A bird’s-eye view of a great river. A guitar strums. We see a man playing and singing next to the river: Dave Gunning. “It’s still up there in the hills, where the scars haven’t healed,” Gunning sings. He is sitting next to Cochrane Hill, where Atlantic Gold has proposed an open-pit gold mine. Gunning’s song “For […]
Andrew Bethune
Posted inNews + Opinion
Health care’s exhausted pain reliever
Editor’s note: In order to protect patient privacy, names and ages have been changed in the scenes Andrew Bethune witnessed while on the job, and times, places and other details have also been obscured. Names, quotes and details from news stories have not been changed. Three in the morning. The glare from the late-night pizza […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Public meeting aims to clear up confusion around mining project proposals in Nova Scotia
Environmental Impact Assessment and Mining in Nova Scotia: A Public Legal Education Session Saturday, November 30 1-5pm Room 150, Collaborative Health Education Building (Dalhousie) 5739 University Avenue SOLD OUT. To say that gold mining in Nova Scotia is controversial is to assume everyone knows the facts. On Saturday, November 30 the East Coast Environmental Law […]
Posted inArts + Music
Moonwake’s shifting tide
Moonwake w/Elise Besler at Inventions 2019 Nov 15-17, 7pm Christ Church, 61 Dundas St, Dartmouth $15 Moonwake will make your spirit rise and fall like the tide when it performs with an orchestra and a choir. The band is slated to play November 15, 16 and 17 for Inventions, the annual musician-combining event put on […]
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Show review: Kaia Kater, Jennah Barry and Lydia Persaud baptized our ears at Halifax Pop Explosion
“I think church is my new favourite place,” said Lydia Persaud between songs. She was the first of three Pop Explosion acts to perform on at St. Mathew’s United church on October 25. It was a pleasant evening for the roughly 100-person audience sitting in the pews. Lydia Persaud, Jennah Barry and Kaia Kater each played […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Jeremy Dutcher and Symphony Nova Scotia float your soul in a sea of song
A spotlight beams down over two women on stools, warm blue. With soft voices, they share a Mi’kmaq lesson: “This land is known as the land of deep water,” says Ursula Johnson to Angela Parsons. “Kinuk” is the opening act of Jeremy Dutcher’s co-performance with Symphony Nova Scotia. It’s a subtle sign the evening will be […]
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Review: Erwan Keravec and Hamid Drake shatter the silence at suddenlyLISTEN’s season debut show
[Editor’s note: In time for suddenlyLISTEN’s second showcase of the season—a concert on Oct 20 at 7:30pm at Art Bar + Projects that aims to combine composition with computer programming—we asked writer Andrew Bethune to share a review of sL’s Sep 17 season-opening show, titled Urban Pipes] Silence. One musician sits behind his drums, eyes […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Joan Kuyek’s book Unearthing Justice is a light in the darkness
When author and activist Joan Kuyek moved to Sudbury, Ontario, she noticed unusual surroundings. “I couldn’t believe the city when we first came in. I mean, at that point it was black rocks everywhere,” she says by phone from Ottawa. The landscape had been burnt by a hundred years of smelting in North America’s richest […]
Posted inArts + Music
Fall Arts Preview: Live music calendar
SEPTEMBER Vortex w/Enemy Designed, Ignightor Gus’ Pub, 2605 Agricola Street, $8, Sep 20,10pm Kids Losing Sleep w/Social Smokers Club, Izra Fitch The local four-piece Kids Losing Sleep calls its brand of Warped Tour-inspired punk “heartbreak you can dance to.” Gus’ Pub 2605 Agricola Street, $8, Sep 21, 10pm NAMU Prismatic Arts Festival brings this traditional […]
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The Coast’s back to school guide to drugs
A survey last spring by researchers at UBC says young people hate being told to ‘just say no’. The truth is, there are drugs out there. You might meet people who do them. If you decide to try them, there are risks. Last year, 56 people in Nova Scotia died of accidental opioid overdoses. We don’t want […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Nova Scotia’s golden addiction to toxic mining
David Clark remembers where he was the day the trouble started. He was walking through the woods on his property in Melrose, a small community on the St. Mary’s River, a two-and-a-half-hour drive east of Halifax. Sun shone through the trees. Beams of light landed on the small brook. The rolling water sparkled. It added […]
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Ascending the Atlantic Podcast Summit
Atlantic Podcast Summit May 3-5 Halifax Convention Centre, 1650 Argyle Street atlanticpodcastsummit.com I n the first and only media interview with would-be mass killer Lindsay Souvanna-rath, she describes choosing a location: “One of the ideas he threw out there was a hospital…I kind of said that sounded fun, but I didn’t really think that in […]