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On our cover A century later, the Halifax Explosion continues to shape our city.

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CONTENTS

Vol. 17 No. 10 | December 2017

PHOTO: ALLIE JEHLE

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FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

14 | SECOND CHANCES Recovering from abuse at Halifax Protestant Orphanage brings the Mclellan family together— continuing coverage by Lois Legge

7 | EDITOR’S MESSAGE Reviewing the stories that shaped Halifax in 2017

20 | HALIFAX EXPLOSION: 100 YEARS LATER A hundred years later, the Halifax Explosion teaches valuable lessons about how rumour and misinformation spread after tragedy; a new play spotlights the Explosion’s lesser-known victims; exploring an unexpected sideeffect of the disaster 26 | BUILDING BOOM Halifax’s development frenzy is good for property owners, but comes at a cost— David MacDonald reports

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12 | ENTERTAINMENT Contemporary dance, major-junior hockey, holiday theatre, New Year’s Eve celebrations, and more 28 | RETAIL: GIFTS THAT DO GOOD Don’t just tick names off a shopping list—give things that really matter 30 | DINING: CELEBRATING CULINARY CULTURE At Café L’Acadie, Gary LeBlanc proudly shares his family’s heritage

34 | OPINION: ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS A letter to Santa (and Halifax Council) from columnist Ryan Van Horne

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9 | CITYSCAPE BioBlitz celebrates the diversity of the wilderness next door; a new business shares the best local small businesses have to offer

32 | DRINK: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LOCAL BREW An ambitious new book chronicles Atlantic Canada’s beer scene

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DECOR

Cooler nights encou in bed a little longer rage us to stay . If you adopt many of these too cozy bedroom décor tips, you may never want to get up

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2 1

Photo: Ashley

Marie Photography

Up the cozy factor when transitioning bedroom décor your to fall by embracing textures on your mixed textile bed. Melissa Totton, owner Decoria Interiors of in Woodstock, N.B. suggests boldly incorporating into your bedding chunky knits, basics faux furs, and luxe velvets of throw pillows by way and blankets. This lends your space a layered look plus keeps the night chill at bay.

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4 Usher in a change of colour schemes seasons. Betty with the change Praught, interior of decorator at Lynette in Charlottetown Interiors by , suggests switching to welcome warmer up duvet covers greys instead of the cooler summer. Benjamin tones of Moore’s sophisticated Pewter, and Coastal Gray Owl, Revere Fog are shades of grey that help a cozy, intimate create atmosphere. Or be brave and whites on the keep summer bed and freshen up a duvet with pillows in warm throws and jewel tones for fall.

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Photo: Haley Vaz

Get inspired with fabulous decorating, renovation and entertaining ideas… with a uniquely Atlantic Canadian twist.

To get really warm and snuggly, Heather Whitman, owner of Panache Luxury Linens boutique in Halifax, insists a Canadian-ma de, 100% goose-down will prepare duvet your nest for the fall and winter Add a down-filled months. mattress topper beneath you down pillows and to finish off the bed. Unlike feathers, down compresses and puffs back up again as air moves through it so your sleeping environment maintains your body temperature.

Spread the warmth to the rest of your surroundings Interior designer . Kelly Moore, co-owner of and Moore Interior Underwood Designers, in Chester, N.S. placing a luxurious suggests area rug under or beside the Layer rugs with bed. contrasting avoid being matchy-matc textures or patterns and hy.

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EDITOR’S MESSAGE

A lot of mess, a little progress, and a beery bright spot If you commute via motor vehicle, you’ll mostly remember 2017 as the year of unexpected stop signs, rambling detours, unpredictable street closures, and way-behind-schedule road work. After letting most of the summer go by in relative peace, everyone with the power to rip up pavement decided that autumn was the perfect time for a major project. Most notable was Halifax Water’s giant St. Margaret’s Bay Road project, which missed two deadlines and took almost three times as long as originally planned. But it wasn’t alone; no major artery was spared. The Macdonald Bridge refurbishment continues (also behind schedule), at various times workers closed chunks of Almon, Quinpool, Bayview, Sackville and just about any other street you’d hope to use. Compounding the aggravation, especially if you own or frequent small downtown businesses, was the ongoing I’ve-lost-track-ofwhich-schedule-they’re-on construction of the Nova Centre. It’s hard to even imagine a time when the Nova Centre wasn’t a work in progress. For the neighbouring businesses, it’s been a prolonged period of anxiously watching balance sheets and looking at empty chairs where your regular customers are supposed to be. Endless construction may not be 2017’s sexiest news story, but it’s probably the one that affected the most people around Halifax. It also breathed new life into Halifax’s ongoing debates about how we get around. If you attempted to battle your way through the Armdale Roundabout and down Quinpool any time this autumn, you likely noticed two things: 1. No one was getting anywhere quickly. 2. Most of those cars clogging your way only had one person in them. That second realization got a lot of Haligonians talking about transit again. Why don’t we prioritize transit over single-occupant cars? Is commuter rail a viable option? Can we make better use of the harbour? Why do so many employers insist on forcing people who could easily work from home to come to the office every day? Halifax hasn’t really answered any of those questions, but even asking them is progress. Many will also remember this as the year Halifax Council tried, with passing successes and many stumbles, to address Halifax’s long

history of racism. Over the summer, the long debate about the legacy of Halifax founder Edward Cornwallis (who was bad at his job, in addition to being a thug who ordered the murder of Scots and Mi’kmaq alike—i.e., many Nova Scotians’ ancestors) came to a boil. Many Haligonians (including me), have argued Cornwallis deserves no place of honour in our city. The usual suspects (Councillors Hendsbee and Whitman) made the usual “What’s the big deal?” and “You can’t rewrite history!” and “Where do we stop?” noises, but Council at least agreed to consider the issue, which is relative progress. But then in October, Councillor Whitman decided to win points in a social-media argument with Councillor Cleary by arguing Mexicans aren’t a race (and no, even in context it didn’t make much sense). Then for bonus points, he used the word “negroes” in a TV interview, arguing it’s not racist because it’s in the dictionary. That led to several citizens’ complaints, yet another Matt Whitman apology, and a self-imposed hiatus from his beloved Twitter. To end on a happy note, 2017 is also the year can definitely stop talking about how Nova Scotia is developing a great craft-beer scene. The conversation can now, really and truly, be that Nova Scotia has a great craft-beer scene— full stop. There are 40-some breweries around the province, many in small towns, making beers that are as good as any you’ll find across North America.

PHOTO: TAMMY FANCY

BY TREVOR J. ADAMS

tadams@metroguide.ca Halifax Magazine @HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine

This isn’t just good news for beer lovers. It’s good news for towns like Tatamagouche, Digby, Shelburne, and Amherst, where those breweries are creating new jobs, generating tax revenues, and attracting year-round visitors. The growth can’t continue indefinitely; some of the weaker breweries will die out. But the industry is here and established. It’s a success story for both rural and urban Nova Scotia.

As always, we want to hear from readers. What do you think was 2017’s biggest Halifax news story? Do you have a question or comment about anything you read in Halifax Magazine? Email tadams@metroguide.ca and we may run your letter in a future issue. (Letters to the editor shouldn’t be longer than 250 words, and will be edited for grammar and clarity.)

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CONTRIBUTORS

8 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

SARAH SAWLWER “Gifts that do good” Sarah is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in such publications as Halifax Magazine, Quill & Quire, Atlantic Business Magazine, and ParentsCanada. Nimbus Publishing released her first non-fiction book, 100 Things You Don’t Know About Nova Scotia, in April 2016.

ANDREA NEMETZ “The victims you don’t know about” Andrea has been writing about news, sports, and the arts for more than 25 years. A lover of adventure, she has done Habitat for Humanity builds around the world, sailed a 68-foot racing yacht across the Pacific, and trekked on horseback in Iceland and Peru.

LOIS LEGGE “Second chances”

Lois is an award–winning journalist and a part-time instructor at University of King’s College School of Journalism.

RICHARD WOODBURY “Send in the midwives” Richard writes for both local and national publications and his work has been published by Reuters, Metro, and Enterprise Magazine. richardwoodbury.ca

DAVID MACDONALD “Building boom” David’s work has appeared in the Eastern Graphic and West Prince Graphic (both in PEI), plus the Times & Transcript (Moncton), The Coast, and Halifax Magazine. He currently lives in Montague, P.E.I. with his wife and two children.

PRIYA SAM Cityscape Priya is the news anchor for CTV Morning Live and CTV’s News at Noon. She graduated from the University of King’s College Master of Journalism program in 2014. She spends her spare time cooking, reading, and working out.

ALLIE JEHLE “Celebrating culinary culture” A journalist and photographer based in Halifax, Allie is a passionate writer who has a particular interest in feature writing. Got a story to tell? Tweet @alliejehle.

PHIL MOSCOVITCH Cityscape Philip is a regular contributor to Halifax Magazine, East Coast Living, and Saltscapes. His story on small-town wrestling for The Walrus is nominated for a National Magazine Award.

KATIE INGRAM “Rumour has wings” Katie frequently writes for Halifax Magazine and is the author of Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion. Those stories are featured in her book, along with many others.

TAMMY FANCY Photo for Editor’s Message Tammy has shot for East Coast Living, Bedford Magazine, Profiles for Success, and Our Children magazines, plus two cookbooks from Formac Publishing. fancyfreefoto.com

CITYSCAPE

PHOTO: IRWIN BARTLETT

GREEN SPACES

The wilderness next door BY RYAN VAN HORNE

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone... unless you take people on guided hikes to document the beautiful natural elements of the proposed Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes regional park. That’s what the Ecology Action Centre and the Canadian Wildlife Federation did as part of a series of HaliBlitz—a census of biological diversity. “We were really thrilled and happy with the engagement,” says Geana McLeod, a wilderness-outreach officer with the Ecology Action Centre. “There was a real definite drive or interest in people going out with experts to learn.” Getting a better idea of the species in the proposed park helps guide planning a trail system that will protect as much of the space as possible. “The theme of our whole event was that in those spaces, we’re not the most important thing that’s there,” McLeod says. “We’re visitors to that space.” HaliBlitz was a weeklong affair culminating in a day-long series of hikes in Point Pleasant Park on a Saturday and then in several areas of the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes wilderness area. Ecologist Dave Ireland of the Royal Ontario Museum was one of the experts brought in to lead hikes. He created the

BioBlitz concept to help Torontonians become acquainted with the Rouge National Urban Park. “I am totally blown away at the enthusiasm of the Haligonians about the nature in their backyard,” says Ireland, after taking his socks and shoes off to wade into a pond to collect a frog and a handful of eggs. He brought it back to shore to show them to a group of kids, many of whom took pictures using the iNaturalist app. Five-year-old Payton Clements, who joined Ireland on his amphibian tour of Point Pleasant Park, was hooked. “I want to save nature,” she says. Ireland’s group spotted a ringneck snake, which is a rare sight in the park. “I bet 99% of the people who walk through here never see one,” he says. “That was a big thrill for the kids.” Ireland loves telling scientist’s stories and making them accessible to kids and parents. He enjoyed leading the tours in Halifax and is looking forward to joining the EAC next summer. People taking part in BioBlitz were encouraged to use iNaturalist, an app that lets you take a picture of something

in nature and share it with a community that crowd-sources the identification. “The picture and data are fed into a global database of biodiversity to add to what we know,” Lara Gibson, a lab technician at Dalhousie University who volunteered to lead some iNaturalist workshops. Stephen Patterson of Halifax used to bike up to Susies Lake as a kid; he remembers carrying a canoe across the highway. “We went up there a lot in the 1970s,” he says. “I’ve often thought about Susies Lake and I’m very happy that they’ve been able to hold off developing these areas.” He would like the city to fulfill its commitment to creating the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes park. Marjorie Dawe of Bedford, who had not even heard of the area before the BioBlitz, says her hike with a naturalist opened her eyes to what’s there and made her want to go back. “It’s beautiful,” says Dawe. “Take your time. Don’t be in a rush. Soak it up.”

tadams@metroguide.ca Halifax Magazine @HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine

DECEMBER 2017 halifaxmag.com | 9

CITYSCAPE SHOP LOCAL

Think inside the box BY PRIYA SAM

Life is like a box of “local” for Halifaxbased entrepreneur Allyson England. Her business Nova Box was born after her passion for local companies and her entrepreneurial streak merged. She started to research her business idea just over a year ago by asking the question, “Is a Nova Scotia box of treasures something people want?” England has a business degree from Mount Allison University with a major in marketing and minor in psychology. After she graduated in 2009 she worked for a tech start-up, but being an entrepreneur was always her goal. “My dad is an entrepreneur,” says England. “So, I was always inspired to have my own business but I didn’t know what that business would be.” Her company is called Cedar Dog. It started consultancy, advising small

businesses and start-ups. After working with a few companies, England says the idea for Nova Box started to take shape. Dinner with a friend in October 2016 pushed her to take the plunge. “She says why don’t you do it? And I says, well, it’s October…I really should have started in August,” England recalls. “And she says, you should just make it happen... I did some research on the structure of the company and what I wanted to have in the first box and then I crafted an email and had a concept board for what I wanted the website to look like.” The next step was emailing companies to partner: they were all on board. Within a few weeks, Nova Box had a website and, not long after, the first orders started. “I wanted to know what price point resonated with people, what items were

popular, what my demographic was so really it was just a big test to see whether or not it could be a viable business,” England says. The results gave her the confidence to keep going. “The first Christmas box, I wanted to sell 50 and I shipped 65, so I was pretty happy with that,” says England. She tracks her progress quarterly since she releases a new box for each season. Ever since the first Christmas box last year, her sales have continued to grow and her business has adapted as she learns more about her customers. “It’s local people that support it but also people who want a reminder of home whether it’s their birthday or they just moved into a new house or they’re having a baby,” says England.

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She’s also working with some local companies to do custom boxes to suit their needs. One of them is real-estate broker Donna Harding, who says Nova Box provides her with perfect gifts for her clients who are buying and selling homes. “Even sellers that are going away…to get something purely Nova Scotian to bring with them, I mean it’s a great concept,” says Harding. “And then for someone coming in from out of province, even better. At the end of the day, we get rave reviews on Nova Box.” For clients like Harding, supporting local is also a priority and Nova Box is a way to support several companies all at once. “I think it’s hugely important if you’re going to be a small business in a community to become part of the community,” explains Harding. The idea of small-business owners supporting each other also drives England to encourage others to move forward with their entrepreneurial ideas. “Sometimes you just have to put something out there and then continue to improve on it,” she says.

Gifts for Everyone on Your List

That’s what happened with Nova Box. One year later, the purpose of the company is the same, but a lot has also changed. “I really streamlined it quite a bit,” she says. “I would say it looks completely different. The website is different, I have a professional photographer, my pricing is different, my process is different, my packaging is better.” These are things that England is happy to be working on because she took the plunge and is now helping to support companies across the province. “I do a lot of research online, social media is really helpful,” she says. “It helps identify what the look and feel of those companies is and how they represent themselves online.” She also goes to craft fairs throughout the province and to stores that carry goods from local artisans to find new additions for the next box. “The pillars I keep in mind are quality and simplicity,” England says. “I want to give a great gift that’s thoughtful and also simple for the gift giver.”

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ENTERTAINMENT Our picks for the hottest things to see and do in Halifax this month

CONTINUING THROUGH DECEMBER

Neptune Theatre Neptune’s annual-favourite holiday production begins on November 21 and continues until December 31. This year, outgoing artistic director George Pothitos adapts the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life for the stage. Concurrently, Neptune’s studio stage hosts another holiday mainstay: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, adapted and directed by Jeremy Webb. neptunetheatre.com

DECEMBER 16

Halifax Mooseheads In their final home game before the Christmas break, the Herd hosts cross-province rivals the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles at the Scotiabank Centre. halifaxmooseheads.ca

DECEMBER 7 TO 9

Live Art Dance Productions With this Mixed Program of James Kudelka Dances performance, Toronto’s Citadel+Compagnie explore one of Canada’s top choreographers. The repertoire includes The Man in Black, a celebration of American working-class grit featuring the music of Johnny Cash. liveartdance.ca

DECEMBER 9

Ha Ha Halidays December sees the return of a popular holiday-themed comedy show. The World Trade & Convention Centre hosts an evening of stand-up comedy with Trent McLellan and Jay Malone, a buffet dinner, and live music and dancing with The Hopping Penguins. hahahalidays.ca

12 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

DECEMBER 17

from montreal

A King’s Christmas The King’s College Chapel Choir’s Christmas classic returns to All Saint’s Cathedral on Cathedral Lane for seasonal songs and stories. Paul Halley (right) directs. This year’s guest narrator is Gary Thorne, serving in his final year as chaplain and member of the teaching faculty at the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University. In addition to his work with students, Thorne has served as a parish priest, a military chaplain in wartorn areas of the globe, and an advocate for the poor and marginalized. ukings.caevents/a-kings-christmas-2017/

DECEMBER 31

New Year’s Eve Ring in 2018 at Atlantic Canada’s biggest New Year’s Eve party. Starting at 10:30 p.m., Grand Parade Square in front of Halifax City Hall hosts the celebration. Highlights include a performance by indie rockers The Strumbellas (above) and local singer/songwriter Ria Mae, and the East Coast’s biggest fireworks show at midnight. halifax.ca/recreation/programs-activities/events/civic-events

Cie. Marie Chouinard 24 préludes de chopin + le cri du monde

february 14 2018 8pm

dal arts centre | cohn tickets | info: 902 420-0003, 902 494-3820, liveartdance.ca “…two extremely accomplished pieces— products of a fully matured choreographic imagination.” —Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice “Le Cri du monde is a masterpiece. A triumph….” —Robert Everett-Green, The Globe & Mail

DECEMBER 31

Tom Cochrane Life is a highway and you’re going to ride it all night long, as Tom Cochrane welcomes 2018 with two performances in the Schooner Showroom at Casino Nova Scotia. casinonovascotia.com tadams@metroguide.ca

Halifax Magazine

@HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine

2017 | 18 SeaSon SponSor

Show SponSor

da n c e r i s a b e l l e p o i r i e r | p h oto m a r i e c h o u i n a r d

DECEMBER 2017 halifaxmag.com | 13

| FEATURE |

SECOND CHANCES BY LOIS LEGGE

Elaine Mclellan holds a picture of her and her older sister, Ann. Inset: A picture of Elaine Mclellan’s father, veteran William Canary, hangs in her living room.

RECOVERING FROM ABUSE AT HALIFAX PROTESTANT ORPHANAGE BRINGS THE MCLELLAN FAMILY TOGETHER

14 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

Other children called her orphan. And made fun of her clothes. Adults forced her to eat “slop” and made her little brothers cry. Joan Wilson cried too, almost every day, when she was eight. But the Halifax woman is also grateful. She wasn’t kept in closets or beaten with belts or tied to her bed like children from earlier generations. But her time in the former Halifax Protestant Orphanage left a mark on her and her mother Elaine Mclellan, who can’t forget having to place five of her children there for nine months almost 50 years ago. Elaine can still see her then-six-year-old son Danny alone in the dark, lying by his dinner plate, when she came to visit. She can still hear Joan crying on the phone, wanting to come home. And Joan can still see matrons forcing Danny to wash his sheets after he’d wet the bed. Or forcing her to sleep by her own plate when she couldn’t choke down orphanage food. “They were mean,” she says, sitting next to her mother in the 77-year-old’s Halifax apartment, remembering the matrons (female staff who enforced the rules). They laugh a little, reminiscing about old times. But it hurts too, flashing back and forth through the decades. And missing the one family member who’s no longer here: Elaine’s son Melvin killed himself six years ago. They don’t know why. Like others tied to this former Halifax institution, founded in 1857 and closed in 1970, their family’s story is a web of hard choices and difficult circumstances. And it’s as much about what came before and after as their connection to the building, which is now the site of Veith House, a community centre where former residents sometimes return, trying to make peace with the past. That’s hard to do, as others—beaten with belts or paddles, tied all night to their beds, forced for hours in corners and closets—have previously told Halifax Magazine. (See “Confronting their demons” in July 2015 and “Stolen childhood” in April 2017).

Many of the children weren’t really orphans; their parents were too poor or sick or addicted to take care of them. Mclellan sent her children there after leaving her alcoholic husband and trying, without success, to keep them together with extended family while she searched for a place to live. “Nobody would help me,” she says, perhaps the story of her life. Her mother beat her. Her father drank. She married an alcoholic when she was 20 and they had five children. She married three more times after that and has another son from her second marriage. Her childhood, and much of what came after, still makes her angry. “My mother beat me every time I turned around,” she says, surrounded by pictures of her mother and father, her siblings, her children and grandchildren. “Hit me in the head or slap me in the face, [or use] broomsticks.”

Joan Wilson with her brothers (left to right) Danny, Stephen, and John

Her father didn’t hit her. But he raged against invisible enemies, haunted by memories from the Second World War. And she was scared. She’d run and hide when he came home drunk, lashing out at people who weren’t there. “You goddamn Germans, I’m going to kill you,” he’d scream, eight metal clips in his head to mend the shrapnel wounds that came when his buddy was “blown to bits.” It ricocheted through the decades. He’d take “spells” and pass out. He’d drink and lash out. Her mother could calm him. But not herself. Elaine married early, to escape. But the pattern of drinking continued. So in 1968 she left her husband and placed her children in the orphanage so they wouldn’t be separated. And years later Joan had children of her own and soothed these and other childhood memories with drink. Her orphanage memories come in “bits and pieces”: crushed tomatoes and boiled bread, “slop,” that matrons forced her to eat; the turnips that still make her sick.

The regimented days and nights. Asking permission to pee, permission to go outside, permission to leave the table. “You could sit there until the next day,” if you didn’t finish the meals, she recalls. “I’d fall asleep at the table….I remember waking up in the morning and then it’s breakfast time.” She learned to get sneaky: “At first I was hiding it in my napkins and then they caught onto that so then you wouldn’t get a napkin…After that I learned to bury it in the garbage because they left you there…I always remember being alone, no one to talk to.” The stigma was also isolating. “The kids would walk by the fence and just make fun of you: ‘orphans’ or ‘you’re scruffy’ and just mean things,” she says. “The kids in school knew where you came from because…clothing was whatever they got for donation so like nothing matched. I remember talking to mom and crying all the time and asking her every time she called ‘have we got a place yet? Have we got a place yet?’” Matrons never hit them, she says, but “there was always fear that you were going to get into trouble.” Some of her worst memories aren’t about herself. She thinks of Danny, washing his soiled bed sheets or sitting all day in punishment rooms. She remembers how they treated a developmentally-disabled child. “They picked on him a lot,” she says. “They were very mean to him…I remember them grabbing him, pulling him by his arm, if he cried they would put him up in the dorm.” Kids rarely played outside, she says, or with toys, which were allowed only on their birthdays when matrons let them pick out something from a toy room “filled to the brim.” She picked hand-sized pink and blue cases with tiny dolls and carriages inside. “Now there you go,” the matron told her. “You’ve got two dolls that can play with each other.” “But I don’t ever remember playing with them,” Joan says. “Where did they go?” The orphanage itself is mostly a mystery to her oldest brother John. He knows he ran away once but doesn’t remember why. He recalls matrons forcing him to eat food he hated, but not much else. They both remember fragments of kindness: from a cook, from several matrons, from a woman who told them ghost stories. “That’s part of my life, it will never go away,” Joan says of that time. “I cried every day the kids were in the orphanage,” says her mother. “I’d talk to Joan and she’d be crying and it was like ‘oh my God I’ve got to get my kids out of here.’” She eventually did. But it lingers. “Mom’s felt guilty a long time,” Joan says. “We used to tell her ‘mom don’t ever feel bad about the decision you had to make.’” “But I still feel bad,” Elaine says. John, on the phone from his Ontario home, says she shouldn’t. “We told her ‘mom you did what you had to do for the good of the family,’” he says. “She kept us together as a family … and we are a close family and …you can’t say much more than that for a mom trying to take care of her kids.” Joan, sober for 15 years, regrets not taking better care of her own. “I worked and I drank, that was my life,” she says “I was never home.” But she’s raising one of her grandchildren now, trying to give her the childhood she and her mother didn’t have. “Life can toughen you I guess,” she says, as both women soften, smiling, talking about their “perfect” little girl. “She’s my redemption…It’s my turn to do it right.”

tadams@metroguide.ca

Halifax Magazine

@HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine

DECEMBER 2017 halifaxmag.com | 15

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| COVER STORY |

RUMOUR HALIFAX EXPLOSION

One hundred years ago this month, the Halifax Explosion devastated and transformed our city. To mark the centenary, Halifax

WHEN PEOPLE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND TRAGEDY, THE TRUTH SUFFERS—LESSONS FROM THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION

Magazine presents a unique essay by author Katie Ingram, exploring

BY KATIE INGRAM

how tragedy and confusion can spread misinformation— particularly relevant in today’s era of social media and fake news. In the accompanying stories, we also explore new ways Halifax is commemorating the disaster and remembering its victims. —Ed.

20 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

A lot of the blame for the Halifax Explosion goes to a navigational error, but people didn’t see that at the time. On Dec. 7, the day after the explosion, Honolulu Star-Bulletin editor Riley H. Allen told readers the disaster wasn’t an accident. He pointed to enemies that wanted to cripple the allied war effort. Using inconclusive information and hearsay from wire reports, Allen maintained the ships involved were innocent, but were pawns in someone’s “diabolic scheme.” He added that other ports, like Honolulu, could also be at risk, adding to the rising speculation about what had happened in Halifax.

HAS WINGS Allen didn’t have any information to verify those claims, but that didn’t stop him from making them. He wasn’t the only one to speculate, and his claims weren’t the most outlandish. The Halifax of 1917 wasn’t much like Halifax today. The world was at war and as one of two major Canadian East Coast ports, and the one closest to Europe, was abuzz with activity as convoys, nurses, soldiers, and relief ships traversed the harbour daily. With the activity came the fear that the Germans would attack Halifax. With the increased traffic came extra precautions such as anti-submarine nets, but otherwise the war left Halifax untouched. On Dec. 6, that changed. The Imo, a relief ship, and the Mont-Blanc, which was filled with explosives, collided in The Narrows, the body of water between the Bedford Basin and the Halifax Harbour. The Mont Blanc caught fire. Knowing an explosion was imminent, the crew fled. The burning ship slowly floated toward Pier 6 and the Halifax neighbourhood of Richmond. About 20 minutes after the collision, at 9:04 a.m. The Mont Blanc blew up. The explosion, the wave that followed, and an evening snowstorm destroyed a broad swath of Halifax, Dartmouth, and Tuft’s Cove and caused damage in many nearby communities such as Lawrencetown and Africville. Some observers compared Richmond’s devastation to a battlefield in France. Almost immediately, the explosion was news around the world. Research reveals stories in newspapers worldwide, including the aforementioned Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the Birmingham Daily Mail, the Windsor Evening Record from Ontario, The Evening Telegraph from Australia and L’Ouest Éclair from France plus local papers: The Acadian Recorder, The Evening Mail, The Halifax Herald, The Daily Echo, and The Morning Chronicle. These papers didn’t just report suspected death and injured numbers, relief efforts and stories of heroism and loss. They also added to the fear that Halifax was under attack. It wasn’t just reporters who perpetuated these rumors. People ran from the blast site yelling that the Germans had bombed Halifax. One unnamed person said they had seen a dead German in one of the munitions magazines, while another claimed that a German had been seen aboard the Imo. A freight captain was passing by Halifax at night when he saw something moving in the water. He told journalists it was a submarine, despite official reports from Halifax saying that it was probably a tanker or barge. None of this was true (and no one seemed to wonder how an onlooker could pick out a German by looks alone) but the stories spread. The rumors grew more bizarre as they spread. The story of a traumatized carrier pigeon illustrates the hysteria. The pigeon, after flying through an open window into a Dartmouth home, was rumoured to be carrying a message written in German. Despite being busy dealing with the disaster’s aftermath, Dartmouth police investigated. Officers found nothing criminal: a family had found the pigeon and was caring for it. It carried no messages in any language. People who weren’t even near Halifax at the time drew accusations. The Windsor Evening Record published a piece from an unnamed writer who claimed that the explosion’s timing was a “strange coincidence, as Albert Kaltschmidt was on trial.” Kaltschmidt was a German spy, caught

as he plotted to blow up several factories and bridges in Michigan and Ontario. He was on trial in Detroit, 2,200 kilometres from Halifax. But this is what fear does. People heard about what happened; they had no explanation, so they embraced any plausible-sounding theory. Even the blast’s victims weren’t immune to speculation. Haakon From, captain of the Imo, died instantly but people still questioned his character. About a month before the explosion, someone reported that From had been involved in an altercation in Seattle. According to witnesses and records, From owed money to an engineering firm. When the firm’s lawyer contacted From for payment, he seemed to act like a “maniac” and tried to flee. Even though his own lawyer reassured readers that From was “a skilled navigator and intensely anti-German,” the story still ran. It left many readers wondering about From’s mental state and if his antiGerman stance was an act. In reality, the story was irresponsible rumour. From wasn’t around to defend his behaviour, and it had nothing to do with Halifax. From’s helmsmen John Johansen also drew attention after going to Boston for medical care. While there he didn’t have access to newspapers. Keen to catch up on the news, he tried to bribe a nurse to get him one. A nurse reported he was acting strangely. She also noticed, and doctors confirmed, that Johansen wasn’t as injured as initially thought. Rifling his possessions, someone found a letter written in a foreign language. Hospital staff were suspicious. Police arrested Johansen, putting him through an emotional ordeal before Halifax lawyer Charles Jost Burchell convinced his captors he was innocent. In this case, an injured man who was obviously confused and worried fell victim to wartime and post-explosion fears, all because he wanted a newspaper. When they could, Halifax officials and local news sources tried to put these rumours to rest, reassuring residents that there was no foul play involved nor were enemy forces in Halifax. An inquiry reinforced that. Heightened fear and need for an explanation is understandable after any disaster. It’s up to those reporting the news to verify claims before printing them. Fear and personal prejudices can grow in the face of tragedy, causing strangers, the dead, neighbours, and even birds to shoulder the blame.

Katie Ingram is the author of Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion, which pieces together different stories that were published in newspapers following the disaster. The Pottersfield Press book is now available in stores.

tadams@metroguide.ca

Halifax Magazine

@HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine

DECEMBER 2017 halifaxmag.com | 21

| COVER STORY |

THE VICTIMS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT In telling the Halifax Explosion story, Lullaby delves into Nova Scotia’s troubled race-relations history

HALIFAX EXPLOSION

SEND IN THE MIDWIVES After the Halifax Explosion, the city saw a childbirth boom BY RICHARD WOODBURY

Soon after the Halifax Explosion, City Hall posted a notice asking midwives to report there because they were needed. One of the side effects of the Halifax Explosion was that it induced labour in many pregnant women. “If there’s a force hitting buildings strong enough to knock people across a room, that’s enough force to really significantly impact what’s going on in the human body,” says Stephanie Kincade. She’s a researcher who has been trying to find out more about the women who gave birth and the role midwives played in relief efforts. She says there’s not a lot of documentation covering this aspect of the disaster, but she hopes she’ll be able to learn more once the birth records become unsealed after the required 100-year wait. Once those records are available, Kincade hopes to determine what women went into labour around the time of the explosion. She plans to track down their descendants and try to find out their stories. She doesn’t know how many women went into labour as a result of the explosion, but the fact the city put out that notice asking for midwives suggests the number was significant. As information was scarce following the explosion, many people feared Halifax was under attack by the Germans. However, that didn’t stop people such as doctors, nurses and midwives from rushing to the city to help out. “Halifax might be the new front line, [but] we’re getting on a train and we’re going to help people,” says Kincade.

22 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

BY ANDREA NEMETZ Immortalized in books and film, photographs, oil paintings, and scholarly reports, the Halifax Explosion has given rise to countless stories. There are accounts of courage like the Heritage Minutes in which dispatcher Vincent Coleman dies trying to stop an incoming train. Some are tragic: heart-rending reports of entire families wiped out, or blinded by flying glass while standing by their windows watching the aftermath of the collision of the Belgian relief vessel Imo and French ship Mont-Blanc. And in Hugh MacLennan’s famed novel Barometer Rising, there is romance amid disaster. Lullaby: Inside the Halifax Explosion is a different kind of tale. The Eastern Front Theatre production, at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax until Dec. 10, looks at the disaster from the perspective of three people of different ages and ethnicities, who meet in the moments after the Explosion and discover each other’s worlds for the first time as they make their way home to their segregated communities. Genevieve is a spunky 15-year-old Mi’kmaq girl from Turtle Grove, who makes and sells hockey sticks. Edward, an older gentleman who grew up in Africville, supplies barrels for a brewery. And Greer, is matron at the Protestant Orphanage in devastated Richmond, where virtually all her charges died. “It’s about an unfortunate event from a human perspective, that isn’t found in school books or museums,” explains Lisa Nasson, who plays Genevieve. Karen Bassett spent two years writing the 90-minute play. Artistic producer Jeremy Webb commissioned it to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. Lullaby premiered in September in a condensed 45-minute school version that was performed for about 12,000 students across the province over a fourweek period. But It’s not just about the facts, says director Koumbie. “It’s art. It’s an emotional experience.” She learned about the Explosion while attending Halifax Grammar School where the middle school was used as a hospital.

“But I didn’t have any sense of how devastating it was,” she says. “I learned more about the Explosion doing the Harbour Hopper.” Sitting in a rehearsal room at Neptune Theatre with Bassett, Nasson, and Troy Adams, who plays Edward, she notes she is grateful to Webb for believing that the story should be told by a person of colour and for taking a chance on her. “All my directing experience is in film, so it’s a huge learning curve,” says the actor-writer-director whose credits include CBC TV’s Studio Black! and short films Ariyah and Tristan’s Inevitable Break-up and 2016 Atlantic Film Festival best Atlantic Short winner Hustle & Heart. Lullaby, with its focus on the characters has a cinematic arc, she continues. Among those characters is Edward, a descendent of Black Loyalists who emigrated to Halifax in the 1780s, says Adams, who also starred in a Neptune Theatre musical about the Explosion in 1992 for the 75th anniversary. Most recently seen as Donkey in Neptune’s Shrek: The Musical, Adams grew up in Halifax’s Mulgrave Park and attended St. Joseph’s-Alexander McKay School. The 1917 Explosion destroyed the school, killing 50 students. Workers rebuilt it in 1919. But he didn’t know the historic event happened right in his backyard. “I thought Africville was sheltered from the Explosion because of its location, but that’s not true,” he says. “Karen [Bassett] has brought the voice of Africville to the story of the Explosion and that’s a first.” He says that students and teachers attending the school shows, presented in partnership with Neptune Theatre, are genuinely moved, and loves how they interact with Nasson. “I play the youngest character so the kids can relate,” says the 25-year-old actor and singer, noting she frequently gets asked if she’s really native. She is. She grew up in Millbrook First Nation, just outside of Truro, graduating from Cobequid Educational Centre, before studying acting at George Brown College in Toronto. Among her credits are Xara Choral Theatre’s production of Fatty Legs, based on a novel about residential schools. When Nasson read the play, it was the

first time she had heard about Turtle Grove, a community that was wiped out by the Explosion. Bassett’s research at the Maritime Museum, the Nova Scotia Archives, the Halifax Public Library and online turned up almost nothing about Tufts Cove (known as Turtle Grove by the people who lived there) and very little about Africville. “A lot was from the commercial and legal perspective,” she says. “What I found really interesting was it was always positioned as an unfortunate accident, a disaster, but I didn’t see much from a political standpoint: the inequity of the wages the segregation about where people lived, the fact so many children in a working-class area died.” The characters in Lullaby are all pioneers in some regard, continues Bassett, an actor-director-playwright and fight choreographer, who grew up in Halifax’s West End. “Greer’s character [played by Mauralea Austin] is underpaid and an early feminist,” she says. “And all are underprivileged based on the areas in which they live and the conditions of their work.” Though set in the past, Lullaby delves into race relations in Nova Scotia in a way that makes it relevant today, says Adams, noting that is what drew him to the project. “The characters are put in a situation where they have to face each other and come to some kind of understanding,” explains Bassett. “There is a perception that the city blew up and everyone helped each other and were best friends. But if you go back 100 years, you see that’s not the case, you see how uneven the playing field was. “The play takes us closer to acceptance and understanding and forgiveness. It doesn’t make it all the way there and doesn’t tie it up with a neat bow, but it’s hopeful. Every small change can lead to the next small change,” concludes Bassett, who dreams of staging Lullaby at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, as part of a mission to bring the story to a wider audience. tadams@metroguide.ca Halifax Magazine @HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine DECEMBER 2017 halifaxmag.com | 23

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Building boom HALIFAX’S DEVELOPMENT FRENZY IS GOOD FOR PROPERTY OWNERS, BUT COMES AT A COST BY DAVID MacDONALD Barrington Street as it was in the 1960s.

The Roy Condos replace the historic Roy Building on Barrington Street.

Changes continue on Barrington Street, with many historic buildings undergoing dramatic renovations.

Even though Renaissance has closed, the building wasn’t empty for long. The Old Apothecary, a bakery, quickly took over the space.

26 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

Lisa Haydon, a North End resident, has a perfect view of one of the many developments underway in Halifax. “From our patio, we see a number of cranes building stuff,” she says. Haydon lives in The Hydrostone near Monaghan Square, a two-tower complex on Young Street, slated to house numerous residential and commercial units. It’s one of many ongoing projects dotting the landscape. Other parts of the North End are also getting facelifts; older homes are undergoing renovations while new restaurants and shops pop up. And Haydon believes the development boom benefits the whole city. “ The city feels alive these days,” Haydon says. “I love the energy, I love the vibrancy, and watching the changes that are happening.” Visit any promotional website for the condo developments in progress and you’ll see some cool additions to one’s home life: fitness rooms, social rooms complete with a full kitchen and billiard tables, outdoor fire pits, even car washes and pet spas on site. And the pitch is working so far, say local developers. Southwest Properties Ltd.’s portfolio includes the recently-opened Maple complex on Hollis Street, and the Pavilion and Curve, a two-tower complex on South Park at the former CBC site. Currently under construction, the project will include condos, apartments, retail and the new YMCA Centre of Community. The Maple has leased 200 of its 300 units, says Lindsay Downie, director of marketing for Southwest, with new leasees signing daily. Downie adds that the Pavilion is already 90% sold, while Southwest will launch a fall pre-leasing campaign for the 205 units making up the Curve. Urban Capital has its own recentlyopened property, the Southport on Barrington Street. The shipping-containerstyle design contains a mix of rental and condo units and has sold out.

Gorsebrook Park, by the same developer and located on Wellington Street, should have its phase one completed by Spring 2019. Larry Allen of Urban Capital says 65 per cent of phase one has already been sold, while phase two, a connected eight-storey tower, has started construction. Another major player is Killam Properties, currently developing the Alexander on Bishop Street. Kim Warner-Burgess, director of leasing for Killam, says over half of the podium’s 55 suites and almost half the tower penthouses have been spoken for. Warner-Burgess says the downtown has become more attractive to multiple populations, and developers are stepping up their game in providing high-end developments with more in-house luxuries, and in closer proximity to amenities such as retail and restaurants. “There’s a big population over 50; a lot of those people are looking to give up their home, and have the opportunity to travel more,” she says. “And there are a lot of young professionals who don’t want to own a home, but want something that’s swanky, where they can entertain, and have downtown at their doorstep.” But in the meantime, there is quite a bit of short-term pain. Back in the North End, Haydon acknowledges that the downtown, especially, has taken a hit due to the constant construction. She says parking is “a disaster” and that small businesses have been affected due to less foot traffic along certain streets. “When I set up meetings, my clients say anywhere but downtown,” she says. “It’s not worth the hassle.” Another Halifax resident, Pearleen Mofford, lives much closer to the action, on the corner of Queen and Morris streets. Mofford likes the developments, but she, too, faces several challenges—most notably, the amount of illegal parking blocking her own driveway. It appears to be a consequence of Queen Street offering two-hour free parking, near the library and other popular destinations on Spring Garden Road.

“I have to call the city to ask parking enforcement to remove [vehicles],” Mofford says. “Unfortunately, you can’t block a private driveway.” One business owner in the middle of the construction chaos is Wendy Friedman, owner of Biscuit General Store on Argyle Street. For several years, she and other owners on the street have dealt with street closures, noise, and other major disruptions during the one-millionsquare-foot Nova Centre development. “I’ve had tourists come in almost in tears because there’s nowhere to walk,” she says. “On every block … it’s completely overwhelming and exasperating. It’s just not fair to people.” She doesn’t have a quarrel with the construction boom in general, but wishes the Nova Centre developers were better organized from the start. She points out the benefits of urban density, including the environmental benefit of not needing a vehicle to get where you need to go. “I live by Citadel Hill and walk to work everyday; everything is right here,” she says. “It’s great to have more people living and working and being downtown as a community and as a society.” Friedman is among eight business owners who were part of a lawsuit against the developer and the city over lost revenue. “It’s about standing up to principle,” she says. “I’m not looking for a handout; I just want

someone to say, wait a minute, somebody needs to take responsibility for how it’s been mismanaged. It’s like the Wild West without a sheriff.” Juanita Spencer, of the Spring Garden Business Association, agrees businesses in Argyle Street have had a rough time during the ongoing construction, and says it really comes down to communication. On Spring Garden, in contrast, Spencer says the developers of some nearby complexes have done a “phenomenal” job of communicating with nearby businesses regarding street closures and other interruptions. The association has increased its marketing budget to ensure people know Spring Garden is still open for business. Spencer says, despite the disruptions, the construction boom is “absolutely” necessary for the downtown. “The downtown has been neglected for a while now, for several decades. We certainly need the attention; downtowns are vital in every province and every city.” She says it’s an exciting time, and the variety of new developments means “everybody” will find something they can connect with. Back on Queen Street, Mofford says that despite the occasional parked car blocking her driveway, there’s nothing but good things resulting from Halifax’s recent construction boom. “It’s exciting to see the skyline change,” she says. “The city is transforming right before our eyes.”

PHOTO: B. MCWHIRTER

An artist’s rendering of the Nova Centre, which has been under construction for some five years

She says a growing downtown means more customers for established business and more opportunity for young entrepreneurs to open new and exciting businesses. “You can work, shop and play in your neighbourhood,” she says. She says time will tell if these developments will be financially successful, but points out that universities in Halifax, for example, are attracting more international students these days and they all need a place to live. “Financial companies don’t support projects that aren’t viable,” she says. tadams@metroguide.ca Halifax Magazine @HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine DECEMBER 2017 halifaxmag.com | 27

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GIFTS THAT DO GOOD DON’T JUST TICK NAMES OFF A LIST —GIVE THINGS THAT REALLY MATTER

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BY SARAH SAWLER Once upon a time, the holiday season started in December. Sure, some finished gift-shopping earlier, but these are the same people who plan their meals a week in advance. We know they exist because they show us their compartmentalized meals on Facebook, but they aren’t taking over the world. But now, with holiday decorations hitting some store shelves as early as July, it can be hard to resist the increasingly intense feeling of I really should be thinking about this now, so I don’t blow my budget later, followed by the inevitable Oh no, it’s Black Friday already. I should have started earlier and didn’t so now I’ll just indiscriminately buy things. But it doesn’t have to be that way. “Our spending is our power,” says Shelby Lendrum, owner of P’lovers (a store focusing on sustainable products, with locations in Halifax, Dartmouth, and Mahone Bay). “How we choose to spend our money reflects our values, what’s important to us.” Lendrum calls this “shopping mindfully,” which means that instead of simply ticking names off a list, you consider where you’re spending your money, how the item was made, whether or not you’re creating unnecessary waste, and whether the recipient will truly love the gift. Shopping mindfully shouldn’t blow your budget. “If we can’t afford it, maybe we shouldn’t be buying gifts,” says Lendrum. “Maybe we should be buying a beautiful card and sending a message instead. A beautiful handmade card is a piece of art and something they can frame, and it can be as inexpensive as $3.” Shopping locally is a great way to put that plan of shopping mindfully into action, and Plan B Merchant’s Co-op on Gottingen Street is kind of a local poster child for shopping local. It’s a non-profit social enterprise cooperative that regularly showcases the products of about 65 small businesses. “The space is a low-cost 28 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

alternative so [people] can get their stuff out there,” says president Bob Chiasson. Buying gifts locally is an opportunity to invest in your community. “When you shop local and responsible, you’re helping your local economy,” says Lendrum. “It’s us that are donating and hosting events and offering our space up to nonprofits so they can host events and fundraisers. Shopping locally is a way of ensuring your voice is heard and valued.” Shopping locally has a ripple effect. “These items are made and curated by your neighbours,” says Chiasson. “They, in turn, can spend the money here. And in doing so, that’s a path to building a more sustainable society for everybody.” Named for the piping plover, an endangered shoreline bird native to Nova Scotia, P’lovers has always focused on environmentally friendly products—things like plant-based cleaning products and jewelry made from upcycled skateboards. “We’re eco-friendly or planet-friendly first, and then people-friendly second,” says Lendrum. “As the need for fair trade became more apparent, we started to demand certified fair-trade products, ethically made, directly sourced, and obviously local, when the alternative is available locally.” Plan B stocks a lot of upcycled products as well. “We have a number of artists and craftspeople that sell their work here,” says Chiasson, “and they all have a sort of creative reuse approach to their work. For example, we have a really great leatherworker here and he uses only recycled leather. We have another person here who creates this really incredible sort of assemblage jewelry from found objects. She also uses a lot of tiny bones, and they’re all secured from ethically sourced roadkill. So nothing went to waste, although roadkill is a terrible thing in a different way.” The co-op also has a large collection of curated vintage clothing, as well as a line of “sustainable

fashion,” upcycled clothing that Chiasson says is all locally handmade. “It’s more expensive than the vintage stuff,” he says. “But it’s often less expensive than the stuff you’d find in department stores or big retail box stores.” But what about gifts for people who already seem to have everything? Or the people who say they don’t want or need anything? “There are always those people on your list who are hard to buy for, so a gift to a charity is a good choice,” says Erin McDonah, director of marketing, planning, and research at United Way. “You feel good about giving them, and they’re a wonderful way to honour your friend or family member.” Charity donations can sometimes seem impersonal, but they really shouldn’t be. “You should consider who you’re giving the gift to,” says McDonah. “Think about some of the things that they value.” If there’s an initiative you think they’d like to support, consider donating to that organization. “In some ways, it can be a more creative gift option because you really are thinking about the impact you’re having,” says McDonah. “It could be a healthy meal for people who are hungry in our community, it could be warmth on a cold night, it could be a safe place to call home. It’s all of those things.”

THE GIFT THAT GIVES BACK Adsum House: Buy groceries, pay for activities, or help celebrate a special occasion. adsumforwomen.org/shop Laing House: Donate items or funds for Laing House stockings. lainghouse.org/how-to-help/member-holiday-stockings.html Mobile Food Market: Purchase a produce pack for a community member. Contact Julia Kemp, program coordinator. mobilefoodmarket.ca/ Canada Helps Gift Card: Give Canada Helps Gift Cards and let recipients choose their own Canadian charities. canadahelps.org/ en/giftcards/orders/ tadams@metroguide.ca Halifax Magazine @HalifaxEditor @HalifaxMagazine

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DINING

CELEBRATING

CULINARY

CULTURE

AT CAFÉ L’ACADIE, GARY LeBLANC PROUDLY SHARES HIS FAMILY’S HERITAGE STORY AND PHOTOS BY ALLIE JEHLE As a child, Gary LeBlanc loved music. By the time he was 10, he taught himself how to play the guitar. At 13, he was in the kitchen playing the fiddle and mandolin, learning some of the old Acadian songs his mother loved to sing. He always watched his mother cook traditional Acadian meals— potato pancakes, rapure (AKA rappie pie), chiard (a potato and pork casserole). He learned how to cook them at a young age. LeBlanc, now 59 years old, first opened Café L’Acadie in Truro in 2012, six days after his mother died. “I opened in her honour, there’s no question about that,” he says. “She’s like the matriarch of Café L’Acadie.” He’s had a location on the Bedford Highway for just over three years. Traditional rapure and chicken fricot (a hearty stew) are some of the restaurant’s most popular dishes. “I just thought it was kind of unusual that you could go to probably almost every second street corner in the city and get the cultural food from some culture around the world, except one that was born right here in this province,” says LeBlanc. He adds that he opened the restaurant to learn about and promote his Acadian culture and create a gathering place to share stories around food and music. Before the restaurant, he worked for 27 years putting people with disabilities into the competitive work force. Through that work, he started his business in Truro. He had three weeks to reassess a chef’s skills for his rehabilitation team after the man suffered a severe brain injury. He called almost every restaurant in Truro to see who would give him a chance. The owner of the Stonehouse Motel and Restaurant said yes. After the reassessment, the owner of the Stonehouse presented LeBlanc with an offer that he couldn’t turn down: a fully equipped kitchen and an opportunity to harness his passion for Acadian food. “I talked to some relatives of mine that were in the industry and they all said, ‘Gary, don’t do it man… if you don’t have two years of wages in your back pocket, don’t even consider it,” he recalls. He didn’t listen. “I had this nagging thing in my head about Acadian food. It was an incredible opportunity.” tadams@metroguide.ca

30 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

Despite his family ’s skepticism, LeBlanc went ahead with it. They’ve stood behind him ever since. He says his partner Roland has been a key supporter, and that he couldn’t have done it without him. Since opening in Halifax in 2015, LeBlanc has enjoyed success in a notoriously tough business. On Saturdays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., the restaurant hosts traditional Acadian nights. “The biggest comment that I hear is from seniors, ‘we love it because it doesn’t interfere with our bedtime,’” laughed Gary. Shelley Webber, a volunteer at Café L’Acadie, also shares some Acadian history and enjoys working at the Café. “They’re very good people to work for, they’re easy-going and nice, and it’s a very laid-back environment,” she says. “ [Gary] is a very humble man.” LeBlanc said his favourite part about running the restaurant is being with the diners. “When I’m done cooking in the kitchen, I make a beeline for the dining room.” He loves telling stories and listening to others about their own personal histories. “I’ve made it my business to know a lot about my cultural history.” The owner plans to demolish the building that currently houses Café L’Acadie in Bedford, but LeBlanc isn’t worried. “My understanding is that the main floor of the new building will be storefront retail and we’ll be offered dibs on space,” he says, noting that he hopes the owners will see it as an asset to have him there. “That’s pretty exciting for me because, I figure by the time that happens, there’s a good chance that I would have been at this site for five years.” LeBlanc has ideas for the restaurant if the development happens. He assumes many of the neighbourhood’s new residents will be older. Many of the customers are already seniors, including lots of Acadians who retire to the area. “My plan would be to have part of the kitchen designated to preparing menus and weekly meals for residents of the building,” he says. “I’m excited about however this unfolds. I’ve got my eyes open and I’ve got my ears open and I’m just kind of watching closely how this is coming together for me.”

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EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LOCAL BREW AN AMBITIOUS NEW BOOK CHRONICLES ATLANTIC CANADA’S BEER SCENE BY KIM HART MACNEILL This summer my partner and I took a threeday road trip to visit some breweries around the Annapolis Valley. We tried new beers, filled growlers to take home, and talked a lot with the people who made the beer. Getting to know the people behind your beer isn’t necessary, but it adds to the experience. That shiny feeling of meeting the person who makes a product you enjoy, and learning why and how they do it. This is the heart of the buy local movement, and the central idea behind a new book about craft breweries in Atlantic Canada. East Coast Crafted: The essential guide to the beers, breweries and brewpubs of Atlantic Canada works hard to live up to its title. Writers Whitney Moran (an editor and who has written extensively about Halifax’s beer scene) and Christopher Reynolds (cicerone, beer judge, and co-owner of Stillwell beer bar and Stillwell Brewing) created a book that anyone interested in beer or brewing in our region will enjoy. The book opens with a forward by esteemed beer writer Stephen Beaumont, co-author of The World Atlas of Beer and Best Beer. Beaumont highlights the growth of beer in the province between his 1994 visit to Kevin O’Keefe, owner of Halifax’s Granite Brewery

(then the lone brewpub in the region) to the 80 breweries in Atlantic Canada today. Beaumont attributes that change to the creation of a community of brewers intent on helping grow the craft-beer scene overall, instead of trying to smash the competition. That sense of community is evident in the 70-some interviews with brewers and brewery owners in the book. Each of the book’s four sections (one for each province) features an intro outlining the history of beer making in the province, a beer map, and profiles of local breweries. While the introductions could have been dull, as they focus largely on legislation, the light and casual writing style keeps the pace light. And there are fascinating nuggets throughout. Did you know that Halifax was home to some of Canada’s first temperance unions, and that Nova Scotia maintained Canada’s second longest Prohibition run (1916 to 1931)? Each profile opens with a legend noting which breweries have flights, tap rooms, growler fills, and cans or bottle. This book will be handy when you plan your next long weekend of brewery hopping (with a designated driver, of course). The profiles open with a rundown of the brewery’s popular beers, and a look at the process behind them. Home brewers and anyone interested in the science of brewing can

MUST-TRY BEERS: Out-of-towners Vic Park American Pale Ale

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PEI Brewing Company Charlottetown 5% ABV, 40 IBU Don’t let the words “pale ale” fool you into thinking that this is a low-key beer. It features a malty backbone of Vienna and 2-Row, that lends it a rich flavour and slightly darker colour than most pale ales. On the hop side, this beer features only one: Citra. Watch for flavours of tropical fruit, grapefruit, and pine. You can sometimes find this in cans at Halifax liquor stores and on tap at the Gahan House.

Celtic Knot Brewing Riverview, N.B. 6% ABV, 62 IBU This micro-brewery started in 2013, but this summer moved from the owners’ home to a stand-alone location. This beer tastes like what would happen if a porter and a moderately hopped IPA matched on Tinder. Dark, roasty, and hoppy. Find it on tap at beer bars across New Brunswick, or visit the brewery to fill a growler.

32 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

easily follow along, and learn something from each profile. A handy accompaniment shares the brewers’ favourite from their tap lists, plus beer choices from the authors. The part of each profile that makes this a must-buy book for me is what comes next: the Backstory. When I started reading, I expected to find cleaned up versions of a lot of stories I already knew, but I was pleasantly surprised. The stories told in this book are unvarnished and candid: a celebration of the wins and struggles that brewers encounter when they go pro. Tidehouse Brewing Company co-owners Peter Lionais and Shean Higgins speak candidly about the financial difficulties they had opening their brewery—losing their investors, Lionais putting part of his EI payment in the till so the business could make change for customers on opening day.

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OPINION

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS A LETTER TO SANTA (AND HALIFAX COUNCIL) BY RYAN VAN HORNE Dear Santa... I haven’t written to you in a long time and in my 49th year, my wish list has changed considerably the last time I sent a letter off to the North Pole. So, Mayor Savage and all Halifax Councillors and staff, if you’re reading this, feel free to pitch in and help make some of these things happen in 2018. It will make Halifax a better city. My first Christmas wish is for Halifax to look to other cities to see what works well when shaping and implementing the Integrated Mobility Plan. As we update our city’s outmoded transportation habits, we’re deciding how we want to move people around the city and how we’re going to develop the city with transportation in mind. This is better than the old way of developing and then trying to figure out the logistics of moving people after. Hopefully, Halifax will finally realize there are better ways to move people around the city than in cars. As an added bonus, our city won’t be developed around an outdated concept that everything important has to be downtown, requiring us to funnel the worker bees through five choke points onto the peninsula. I also wish pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists could learn to co-exist. It might require an It’s A Wonderful Life-style Christmas miracle, but if everyone would switch to a different mode of transportation for a week, they would stop being so narrowminded and start being courteous. We’d all become better citizens by having to walk, ride, or drive in another person’s shoes for a week. Instead of pointing fingers at others, we’ll see first-hand all the bad habits of people who use the same mode of transportation we usually do. Santa, I also want weeds to stop growing on the unused portion of the railcut, which

34 | halifaxmag.com DECEMBER 2017

is down to one track and has wasted capacity. We could easily have commuter rail or build a dedicated truck lane for all trucks travelling to and from the South End container terminal. That dedicated lane could also be used for express buses going to or leaving downtown at rush hours. While we’re at it, can we finally make a commitment to commuter rail? It’s a long overdue idea and one that will benefit communities from Rockingham to Fall River, not to mention reducing traffic congestion on the peninsula. The railway line would also become a strip for commercial and residential development that will start to shift our focus off the downtown and remote “business” parks that promote car culture. It would also be a great gift if HRM would stop wasting money on idling with its fleet of vehicles. After spurning a pitch to save an estimated $500,000 in fuel costs, the city will demonstrate one of two things: that it can learn from a private company or that an intransigent bureaucracy is the biggest impediment to change. In late October, council rejected a pilot project that would have monitored idling in the city’s fleet and gotten a handle on much fuel wasted by non-operational idling of vehicles. Council missed a chance to save money and help the environment by thinking city staff could do just as good a job. If they could, why haven’t they so far? Maybe they just need someone to show them the way. And Santa, I’d like the Cornwallis statue committee to take shape, meet, and come back with a recommendation that will be a sincere overture to the Mi’kmaq. It’s time that we recognize what this statue means to them. To the Mi’kmaq, the statue of

Cornwallis in a public park shows that we honour someone they consider a white supremacist who wanted to wipe out their ancestors. Don’t worry about changing history, the Mi’kmaq want history to be known—all of it. With real effort, we can show that we’re ready to move forward on reconciliation with the Mi’kmaq. And can this be the year HRM makes progress on buying land to complete the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes? After acquiring a parcel in the Purcell’s Cove Backlands in a partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the city has provided a pretty good benchmark for the value of land that will be turned into a park or greenbelt. If negotiations don’t work, which is likely with some of the tougher nuts, the city should expropriate, just as it does when landowners won’t sell out for projects like roads. One final Christmas wish: can our government give the public confidence that developers don’t control city staff and councillors. Can our representatives do a better job responding to concerns about lobbying and campaign influence by having full transparency about who is giving money to councillors and who those councillors meet with? Thanks Santa. RYAN Van HORNE Ryan is a Halifax journalist, playwright and documentary film director. His work appears in magazines and newspapers from coast to coast and at ryanvanhorne.com.

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