[Image-1] It’s taken years of planning to put together The Big Lift. This will mark only the second time a suspension bridge will have its deck completely replaced while remaining open to traffic during the day. Shuttle service begins this weekend, but deck segment replacement won’t start until August. It’s a massive undertaking, and one […]
Erica Butler
Posted inArts + Music
Paradise Sisters lost
Thirteen years after it formed and promised to bring independent cinema back to Halifax, Paradise Sisters Film Society is finally, officially giving up the ghost. But not before it passes on its torch (not to mention $20,000 and a long members list) to Halifax’s current hope for honest-to-goodness rep cinema: Carbon Arc Cinema Co-op. While […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Why isn’t this city more pedestrian-friendly?
[Image-1] When Halifax police released their latest annual report on pedestrian and vehicle collisions last month, the headlines focused on one number: the 55 percent jump in accidents since last year. Whether or not you consider that 55 percent increase a frightening trend, or simply attribute it to more reports being made by frightened pedestrians, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Viola Desmond: The original Ivany Report champion
[Image-1] They really couldn’t have planned it any better. A year ago, the Ivany Commission issued its report, calling for three “critical areas of change” to help turn around the Nova Scotia economy: more community and business leaders; more people staying in the province; and more innovative, value-added businesses. Then, as if by some feat […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Crosswalk signals are pushing all the wrong buttons
[Image-1] About six months after he was elected to Halifax council, the city upgraded a major intersection at University Avenue and Robie Street in Waye Mason’s district. It was, according to Mason, “a beautiful piece of engineering which solved a bunch of problems.” But the reaction on the street was not so pretty. “People flipped […]
Posted inArts + Music
The party’s over for CBC’s inadvertent incubator
We know that CBC is shrinking. For decades we’ve heard of seemingly endless cuts to the federal funding that keeps our public radio and television services alive. In Halifax, the fact will be hard to deny when the iconic, Art Deco CBC Radio building at Sackville and South Park Streets succumbs to the wrecking ball […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Brains matter
Bike helmets are so contentious an issue that even if they’re not at issue, people have issues. Just in time for Bike Week, The Coast peers into the love-hate relationship we have with our helmets. Ben Wedge, co-chair of the Halifax Cycling Coalition, says he still gets emails over a mistaken Metro headline last November, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The making of Atlantic salmon
Canada quietly made history last November when officials at Environment Canada gave the go-ahead on production of the world’s first genetically modified food fish: the AquAdvantage® salmon. Created by micro-injecting genetic materials from a chinook salmon and an ocean pout into the egg of an Atlantic salmon, the new GM fish grows about twice as […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Storm watch
It was just over 10 years ago that a category-two hurricane dubbed Juan tore through Halifax, ripping roofs from houses and trees from the ground, and flooding our waterfront and coastline. Eight deaths were attributed to the storm. The tally for repairs has been estimated at $300 million. These days, if you take a stroll […]
Posted inArts + Music
“The Secret History of Guantanamo Bay” talk illuminates refugee lives
Guantanamo—it’s a household name for most. We are well aware the US government uses this naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba to house “enemy combatants” from the War on Terror, including Canadian Omar Khadr. We know things happen in Guantanamo that might not normally happen on American soil, where the US constitution is, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Larinda returns
Few stories can make a Haligonian as sheepish as the tale of the Larinda. It’s not the part of the story where the Larinda was built, over 26 years, in the backyard of Massachusetts auto mechanic Larry Mahan. Or the part where Mahan, as a child, was originally inspired to build the ship after reading […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Amistad teaches
Freedom Schooner Amistad is probably the most famous of the Tall Ships, thanks to a 1997 Steven Spielberg film based on the story of the actual Amistad revolt and ensuing legal battle. In June of 1839, about 50 Africans who had recently been captured from Mendeland (present-day Sierra Leone) took control of La Amistad, the […]