydney harbor and I forgot to mention North Sydney. Apologies to all my North Sydney readers, who must have been left scratching their heads. How did I forget about that time the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) sold Archibald’s Wharf, aRead More

If you’ve read this week’s article on large-vessel disposal in Canada, you probably think you know everything there is to know about shipbreaking and recycling in this country but let out your sheets, friend (an expression I just made up as the nautical equivalent of “hold your horses”), there’s moreRead More

Municipal Affairs Says… I couldn’t help noticing the Cape Breton Post picked up my story about port marketer Albert Barbusci and his reports to CBRM council. The Post‘s take is very much “nothing to see here folks” — the article makes the point, not once but twice (first in a statement,Read More

I write today as one of the 8,800 residents of Sydney — Nova Scotia’s third-largest city, urban heart of a rich coal-mining region, industrial hub of Atlantic Canada — to ask Holland America Line (HAL): WAT IS ER MIS MET JOU? (That’s Dutch for “What is wrong with you?” AtRead More

Editor’s Note: This article is the second of two (see Part One) on Manitoba’s private air ambulance service based on the experiences of a number of medics who work (or have worked) regularly with the service. The Spectator has agreed not to identify them, as some are still employed in theRead More

Welcome to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia’s second largest municipality with a population of 98,722 and home to the Port of Sydney. The Port of Sydney is the first port-of-call on mainland North America for vessels transiting the Suez Canal and acts as a gateway to the GreatRead More