As someone curious about the cruise ship experience but with zero desire ever to board a cruise ship, I was delighted to discover the existence of Emma Le Teace, a 28-year-old from the UK who took her first cruise at the age of 11 and now cruises professionally—as in, hasRead More

As noted elsewhere, I spent far too many hours this weekend reading issues of the Cape Breton Post from December 1984, in which I found very little of relevance to my ongoing series on our failure, that year, to bury the power lines on Charlotte Street, but a great dealRead More

Editor’s Note: This is Part III of a series that will continue until I find some answers or give up, whichever comes first. You’ll find Part I here and Part II here.   I had a some assistance with my research this week and was able to plow through twoRead More

Sydney, a “resilient and proud community with a history of hosting major curling events” will host the 2024 World Women’s Curling Championships (WWCC). I have bones to pick with that sentence (which opened a Curling Canada press release I received on Friday). First, Sydney hosted the 2019 Scotties Tournament ofRead More

Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a series that will continue until I find some answers or give up, whichever comes first. You’ll find Part I here and Part III here.)   When last we met, it was August 1984, and Zutphen Brothers of Port Hood was sitting onRead More

This is an article about two things you may not have realized CBRM once had: an American Consul and a a film industry. From 1911 to 1924, the US State Department operated an American Consulate in Sydney (prior to this, Sydney was home to a lesser, Consular Agency). Very detailedRead More

When Allie MacInnis (that would be the CBRM Town Crier) posted a picture of the Hoople Block on Facebook last week, I was surprised at all the memories that came flooding back. It’s been years since I left that Ferry Street-Armstrong Court neighborhood where our paternal grandfather settled when heRead More

The fires are still burning here in Oregon. There are eight confirmed dead with almost 5.000 structures lost. Whole towns were substantially destroyed (look up Detroit, Gates, Blue River, Phoenix, Talent). Forty-thousand people were evacuated. This was not an ordinary year and although there was a terrible nexus of conditionsRead More

As I said last week, I began this journey because I wanted to talk about trams and a couple of thousand words later, I’ve mostly been talking about electricity. (This is what happens when you travel with me. I hope you packed a lunch.) I’m going to bring the focusRead More

“Doublethink,” a term coined by George Orwell in 1984 (the book, not the year), is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “believing two contradictory ideas at the same time” and I think it describes the CBRM’s approach to waterfront development. This past week, I had reason to have aRead More