Pay-Per-Hack Writer

Africville Heritage Trust appoints new director

2012-01-26T10:53:00.000-04:00

you will doubtless remember the summer controversy when the africville heritage trust appointed an executive director - who turned out to be a white out-of-towner with a checkered past.

that director parted company from AHT and i've just gotten word they have a new ED. a nova scotian, too - in fact an african-nova scotian with international experience. i haven't met her yet, but it sounds like an exciting development.

here are the details:

Sunday Miller appointed to Africville Heritage Trust

Sunday Miller has led community development projects in South America, Indonesia, and Halifax. She has led not-for-profit organizations ranging from the Black Educators Association to AdSum House, and most recently has guided the Dartmouth Learning Network through a tumultuous period to stability and expanded programs.

Now, she's about to bring that experience to the Africville Heritage Trust.

"Sunday's unique combination of experience and understanding of the community will serve her well in the challenges of starting the operation of the Africville Church Museum, and the Board is looking forward to working with her to ensure that we honour the traditions and spirit of Africville," said Daurene Lewis, chair of the AHT Board.

Ms Miller, who is an African Nova Scotian with an Honours degree in science and a Masters of Business Administration, will guide the startup of operations for the Church Museum, and support fundraising for the Africville Interpretive Centre.

"This is not just a project to create a museum and an interpretive centre," said Ms Miller. "This is a spiritual journey toward healing and the creation of a vibrant Black community. I am excited to be part of it."

Construction of the replica Church is complete, and exhibits will be installed by mid-February. The Church Museum will be open to the public following a private event for former Africville residents and their descendants.

love hurts - how online romance scams suck you in, and how to fight back

2012-01-24T11:41:00.000-04:00

the new halifax magazine dropped through my mail box this morning. as i mentioned before, the cover story is aly thomson's piece on atlantic cirque celebrating its 10th anniversary with Decade, an amazing show running at the end of february.

i'm writing the script for it and stopped by the burnside HQ last weekend to meet more of the cast and tinker with matching the words to the people, the music and the action. great fun - buy your tickets now.

halifax also has my article on rob rogers, a halifax man who fell victim to an amazingly complex online romance scam. after he realized he'd been had, he didn't just pretend it had never happened - he turned himself into an online crusader with romancescams.org, thwarting hustlers and helping victims realize they're victims and extract themselves from terrible situations.

it was a fascinating glimpse into the globalized world of internet shakedowns. yeah, we can all spot the nigerian bankers and laugh, but the louder you laugh at them, the less likely you are to detect the subtler scammers reaching into your virtual pocket.

it's a great edition of halifax - buy it now. or subscribe.

here's my piece:

Love Bites

By Jon Tattrie

Standing in the Halifax airport with a handful of flowers and a heart full of hope, Rob Rogers watched passenger after passenger walk past him into waiting arms, hugs and laughter, keeping his eyes peeled for his wife Rams. After a whirlwind romance following a chance meeting online, the 47-year-old businessman married the Ghanaian woman, and today was to be the first time they met in person.

In the last few months, Rogers had gotten to know Rams’s sister - who worried about this strange Canadian’s sudden interest in her widowed sibling – her mother, the family pastor, neighbours and women from Rams’s church. Rogers was just out of a relationship and not looking for love, but when it found him, he decided he was ready to start again.

Rams didn’t get off the plane. Rogers eventually threw the flowers in the trash and went home. He was worried about Rams – but there was another, darker concern emerging. He didn’t hear from her for two full days – and then she instant messaged him to say she was still stuck in Africa and needed to pay an $8,000 declaration fee.

Rogers googled “declaration fees from Ghana” and found not information about African bureaucracy, but Romancescams.org. That’s when Rogers began his transformation from prey for online scammers into a predator of online scammers.

“There’s usually more than one character involved,” he says today in his Halifax home. “[Romance Scams] used to joke that I must have had the supervisor of scammers, because my story was so complex.”

After recovering from the shock of learning his wife was a fictional character with a fake family played by a cast of Ghanaian charlatans, Rogers became a peer counselor for Romance Scams (RS) and dedicated much of his free time to outwitting the scammers and rescuing other victims. Rogers lost $14,000. Others have lost $500,000

“They work in groups of six to eight young men. Two of them do nothing but send emails all day to any site where there’s any social contact. If you respond to that email, you’re handed over to other members of the group. They google you to research you, and fill in the blanks with questions to create a character that’s specific to your ideas and your dreams,” he says.

Rogers is interrupted by a visitor to the RS chat room. It’s a man from Scotland who is having the first inklings something is wrong with his romance. Over the next hour, the chat room gets visitors from Halifax, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Vietnam. Online hustling is a global enterprise.

“What binds us all together at this site is the damage to our hearts and trust. It’s nothing to do with the money,” Rogers says. “It’s like having a death in the family, but there’s no funeral for closure.”

In retrospect, he can see red flags he walked right by.

“I was talking to her and her sister online through IM one night and all of a sudden they both started talking to me in Cantonese,” he says. Then, he believed it was a weird wire crossing on the internet. Now he knows the “women” were young men in a tiny room in Ghana trying to keep track of which mark they were working.

Another flag is rabid persistency. If someone you’ve just met swiftly falls in love with you and just as swiftly comes into financial trouble and needs you to wire them money, you’re being taken. It might be a Ghanaian scammer or it might be a manipulative person in Bedford – either way, walk away.

“If they’ve never met you before and you’re the only person on Earth who can help them with their money situation, they’re a scammer,” Rogers says.

He urges people with suspicions about their relationships to contact RS. They can trace email. If your lover is in Chicago, but the email comes from Nigeria, you’ve got a problem. The site has a quiz, a list of red flags and hot scams. If you think you’re being duped, you probably are.

The first step is to cut off all contact – block their emails, ignore their instant messages, cancel outstanding transfers of money and report the scammer to the site they contacted you on. If you don’t, a spiteful scammer might send you a virus that wrecks your computer.

If it’s a family member you’re worried about, send them links to scam-busting websites. But be prepared to be ignored – a heart in full gallop is not easily reined in. Rogers is currently working with a man whose brother is convinced he is married to a Ghanaian woman. His scammers are growing bolder and more ludicrous. The brother recently paid for a dowry that included a white goat, a black goat, a sewing machine and a suitcase large enough to hold the goats and sewing machine.

“They don’t care what your situation is. They’ll ask you point blank to sell your house and send them the money,” Rogers says.

The “recently married” man has finally agreed to stop sending money, but still doesn’t believe it was all a lie.

Corp. Lise Hamel, a fraud expert with the RCMP in Halifax, says scammers are relentless, intelligent and ruthless.

“First of all, you never wire money to anyone you haven’t met,” she says. “That’s a red flag right there.”

Talk to friends and family about your situation and look at the RCMP’s anti-fraud site (antifraudcentre.ca) or the Halifax Regional Police page of scams (halifax.ca/Police/Fraud). Hamel says romance scammers often make a sideline profit by calling marks posing as their bank. After you answer a few security questions, they tell you about a new offer, and disconnect. The scammers now have access to your bank account.

Hamel says education can armour you against the attack of the scammers.

Romancescams.org has helped 50,000 victims, reported 5,500 scammers and worked relentlessly to outwit the scammers since 2005. Its victims have collectively lost $14 million, meaning the scammers are strongly motivated to keep upping their game, targeting men and women of all ages.

Rogers relishes his role as online defender, though the endless stream of broken-hearted victims takes its toll. The site also offers some consolation, though.

“We’ve actually had a few people who have met through our site and gotten married. They know they’re not getting scammers,” he says with a laugh.

nova scotia's unmasked crusader strikes again

2012-01-18T11:03:00.001-04:00

the unmasked crusader strikes again. this morning i'm watching nova scotia's auditor general unsettling provincial politicians.

a good time to revisit my halifax magazine profile of jacques lapointe:

The inside man

By Jon Tattrie | Jan 18, 2012
Tags: Jacques Lapointe

Auditor General Jacques Lapointe isn’t trying to score political points—he just wants clean government.

The inside man

By Jon Tattrie | Jan 18, 2012
Tags: Jacques Lapointe

Auditor General Jacques Lapointe isn’t trying to score political points—he just wants clean government.

Jacques Lapointe is the kind of guy who could break into your house, tie you to a chair and take all of your things, but when the police ask for a description, you would suddenly stall. “Um, he’s about average height? Usual weight. Middle-aged. Normal hair—maybe brown? Or black? He may have been wearing glasses. Or not. His accent was… Canadian. I think he had a moustache—yes! He definitely had a moustache.”

Nova Scotia’s auditor general does indeed have a moustache, and you can bet many officials felt like they’d been mugged by the mild-mannered man behind the MLA expense scandal, a report blasting the province’s fire marshals for “significant fire safety deficiencies” and an analysis of “weak oversight,” fating the Colchester Regional Hospital to burst its budget.

Google “Jacques Lapointe” and you’ll find photo after photo of his impassive face at a press conference desk in front of provincial flags. The drabness of the setting and the calmness of his personality focuses everyone’s attention on his words, often to devastating effect.

Sitting in his nondescript office in a nondescript government building on Brunswick Street, Lapointe shrugs off suggestions he should quietly toil in the background and hand his reports to the politicians elected to handle such matters. “I think it has to be very open, what we do here,” he says.

He pounded the NDP government’s “pervasive policy of secrecy” at a press conference last year, saying, “I don’t want to make governments quake, I want them to pay attention.”

Lapointe says he would happily stay in the bureaucratic shadows, but he takes the auditor general’s role as public watchdog too seriously. “If we were just to report to the House of Assembly very quietly, say in camera, that’s okay from the point of view of the members of the legislature, but the people
in the province who are affected by the programs we audit wouldn’t know,” he explains. “I think they have a right to know, so for that reason I go directly to the public.”

He deliberately avoids the technical jargon that obscures the findings of other auditors general. “It can be strong,” he admits. “We say it in plain language.”

The auditor general is an independent observer and investigator of government operations. The House of Assembly appoints people to the position for a ten-year term. Firing the AG requires a vote with two-thirds backing from MLAs.

David Stuewe, professor of public administration at Dalhousie University, says public servants are usually invisible. “The rule is, if a public servant has a profile, he has a problem,” he says.

But AGs break that rule. They are bound to make big findings, given their job is to explore billion-dollar operations. Sometimes those are tips for improvement and sometimes people go to jail. “It’s one of the great advances in our parliamentary system,” Stuewe says.

Stuewe, once the CEO of the Workers Compensation Board, was on the receiving end of a previous AG’s audit. “It can be very trying,” he says. AGs can create systems that work brilliantly on paper, but fail in real life. Stuewe says the downsides are outweighed by the benefits of having fresh eyes examine an organization.

Lapointe and his 33 staff are self-directed and prioritize areas with a high impact on public safety, like the report on school-bus safety, and money, such as the notorious MLA spending scandal.

Lapointe admits he was caught off guard by the explosive reaction to that last one. It started as an idea in 2006, when Newfoundland’s auditor general found its provincial politicians had misspent millions of dollars from public coffers, and was bolstered again a few years ago when British Members of Parliament were caught expensing moat cleaning and the construction of $2,500 duck houses.

When Lapointe began digging in the swamp of Nova Scotia MLA expenses, he found no claims for moat cleaning, but he did find suspicious home generators, wide-screen TVs and dubious travel claims. The story dominated 2010. Three former and one current MLA now face criminal charges.

“I guess it caught people’s imagination,” Lapointe says. “That’s not my intent. My intent is just to report it to get the changes made that I think have to be done. Frankly, if those changes get made, then I don’t care how much publicity it all gets.”

The briefest of smiles ripples across his placid face at the suggestion he breaks stories for which journalists would sell their souls. “There’s always a danger that what I report winds up being sensationalized,” he says. “I’ve found the reporting to be pretty good.”

Despite the sharpness of his sword, you’ll be hard-pressed to find enemies of Lapointe—at least, enemies that will speak aloud. Time after time, officials spanked by his findings bow their heads and promise to make the suggested fixes.

And then do nothing.

Lapointe and his staff recently found that government ignored 48 per cent of

the AG’s 466 recommendations between 2005 and 2008. “I actually do not understand that,” he says. “It doesn’t seem to be a disagreement… it just doesn’t seem to be happening.”

His frustration prompted him to call a press conference in May blasting that inaction. Premier Darrell Dexter promised to look into the matter.

So is Lapointe tempted to ditch his job and run for office so he can directly control the levers of power? That flashing smile returns, this time accompanied by a short laugh. “Oh, gosh no,” he says. “That requires a different skill set than what I have.” It could also compromise the neutrality of the post for future AGs, he adds.

Lapointe is halfway through his ten-year term. Despite his 40 something looks, he’s actually 64, so retirement will be his next career move. He’s happy that’s happening in Nova Scotia. Growing up near Kirkland Lake in Northern Ontario, he was raised by francophone parents who ran an English-language resort. A childhood among 500-year-old red fir trees seeded a lifetime love of Canada’s wilderness that’s reflected in his office. A rustic Tom Thompson painting hints at his own hinterland and two Ojibwa drawings honour his First Nations grandmother.

He started his professional life 35 years ago as a private accountant in Toronto. After 15 years, he took a post inside the Ontario government. After another 15 years, the Nova Scotia post came up and he and his retired wife jumped at the chance to move to Halifax. His weekends are often spent canoeing three portages deep at Kejimkujik National Park or the Tobeatic Wilderness Area.

“If you can portage a couple of times, then you get away from people who won’t do that,” he laughs, flashing a surprisingly Tom Cruise-like grin. “It’s amazing the solitude you get out there.”

The untamed wilds rejuvenate him to dig deeper into the operations of the government that controls its fate. “If you’re trying to make a difference, this is a chance to do exactly that,” he says.

The next time his mustachioed face turns up on your evening news, you’ll want to pay attention, so you can at least describe Nova Scotia’s unmasked avenger should the police come knocking.

black snow falling on this halifax explosion anniversary

2011-12-06T11:58:00.000-04:00

on this the 94th anniversary of the halifax explosion, Atlantic Books Today is republishing an extract of my 2009 novel Black Snow.

re-reading it reminds me of the emotional inspiration i found for it when writing in the winter of 2008. i had been back in halifax for 2 years after 7 years in europe and was settling back into a nice life with a good job right up until 11am on feb 11 - when i learned that my employer, the daily news, had shut down.

it was a shocking event and sent my life plunging into six months of chaos until things finally began to stabilize in the fall of 2008 and i decided freelancing could be more than just journalistic code for 'unemployed' and an actual way to make a living.

i had gotten the contract for Black Snow feb 6 when lesley choyce of pottersfield called and said he liked what he had seen of it so far and was eager to see the rest. the closing of the daily news not only gave me a template for tommy joyce's emotional life, but it also gave me an unexpected dump of free time. since nobody wanted to give me a job and i couldn't sell an article to anyone, i sat down and wrote the novel in a daze.

you can read the extract here, or below, and the novel is in the library, book stores or via online here. if you read all the way to the bottom you get a bonus photo of me when i had apparently decided to model my haircut on the soldier's crop tommy would have sported.

Black Snow

A naked sailor staggers through the smoking ruins, his charred skin feathered with peels of white blisters, a roof shingle nailed to his hand.

“Where am I?” he slurs through a broken face, eyes staring wildly at nothing. I shake my head, gaping at the suddenly birthed hell all around me. Buildings burn and hot black snow falls from the smoldering sky. I’m crumpled on my side, arm crushed under me, screaming in agony. I silence myself, but the screaming goes on.

An inhuman wailing, like a knife slicing through glass, pierces my ear as a flaming chunk of metal tumbles from the sky and cracks the sailor on the side of his head, knocking his white hat sideways. He stumbles, falls to the ground.

A young woman stripped to her corset pulls herself off the sidewalk and starts to run, but a gash in her leg sends her back down. She crumples to the ground and rolls, clutching her wound.

The house next to me collapses on itself. Someone shouts from the basement, trapped under the rubble. As I lurch to my feet to help, the coals from the tipped-over fireplace set the wreckage alight. The screaming intensifies with the roaring of the inferno. I run to the home, joined by the black ghosts of those still breathing, but the fire is devouring the building like kindling.

The front of the house is buckled in, punched back by the force of the blast. A decapitated corpse hangs out the second storey window, and I don’t know where to start. The screaming is coming from under the rubble, so I pull back the heavy timber. It’s red-hot, but my hands are cold with the winter chill. I hear a woman screaming, “My baby! My baby!”

The screaming loses language, becomes something primal. There are five of us in there now, but it’s like shoveling the ocean—debris piles up where we’ve cleared space. The howling is deep, raw.

It stops.

Other voices take up the cry.

I look around, trying to see where I am, but the sooty fog obscures the city. There arebodies everywhere, smashed together in the wreckage, hanging off lampposts and draped over the telegraph wires. It looks like the explosion in the harbour destroyed the whole world.

A young couple clutching a baby stand screaming on the second floor of a burning house. Flames have incinerated most of the first floor and are minutes away from the family. I pull myself in that direction but a young man gets there first. “Throw him down!” he hollers through cupped hands. The woman shakes her head and the man with her tries to grab the baby. Hysterical, she fights him off. The flames are poking through the floor now. The husband puts an arm around her, talks. She nods.

Locking eyes with the young man on the street, she says a prayer and tosses her baby down.

The man catches it cleanly, then holds it out like he’s never touched a baby before.

Atlantic Books Today BOOK EXCERPT

The man comes next, leaping out over the flames and crumpling on the street.

“Come on!” he shouts up to his wife, but she’s terrified, holding her belly.

The back of the house collapses under the heat and the front leans backward. She screams, leaps to the street. She hits and rolls. Her husband is there and she jumps to her feet to grab her baby. Everyone’s crying. The woman says she is pregnant. I try to stop myself hyperventilating and scan the devastation...

* * *

The windows of the new brick school are all kicked out, but the walls are mostly standing. Six horse-drawn wagons like ours are parked at a back door while soldiers unload a seventh, stacking the stiff corpses neatly beside a bent door heading to the basement. The drivers smoke and make low talk. A few civilians come and go. Out on the road, wagons thunder past blindly in the blizzard. I jump down from the wagon, walk past the soldiers, following the torches down to the basement.

It’s a grisly scene. It’s been converted to an emergency morgue and a low, dark ceiling hangs over a dingy floor, lit only by a few torches and oil lamps hanging on the walls. It’s damp, the concrete floor dirty, and stretching out among the pillars before me like small white crosses marking graves are hundreds of bodies. There’s easily room for a thousand, but it’s only a fifth full.

It’s an orderly apocalypse: rows and rows of corpses, most covered with white sheets. Some have little piles beside them: a girl’s body next to some school books; a watch and keys next to an old man; a baby next to a young woman. Soldiers keep bringing corpses in, dropping them on the concrete with a dull flap, leaving them to be washed and laid out in the hopes someone will be able to identify them. Nurses come with the white sheets. Others walk around with clipboards,compiling a list of the dead, noting their age, race, sex and any possessions that were found near them.

A woman asks if she can help me. She’s maybe twenty, blond hair tied back. Pretty in her starched uniform, but drained by her work.

“I’m looking for my wife,” I tell her.

“Name?”

I say it, and she checks her clipboard, then shakes her head.My heart stops.

“She’s not on my list. But most of them—” she waves her hand over the dead. “We don’t know who they are.”

I notice other people down in this Hades. An old man in a clean shirt and tie, leaning on his grandson, limps from one body to the next. At each one they stop, and the young man pulls back the sheet. The old man stoops, takes a long look, then shakes his head. The boy replaces the sheet and moves on. Collapsed souls searching among broken bodies.

“Why the school?” I ask the nurse.

“The morgues were full hours ago,” she explains. “We’ve got thousands of soldiers and sailors collecting the dead, and they need to bring them somewhere.

“They learned how to prepare after the Titanic went down a few years ago, and all those bodies came to Halifax. The man who oversaw that, he’s overseeing today’s recovery.”

I nod in the gloom. So that’s the scale of it: a poorman’s Titanic.A whole city sunk, and no lifeboats.

“Where do I start?” I ask the nurse.

A tear sneaks down her cheek. She rubs it away. “I don’t know,” she says, and turns fromme. She kneels at a sheet, pulls it back, and notes the details of the newly dead.

Jon Tattrie is a journalist and writer based in Halifax. His website is jontat trie.ca

the madeleine joy of book collecting, and the problem of unreconstructed racism and sexism

2011-12-02T11:06:00.000-04:00

my elderly dog had an accident last week and peed on the floor. this was not the first time and i found we were out of paper towels to clean it up - so i reached into the recycling bin and grabbed a week's worth of newspapers (thank god for the saturday globe and mail) and hey presto! it was all gone. TRY AND DO THAT WITH YOUR INTERNET!!!

what i'm trying to say is there are certain things that just don't do the same job virtually. for example: collecting books. i have and love a kobo, but who would treasure a collection of ebooks? how can you artfully display gigabytes in your living room? you're certainly not going to get a happy rush of childhood nostalgia when you find a missing e-volume lurking in a dark corner of amazon.ca.

hence my article in this month's Atlantic Books Today on book collectors. i spoke with three ardent collectors about their jewels and that prousian joy of madeleine moments of discovery. also, i have a new baby niece called madeleine, and it was a good chance to sneak her name into the magazine. (i also got her full name into metro canada with this article following two fictitious home buyers.)

this being halifax, a few weeks after i interviewed my second subject - erica - i ran into her at the atlantic cirque HQ in burnside. i'm writing the scripted sections of the cirque's upcoming 10th anniversary show Decade and erica has a starring role as a juggler and aerial artist.

By Jon Tattrie

Walking into Nate Crawford’s home is like entering a finely curated personal museum. Star Trek figurines guard the foyer and a record collection starring Blue Note jazz classics fills a bookshelf by the entrance. The living room is decorated with a phonograph and old photographs.

It’s here the executive director of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia shows off his Tintins. He opens one of the magazine-sized books to reveal a vintage 1980s plate with a child’s “Nate” printed neatly.

“This is why I started collecting,” he says. “This was in the house when I grew up.”

The classic comic books were created by the Belgian artist Georges Remi (aka Herge) and follow the adventures of the red-haired boy reporter, his alcoholic terrier Snowy and an assorted motley crew on adventures around the world.

Crawford’s collection began when his mother bought him one on a family trip to Saint John. It became a custom and he continued buying them as an adult. The books are like family photos, trailing clouds of childhood glory. The balance of the matching set adds an aesthetic appeal.

Crawford hunts for the 23 volumes issued between the 1930s and 1970s. 21 are widely available and he is missing five. He’s not a white-gloved collector – he stores them in a stack on the bookshelf and leafs through them to point out the sumptuous illustrations. Herge famously travelled to China, the U.S. and South America to create highly realistic scenes, into which he inserted Tintin and his adventures.

“It’s Indiana Jones, but he’s this androgynous kid with a dog,” Crawford says.

He could finish most of his collection online in an afternoon, but prefers to let luck do the work. That approach recently completed his collection of Arak, Son of Thunder, a two-decade mission that recently culminated with a random visit to a Gottingen Street shop while killing time.

Erica Penton’s collections of The Bobbsey Twins and Cherry Ames started before she was even born, when her pregnant mother bought some for her. Mother and daughter continued to collect them at garage sales throughout her itinerant childhood in a military family.

A particular garage sale prize, purchased for $0.95, is a 1913 edition of The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge. The range of years the books were issued over means they changed size and style several times, so the collection is not uniform. Like the racial stereotypes of Tintin, Penton’s books look lovely on the outside but contain badly dated sexist content that means she wouldn’t encourage any child of hers to read them.

Penton, who recently graduated with her masters in library science and works at the Halifax bookstore Woozles, displays the books in her living room just above her Harry Potters. Picking one up is like savouring Proust’s madeleine cakes, a sensual experience sending one back to childhood.

She has about 60, or around 90 per cent of each collection, and the missing editions are like memories scattered in bookstores and yard sales around the world; Penton loves happening upon another crumb.

“I really enjoy the serendipity of coming across them at a flea market or in a garage sale or used bookstore.

I would much prefer to find them that way than just ordering them off Amazon,” she explains.

“I love going into antique stores and there’s a surly, grumpy person in the corner looking at me like, ‘Who are you? You don’t look like our typical customer.’ But as soon as I say, ‘Do you have any Cherry Ames books,’ their face lights up.”

Ruby Cusack is the queen of collectors. The family room of her Saint John home throbs with more than 12,000 books. Her massive library started with an early passion for Anne of Green Gables, and the retired teacher’s deep love of books remains rooted in childhood. The 74-year-old grew up in a time when the evening’s entertainment was recounting family stories.

“I love the small village histories that they probably only printed 100 copies of. They’re the memories of people who tell what it was like in their day,” she says. Sussex and Vicinity by Grace Aiton and Reflections: The Story of Hampton by David Keirstead are two of her favourites.

Cusack writes a genealogy column for the Telegraph-Journal and many of her books also work as reference tools. “The books that I love the most are my Saint John city directories,” she says.

She got her first directory from her husband. Dating from 1894, they provide census-like information on the city’s residents. She now has about 50.

“My dream as a child was to have lots of books. Not paperback novels, but true stories of New Brunswick. I don't know when this book collecting got out of hand as I searched through bookstores, yard sales and gladly accepted gifts of books from friends, etc, but somehow it did. I just could not resist buying a book,” she says.

Having run out of storage space, she’s is selling off some of her collection at rubycusack.com. “The time has come, although sometimes there is a tear in my eye, to bid farewell to this collection of books that over the years have become my treasured friends,” she says.

The problem of organizing such vast collections vexes many a bibliophile, but it’s a problem Tracey Stone has solved. The Halifax woman’s 3,000-strong collection of science fiction books sits double deep on four floor-to-ceiling shelves in her personal library.

With books being republished, often with new titles or as part of collections, she was finding it hard to know if she had a copy already. She started to keep track with a spread sheet, but went online in recent years.

“My books are catalogued in Librarything.com because it helps me from buying duplicates,” she says.

“It was mainly for insurance purposes, because I thought the insurance company would never have believed me when I said I had X number of books.”

The only down side is that it also recommends delightful new books, so her collection grows by the week.

Stone’s organizational skills should come as no surprise – she works in the Halifax Public Library.

-30-

oppression, loss and hope in black nova scotia - a panel discussion

2011-11-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

i was on a panel discussion last week at the Universalist Unitarian church in southend halifax. the topic was Oppresion: Loss and Hope among Black Nova Scotians. as a youngish white atheist, i was a little nervous about talking in a church about black nova scotians and earning my keep with the other panelists - Irvine Carvery and Wanda Thomas Bernard.

i have interviewed irvine many times, both for The Hermit of Africville (my bio of eddie carvery being the reason i was there) and as a journalist, and have deep admiration for his intellect and accomplishments. it was the first time i met dr. thomas bernard (you can see some of her achievements and publications here), and i learned a lot listening to her take, which focused on the importance of education in righting the wrongs of racism.

given that irvine carvery is the head of the africville genealogy society and eddie's younger brother, i decided to mainly steer clear of that and instead offer what i have learned as a white nova scotian researching africville and other parts of black nova scotian history.

openfile has an article about it here and you can listen to the discussion via the halifax media coop here.

the third and final installment of the series is on the same topic, but in the first nations community. it starts at 7pm on dec 13 at 5500 inglis street.

here's the openfile article:

Loss and hope in Black Nova Scotia, recorded

The Universalist Unitarian church is two thirds of the way through a series called Oppression: Loss and Hope, where they've focused on different marginalized communities in Nova Scotia and inviting guests with first hand experiences to discuss them together. The most recent panel, about loss and hope in Black Nova Scotia, happened this past Tuesday, and the Halifax Media Co-op has the full audio in two parts.

The first part deals with loss.

Panelist Wanda Thomas-Bernard, a Dalhousie School of Social Work professor, author and activist, talks about the broken promises that brought people of African descent to Nova Scotia in the first place, and in some cases drove them out. Irvine Carvery, the chair of the Halifax District School Board, speaks of how "a culture of sharing, a culture of giving, a culture of mutual support" developed as a self-preservation strategy within the Black community marked by loss.

Until fifty-five years ago, segregated schools were legal in Nova Scotia. Thomas-Bernard, who lives in East Preston, says: "I'd be ok with segregated communities—I live in one, even—if they were separate but equal." They aren't, of course, she says.The legacy of the lost opportunities in education and employment are still felt within her community.

Education was an even more prominent topic in the second half, the hope portion of the discussion. Carvery points out that 74 percent of the children of African descent in iNova Scotia live in Halifax. So our school systen, in particular, is a key one, because if it fails, it is affecting a whole race of children. He says the system "needs targeted funding for those children."

The third member of the panel was author Jon Tattrie, who spoke on the privileges he inherited as a white Nova Scotian, and how his perspective on them shifted as he researched and wrote about Eddie Carvery—the Hermit of Africville—and Irvine's brother.

For more info about African Nova Scotians, a visit to the Black Cultural Centre is always worthwhile. If you haven't been lately, it's newly renovated, with whole new exhibits, so go again.

The next discussion in the Loss and Hope series will be Tuesday, Dec. 13, 7 p.m., on First Nations People of Nova Scotia. The church is at 5500 Inglis Street.

Occupy Africville

2011-11-09T10:14:00.002-04:00

as attention around the world focuses on the Occupy protests and what to do with them - and what the protesters should do - a cbc calgary reporter started thinking about long-term protesting and what it takes to stay the course. he had studied at king's in halifax in the mind-1990s and remembered eddie carvery's africville protest. he googled to see what ever happened to him, found The Hermit of Africville and that he was still there and sent me an email. i stopped by the camp yesterday and lent eddie my cellphone so the afternoon radio show's host could interview him about Occupy and his own 41-year occupation.

i listened to the first five minutes in the trailer with him before going outside to quiet the barking dogs. you can listen to the full thing here.

as eddie says in the interview, in a depressing recreation of history, now that he has moved peacefully off the church site and the church has been built, he's been dropped. all of the africville heritage trust talk of a curator's position, of paying him for the winterized home they destroyed, of honouring his protest has vanished like morning dew. the church is built and stands empty. eddie's locked out.

eddie hasn't vanished, though. you can hear in his voice he is tired and weakened physically, but unbending in his determination to stand his ground.

he has heard that some people are thrilled with the church, but unhappy with the unattractive camp in front of it. it ruins the photos, apparently.

he's now preparing for the winter. the trailer gets ice cold and the insulated little house he had built is gone, so he's starting over again. this is an extra good time of year to visit with hot coffee, food, and company.

Occupy Africville

City Council says Occupy Calgary can stay but not the tents, making the protestors lives more difficult if they decide to stay. It's just one bump in the road if they are truly serious about a long-term protest, and no one knows more about the art of sustained protest than Eddie Carvery. He lives in Halifax and grew up in the mostly black neighbourhood called Africville, it was bulldozed by the city to make way for other development and residents called that racist. Eddie Carvery decided to protest the move, setting up his own Occupy-like movement in the area in 1970, 41 years later The Hermit of Africville is still protesting.

getting out my travel shoes for the globe & mail

2011-10-11T14:58:00.000-03:00

two of my steady ambitions over my 3.5 year freelancing career have been to do more travel writing (who doesn't want to write about travelling??) and to write for the globe and mail. this week, a lucky break saw me do both at the same time.

granted, the travelling didn't involve international airports or exotic destinations, but it was fun to offer business travellers a guided tour of my home town. you can read the article here or below.

Top Halifax hotspots for the business traveller

When Paul MacKinnon has business colleagues visiting him in Halifax, he has a long list of short trips to help explore the city between meetings.

“One of the biggest advantages we have as a downtown is how compact we are,” the executive director of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission says. “You can pretty well walk anywhere you want to go.”

For shopping, he recommends browsing boutique shops on Barrington Street until it meets Spring Garden Road, and then heading up Halifax’s busiest retail district, checking out independent coffee houses and neighbourhood pubs en route.

“We don’t have a ton of chains downtown, which sometimes people don’t like, but I think it’s a real strength. If someone’s here from Toronto, how excited are they going to be about a Banana Republic? But if they see a Freak Lunchbox, that’s going to be very different for them,” Mr. MacKinnon says, referring to the retro candy and toy shop at 1723 Barrington Street.

While Europeans may not get lost in the mists of Halifax’s historical offerings, visitors from the rest of Canada and the U.S. will find plenty to discover. In the centre of Halifax, the Parade Square dates back to the city’s founding in 1749, as does St. Paul’s Anglican Church, making it the oldest Protestant place of worship in Canada. It’s also got a ghostly silhouette in one of its windows, said to be the un-erasable remains of a man killed in the 1917 Halifax Explosion.

Mr. MacKinnon also sends visitors to the Old Burying Ground at the corner of Barrington and Spring Garden. It’s the final resting place of 12,000 citizens of Halifax. Among the bones are the remains of Major General Robert Ross, the man who burned Washington in 1814, forcing Americans to paint the president’s house its famous white.

Halifax was built as a fort and the Citadel still dominates the city. Visitors can drink in the views from the hill or step inside to get a sense of Halifax’s glory days of war.

Patricia Lyall, president of the tourism body Destination Halifax, suggests starting with a long walk on the boardwalk if the sun is still up. At one end is Casino Nova Scotia and about four kilometres later is the interactive Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. The museum, sometimes referred to as Canada’s Ellis Island, shows Halifax’s history of newcomers and helps visitors dig into their own roots.

“I’ve heard where people have almost gotten lost in memories,” she says. “With very limited information, they can find that thread that unravels something they didn’t know before. It’s exciting news to take home.”

The waterfront Maritime Museum of the Atlantic boasts a collection of artifacts from the Titanic, and an in-depth display on the Halifax Explosion.

For high arts, Ms. Lyall recommends Symphony Nova Scotia and Neptune Theatre. To find out what concerts or shows are currently on, ask your hotel’s concierge – or download Destination Halifax’s new Mobile Concierge. The app is free at Destinationhalifax.com.

“Business travellers don’t necessarily know what free time, if any, they’re going to have in advance. It’s more spur-of-the-moment planning when a meeting ends early,” Ms. Lyall says. “They want to know what’s easy to do within an hour or two.”

The always-updated Mobile Concierge will tell you what’s going on and where.

For a less formal evening, the Metro Centre is home to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Halifax Mooseheads and the upstart National Basketball League’s Halifax Rainmen.

“We find that’s an interesting thing for business people who may be travelling alone,” Ms. Lyall says. “Going to a sporting event is very comfortable to do on your own.”

If you’re travelling in a group, the Grafton Street Dinner Theatre or Halifax Feast Dinner Theatre offer a decent meal and a show. And The Black Cultural Centre, which is about a 20-minute drive from downtown Halifax, has an in-depth exploration of the African Nova Scotian experience.

Time spent in Halifax is infused with the moody, broody Atlantic Ocean. The Tall Ship Silva, the Harbour Queen and the Harbour Hopper will all get you out on the water. The Tall Ship Silva (a schooner) makes daily excursions, sailing past the harbour islands and offering outstanding views of the city. The Harbour Hopper is an amphibious machine that once fought in Vietnam, but now drives tourists around the city before splashing into the harbour. The Harbour Queen offers dining cruises on Friday and Saturday evenings. If you want a more local harbour tour, hop on the ferry to Dartmouth for just $2.75. The short crossing is immensely fun and you might spot a seal, or even a leatherback sea turtle. If you’ve got a few hours, you can take a seasonal boat down the shoreline to the celebrated and scenic Peggys Cove lighthouse.

For casual drinks and dinner, Halifax is staggering with Irish-inspired pubs such as Durty Nelly’s, the Old Triangle and the legendary Lower Deck. Durty Nelly’s claims to be the city’s only authentic Irish pub, as the owners had the bar and furniture shipped over from the Emerald Isle.

For a sample of seafood, Salty’s on the waterfront and the classic Five Fishermen Restaurant and Grill are two of Halifax’s top spots. The Hart & Thistle in the Historic Properties is fairly new and not overflowing with ambience, but it does sit on the harbour and the superb view makes it a great spot to dine alone.

Ms. Lyall says a big part of the Halifax experience is wandering the waterfront, window shopping and getting a taste of nature at the seasonal Public Gardens or the year-round Point Pleasant Park.

“Even in the winter, walking through the streets of the city when it’s crisp and everything’s got a little touch of frost on it – it’s absolutely spectacular,” she says.

Another perennial favourite is a brewery tour at Alexander Keith’s or Garrison Brewing. Keith’s, the granddaddy of Nova Scotia breweries, has been sousing Nova Scotians since 1863.

Actors in period costumes take visitors back in time and back through the brewery. As is often the case in Halifax, it ends up in the pub sampling Keith’s finest brews.

Special to The Globe and Mail

****

After work hours

5 p.m. Right after your last meeting of the day, Explore Pier 21. You won’t have long before it closes on a weekday, but it’s worth it. The interactive museum tells a big part of Canada’s story – and you might just find out more of your own family history.

6 p.m. Browse the shops on Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road before dinner. Halifax’s chain stores congregate in business parks outside of town. In the city centre, it’s quirky, independent shops as far as the eye can see.

6:30 p.m. Dinner at the Five Fishermen. Nova Scotia is Canada’s Ocean Playground and this is one of the best places to sample its seafood.

8:30 p.m. Stroll the boardwalk: One of Canada’s longest boardwalks takes you from Casino Nova Scotia to Pier 21, passing museums, shops, public art, pubs and more.

10 p.m. Drinks at the Old Triangle: Halifax was born a military town and baptized with alcohol. The Old Triangle isn’t actually all that old, but it carries on the spirit of lively watering holes.

africville heritage trust terminates contentious director

2011-09-21T17:00:00.002-03:00

just got this press release about the AHT's controversial ED hiring:

Statement by Daurene Lewis, Chair, Africville Heritage Trust Society

The Africville Heritage Trust Society is privileged to be entrusted with responsibility to bring to fruition the dream of recognition of Africville in the form of a Church Museum and Interpretive Centre.

The Africville Project is not a memorial to a community that is gone. It is the next chapter in the history of Africville, and it is our intention that it will stand as a testament against racism.

The story of Africville is important to everyone who believes in the principles of justice, equality, and the dignity of the human spirit. And those principles know no race.

The Trust is committed to the principle of merit based hiring, because our mandate requires a unique and extensive skill set. However, we are conscious that our hiring decisions reflect the project, and that the future is determined by the steps we take today.

While in June 2011 the Trust felt that Carole Nixon would be the best person to a fulfill the role as Executive Director of the Trust, that is no longer the case. As of this morning, Ms. Nixon is no longer an employee of the Africville Heritage Trust. We will be initiating a search for a new Executive Director as soon as possible, and will be arranging for an interim manager until that search is complete.

September 21, 2011

it's alive! it's alive!!! neptune's 49th season begins with a dead man

2011-09-19T15:55:00.000-03:00

it's alive! it's alive!!!

well, sort of. neptune theatre's new season kicked off friday with Frankenstein. i was there for halifax magazine. the play had potential, and a superb monster, but nothing to match this classic scene.

by pleasant coincidence, i spent sunday at the birthday of my 93-year-old grandmother-in-law, who remembers seeing the 1931 movie when it first came out.

Frankenstein struggles to come alive

There was an excited buzz ahead of Friday’s opening night performance of Frankenstein at Neptune Theatre. The poster features a beefcake monster all dark and broody –with tattoos! – and everyone knows the story. The delight would be in the telling.

Neptune’s play is based on Mary Shelley’s novel, but drops much of the plot. The result can be confusing, such as when the creature tells Dr.

Frankenstein that a blind man taught him to read.

Victor Frankenstein (Seann Gallagher) comes across as a cold, listless member of the ruling class, indifferent to the lives of others. For reasons never made clear in the play, he has started secretly breaking into graves and taking body parts from morgues in an effort to create a living creature. Vanity – the effort to oust God as sole creator of life – seems to be his only motive. In between stitching corpse parts together, he tries to convince himself to marry his long-time girlfriend Elizabeth (Alexis Milligan), who was raised as his sister.

You would think this plot line worthy of Dexter would rivet the audience, but by the end of the first half people shifted restlessly every time unconflicted Frankenstein and his friend Henry (Kevin Dennis) had the stage to themselves. Each line is delivered in the same strained voice, so it’s hard to tell what is motivating this strange man.

Things liven up when the monster staggers onto the stage. Stephen Gartner’s jittery, stuttering, stitched-together sexpot of a beast is captivating. Though not as hideous as described in the novel, nor as hot as the model on the poster, he breathes life into the animated corpse. The creature charms and menaces in equal measure as he slowly wrestles control away from his creator and becomes his master in an effort to force Frankenstein to create him a bride.

Frankenstein agrees and soon has enough female body parts in his lab to lower the giant phallic contraption he’s built to bring life to the lifeless. We wait with baited breath to see if he’ll go through with it.

This is a play that believes in telling, not showing. Almost all of the high drama scenes – the trips to the graveyard, the birth of the monster, the murder of Frankenstein’s brother – are described, but not shown.

We have instead many long scenes of two men talking. “Too much talking,” as one audience member grumbled.

There are sparks of life in the play, though. Frau Frankenstein (Elizabeth Richardson) makes the best of her few lines and Detective Ernest (Charlies Rhindress) seems to have been the only one to get the memo that the play was set in the Dirty Thirties and brings zest to the cop on the case. But though man at the centre of it all – Gallagher’s Frankenstein – twitches and shakes, he never really comes to life.

The problem with Frankenstein is that the wrong guy is dead. Perhaps he should have tried the lightning on himself.

-30-

Jon Tattrie is an author and journalist in Halifax.

Frankenstein is at Neptune Theatre until Oct. 9. Go to Neptunetheatre.com or call 429-7070 for tickets.

controversy after africville trust hires white director

2011-09-15T08:52:00.001-03:00

the new africville heritage trust director is already embroiled in scandal and has managed to anger a big portion of the black community before the church even opens its door.

in a startling piece on the front of the herald today carol nixon, who is white, faces criticism from rocky jones.

"I find it insulting to all black people," said Burnley (Rocky) Jones, a local lawyer and well-known human rights activist.

nixon replies thusly: "This is just my opinion. If there had been a candidate of equal experience to mine who was black, I would assume that that person would have gotten the job, but there wasn’t."

that's not a good start. i didn't have a good start with nixon either. i called her last monday to say hello and talk to her for halifax magazine about the progress of the church. she didn't return my phone call. i happened to run into her at the church a few days later, after i'd filed.

she seemed rushed and didn't have time to talk. i asked if she'd met eddie carvery yet - no, she said. i pointed to him across the way and offered to introduce her, but she declined.

it boggles the mind.

guest blogging on 24 novels in one year

2011-09-12T12:00:00.000-03:00

my friend don britt is in the midst of an inspired and cracked attempt to write 24 novels in one year. he's almost done! you can follow him on twitter - @Britt_dj - and check out his website here.

a few months ago i suggested he join twitter as publishers *love* it when writers are demonstrably in the modern world. don joined, mastered the short-form writing, and just zipped past 2,000 followers.

today he kindly invited me to guest blog about my own guerrilla writing project from 2009 - christmas at the airport.

---

there are two ways into the publishing world: the front door and the back. the front door is straightforward and extremely difficult – write your book and submit it to agents and publishers, recover from the stunning rejections, and submit it to more agents and publishers. eventually, the door might open a crack and a curious eye will peek out.

... you can read the rest here.

backpage with tanya davis (how to be alone)

2011-09-09T14:32:00.000-03:00

i sat down with tanya davis this summer for atlantic books today. like three million other people, i had seen how to be alone, so i spent the time before the interview reading her new book of poetry, watching her canada games performance and watching her music videos.

we had a great long talk about writing and she gave me a tour of three specific poems and how they were created.

the article and 3 spotlights is in the new ABT, in the globe and mail today or available in bookstores and libraries across the region.

Not So Alone Anymore

Tanya Davis arrived in Halifax five years ago as a broke artist full of dreams. She haunted the city’s cafes, notebook in hand, jotting down her thoughts and later harvesting them into poems and songs. Her lonely poetic PhD studied the human condition: we are born, we eat and procreate, we die. What do we do in between?

“I remember feeling quite doubtful. A lot. I’d call my mother, like, what am I doing?” she recalls.

Today, Tanya Davis is a broke artist full of dreams, haunting the city’s cafes, notebook in hand, jotting down thoughts on life and death and later harvesting them into poems and songs. Only now, she’s not so alone: she is the city’s Poet Laureate, just published her first collection of poetry (At First, Lonely, from AcornPress), shot to international YouTube fame with her spoken word gem, How To Be Alone, and opened the Canada Games.

Davis, who is originally from P.E.I., lives in a pretty Victorian home in north end Halifax. It’s white, with purple trim and yellow highlights. In the summer, the flower garden decorates the house like it’s dressed for church. She shares the home with a musician, a fiddler/farmer and an engineer who knits. The paintings of another former artist-in-residence hang on the walls.

Her writing studio is upstairs. It’s a simple room with a few plants, two desks and lots of books. An acoustic guitar rests on a stand. There is one comfy chair and two wooden desks. One holds a computer and is pressed against a wall; the other faces the street window.

“I don’t let my computer go on that desk. I write there, and I compute there,” she says, pointing to the window and then wall desks.

Among writers, there are two basic camps: the mircowavers and the slowcookers. Microwavers zap words onto pages at high speeds, and then come back to clean up. Slowcookers stew over each word and when they’re done, they’re done.

Davis is a slowcooker. She writes in the morning, savouring each word, mixing it carefully into a line, editing back and forth over each stanza to make sure it all tastes good, before simmering to the end.

“And once it’s done, it’s done,” she says.

Travel brings vital spice to her creative machine. In her twenties, she crisscrossed Canada by bus and by thumb, sleeping “tentside in a field behind a gas station,” as she puts it in Made in Canada, adding, “I hold out my hands that have never held a passport; they show me their stamps, I show them the hats I bought at thrift stores in the towns I stopped.”

“One of my favourite things about going to a glorious new city is finding the best coffee shop to sit in,” she says. “It’s about what the new scenery does to my observations. Everything is new, but it’s always the same. We’re here, we live until we die. In between, we need to eat and procreate. I think about that stuff all the time!”

Given that everything is futile, she figures, why not do something fun? Or at least that brings consolation.

And so she writes.

Success hasn’t changed her writing process. She is more efficient, and the rhymes and half-rhymes that populate her poetry come more easily, but the challenge remains the same. To borrow from Leonard Cohen, she pays her rent every day in the Tower of Song.

Davis has lofty plans for epic poems digging into her abandoned Catholic roots, and perhaps trying her pen at short stories and novels. But meantime, she’s enjoying life.

“In the arts world there are so many people running around with their heads cut off. It’s so stressful. I want to work hard, but I also want to enjoy my life. I don’t want it to pass me by as I’m trying to achieve these goals,” she says.

As Poet Laureate, she replaces Shauntay Grant with a five-year mandate to capture the city in words, and to promote poetry. One of her first tasks was to write a poem celebrating Pride week.

“The mayor may or not show up-” she says, and then stops dead, tasting something new. “The mayor may

or not. Is that right? The word? The mayor may or may not show up,” she repeats.

You sense a poem has just been born.

To Mary Magdalene who wept

(from At First, Lonely)

The poem started at Easter when Davis overheard the line, “Woman, why are you weeping?” and jotted it down in her notebook. It’s Jesus, disguised as a gardener, addressing Mary Magdalene, crying outside his tomb. It’s a big moment – he’s about to announce the resurrection. But that’s not where Davis’s mind went.

What if Mary was just another woman and Jesus was just another guy, she wondered. It started as a song, but it became a poem.

“Woman, why are you weeping?

‘Cause Jesus up and left you

‘cause Jesus disappeared?

Did he pull a man trick, finish his business

and vanish,

leaving you feeling weird?”

Jesus’ words about weeping are no longer spiritual consolations, but the tone-deaf question of “another unintuitive man.”

Davis worked on the poem for two weeks, discovering that all abandoned lovers find the same solace. “Fast forward two thousand years and all the chocolate will go on sale to mark the anniversary of this weekend,” she writes.

How to be alone

The spoken-word piece was born when Davis and her filmmaker friend Andrea Dorfman decided to create a project. For a topic, Dorfman suggested, “How about, how to be alone?”

Artists are professional loners, needing time to make observations and turn them into work, so Davis used her expertise to write a how-to guide. “We could start with the acceptable places: the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library,” she writes.

She and Dorfman posted the video to YouTube in July 2010. Interviews with local media brought it 100,000 views before Davis took a break in a cabin in the woods. While she was away, How to Be Alone went viral, passing the one million mark with a helpful tweet by film critic Roger Ebert. Today, it’s past 3.3 million views and Davis still gets daily emails from those who have just found it and and found it perfectly captured their life - and found they weren’t so alone after all.

Your Heart Beats Hard the Whole Time

Davis was commissioned to write a poem to start the Halifax Canada Games in 2010. The organizers wanted it to be about three minutes and directed to the athletes, but accessible to the tens of thousands watching fans.

Davis drew upon the emotions of performing on stage to capture the thrill of crouching at the starting line.

“Look self, here you are, and if you don’t win this race, you still made it this far,” she writes.

She slowcooked word after word, rhyme after rhyme. The day before the performance, she tested it in the Metro Centre – and found her words echoed into incoherence. She pruned and slowed the poem.

At the opening ceremony, the words floated through the air like butterflies, joining their companions in the nervous stomachs of the competitors.

africville church to open sept 25

2011-09-07T15:55:00.000-03:00

i'm working on an africville update for halifax magazine and had a deja vu today. my calls to the new executive director, carole nixon, went unanswered, but i tracked down chairwoman daurene lewis at her nscc office today and then ran into nixon in africville this afternoon.

she hasn't meant eddie yet, but says she plans to real soon. minutes after i got home, this press release landed in my inbox:

Africville Heritage Trust

News Release

Africville Church Museum to Open September 25

(Halifax, NS.- September 7, 2011) — Another milestone in the history of Africville will be marked when the Africville Church Museum is officially opened on Sunday, September 25, 2011.

The Church Museum is a replica of the Seaview Baptist Church that stood at the heart of the Black community that was demolished in the 1960s to make way for construction of the A. Murray MacKay Bridge.

“Africville is the story of racism and hardship, but it is also the story of faith and family. The exhibits in the Church Museum tell both sides of that story,” says Daurene Lewis, chair of the Africville Heritage Trust (AHT).

The Church Museum is the first phase of the Africville Project, which will later include an Interpretive Centre to celebrate the community. “The people of Africville didn’t let their community die with its physical destruction. They’ve worked with people of all backgrounds and races to keep the spirit alive through stories, songs, films and exhibits. The annual picnic has allowed younger generations of Africville families to keep in touch with each other, and has continued to welcome everyone to Africville. The lessons of Africville are about the corrosive effects of racism, yes, but they’re also about having the courage and the strength to reach beyond racial and social barriers to share a deeper human story,” Dr. Lewis said.

Funding for the Church Museum and its exhibits was part of a $3 million agreement between HRM and the Africville Genealogy Society (AGS) to settle a legal action undertaken by AGS on behalf of the community. The settlement also included transfer of property in Africville, renaming of Seaview Park to Africville, and the establishment of an African Nova Scotian Affairs office within the municipality.

The Official Opening will begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 25, and, in the spirit of Africville, will be open to everyone.

-30-

Note to Editors: Arrangements can be made for news photographers and videographers to visit the Church Museum in advance of the opening. Contact Carole Nixon, Executive Director, Africville Heritage Trust, 491-4605.

For further information:

Daurene Lewis, Chair, AHT Carole Nixon, Executive Director, AHT

491-4642

Daurene.Lewis@nscc.ca ed1.aht@gmail.com

africville church springs out of the ground

2011-09-01T16:20:00.000-03:00

the replica africville church is rising fast. i visited eddie carvery yesterday and though it had only been a couple of weeks was amazed at the change.

as you can see, the walls and roof are up - plus a faux chimney and a bell tower. eddie's not convinced the bell tower is strong enough to hold actual bells, but otherwise says the church is a dead ringer for the original.

a small parking area has been set up next to it - all signs point to it actually being ready to open for the new sept 25 date.

it's not a big building, but prominent - you can see it all down the bedford highway.

cbc news's shaina luck went by today for an update - it should be on the 6pm news today.

meanwhile, notice anything different about eddie? dedicated readers will see his lion's mane is gone! he's had long, wild hair since he was in his 20s and an untamed beard to go with it. yesterday, he looked like he had just turned 10. with eddie, it's always worth asking him why he does things. he's unlikely to volunteer information and generally has deep reasons.

a dear old friend of his from africville died recently - cancer, the way so many of the former residents are dying. eddie thinks it's linked to having to live next to a toxic dump.

so eddie wondered how he could show his respect for his friend - a great, quiet man. his thoughts turned to his mi'kmaq roots and the custom of shaving your hair in times of mourning. he cut his hair off for his old friend.

he is in good spirits - peaceful, content, living with one eye on today and the other on the deep future.

near death goes down and then up

2011-08-23T09:35:00.000-03:00

the last couple of weeks of my summer series for the chronicle herald have been challenging - and a lot of fun.

two weeks ago, i crawled deep under ground to go caving. it was one of the few adventures i thought i might balk on. sometimes, you think you have plenty of courage to tackle something, and then reality says otherwise. i think if my guides hadn't been so patient and encouraging, i might not have gone as deep as i did.

sunday was rock climbing - the two attract a lot of the same people. both are all about careful, slow movement and getting to places that seem impossible, until you advance inch by inch....

Caving Tips: Don't Kick the Porcupine

By Jon Tattrie

I’m halfway through a fissure in a cave deep inside Nova Scotia when I start to panic. My skinny guide Jon Guy scrambled through easily, but the fact that I can’t fully inflate my lungs without getting stuck is causing me mental problems. My arms and legs are stretched Superman style and I pull myself along with fingers and toes. I just want to get out.

I turn my head sideways and my yellow light illuminates dank gypsum a few centimeters to my right. I can feel it by my left, too. This is a no U-turn zone.

Guy encourages me forward while Doug Munroe, a cave rescuer from B.C., reassures me that if need be he can haul me out backwards. I can’t see either of them. It’s dark down here. When we turned our lights out earlier, I couldn’t even see my eyelids in front of my eyes.

“Don’t cave in,” I joke to myself, trying to lighten the mood. I take a deep breath, but my lungs bang into the cave roof. I wheeze out and tug myself further into the darkness. I just want to get out.

The day started well enough, with bright sunlight filtering through the forest canopy as we searched for cave entrances. Guy, the enthusiast behind Cavingnovascotia.org, pointed to the sinkholes where trees had fallen into caves. Soon, we’d see them from underneath.

Caving is off-leash adventuring. While it’s more established in other parts of Canada, it’s still largely unmapped in Nova Scotia. The locations of cave entrances are kept quiet, as unprepared “spelunkers” like me can cause damage to themselves and the caves by barging in. The added danger of spreading White Nose Syndrome among bats means it’s unwise to explore, unless you know what you’re doing. Guy, who uses his caving hobby to help scientists better understand the spread of WNS, has run me through the safety precautions several times and the caves we’re visiting today don’t have bats.

My two cheery guides into Hades brought me to a muddy maw at the side of a hill. “That’s the entrance,” Guy said.

Really?

Munroe nodded. Guy entered first, with Munroe behind me. We had to swim into the mud and eventually the cave narrowed and we turned back. The cave is unnamed – I suggested the Spa, and it stuck. Just like the mud.

The next cave was a rocky cut into gypsum. We crawled over fallen boulders and under narrow passages before reaching a small cavern in the belly of mother earth. The gypsum made extraordinary stucco designs on the roof and fallen clumps looked like crystallized skulls.

Guy told me one of the most startling experiences he’d had caving was in a place like this when he peered deep into the darkness – and the darkness peered back. A porcupine. Munroe assured me it’s not a concern. “Just don’t kick the porcupine,” he advised. It seems like sound advice in any situation.

Back on my belly in Middle Earth I notice a cold breeze on my face. The cave is breathing – that means this crevice eventually leads back to the surface. I just want to get out.

Guy encourages me and I drag myself toward him, scraping my back on the rock as I emerge and we wait for Munroe. Guy is certain he can see light ahead and pushes on. He’s found what he thinks is a way out and starts digging with a little shovel. I try not to think of graves.

He finds light, but we can’t quite press through. Or at least, I can’t. We turn back, re-birthing ourselves out of the cave. The air is unbelievably sweet and bright.

“No one likes sunlight better than cavers,” Munroe smiles.

Now that I’m safely outside, I just want to go back in and push a little deeper into the unknown.

-30-

jon@jontattrie.ca

Jon Tattrie is a journalist and the author of two books: The Hermit of Africville and Black Snow.

Hanging with the rock stars of Sorrow's End

By Jon Tattrie

Peter La Paix and I are standing at the edge of a Prospect cliff called Sorrow’s End when he asks me to pass him a rubber. We only recently met online and this is not how I expected our day to turn out.

There’s a moment of awkward silence as I try to think of a way to let him down gently until he repeats himself and points to a rubber tube used to protect the rope from the rock, so it doesn’t fray and let me down, hard, onto the rocks 16 metres below.

“Ah,” I say, and hand him his rubber.

La Paix secures the ropes and advises me on getting over the precipice. I nod, but this is a no-brainer for my brain. It screams, “DON’T JUMP OVER THE CLIFF!”

But I feel I can trust La Paix. I take a deep breath, and continue standing right where I am.

I take another deep breath and inch my feet over the edge to cheers from the climbers below. “Move your right foot where your left knee was a minute ago,” they helpfully shout, and “Don’t slip!” After an indelicate scramble, my toes find a ledge and I begin belaying to the bottom.

That’s the easy part.

Now I have to climb back up.

The ever-helpful climbers cheer as I grab a crevice with both hands and wedge my feet in below. I inch up. My belayer tightens the rope so the harness is snug. I scramble for a few more centimeters.

The liquid spilling down my hands makes me think I’m sweating, so I reach for the chalk, but notice the sweat is red. Three finger pads on my right hand have split open. Rock is much harder than keyboard.

I’m so focused on centimeters I forget about the metres until I accidentally look down. It’s a vertigo vision that will jolt me awake the rest of the week. I wonder if the pointy boulders would break my neck or just cause massive internal bleeding.

Eventually, I heave myself to the top. The view is stunning; untouched marshlands run to the ocean. The clouds have burned off and the sun is heating up. I can see why wise men live at the top of serene mountains.

I belay down and La Paix explains my next challenge: a “route” with no ropes. He’s going to climb untied and attach anchors as he goes. I’ll follow. He muscles his way up the cliff and makes it looks very hard.

The other climbers helpfully explained that if La Paix falls as I climb, his momentum will probably rip the anchors out one by one and I’ll have a brief moment to wave goodbye to him before he yanks me to the boulders.

I make it up six metres before I run out of ideas. The rock looks impassable and I’m all for calling it a day, but the climbers rally to my cause. I’m told to “smear” myself against the rock and mutter back, “Go belay yourself,” before someone explains the technique of jamming your foot against the flat cliff.

“Trust the rope,” La Paix calls out from the clouds.

“The rope?” I ask.

“You can hang on it if you need a break,” he says.

“I can?”

I let go with one hand, then the other, and discover I can sit in the harness. I dangle for a moment and then press up another half a metre. Rest. Another advance. Rest. This is not pretty, but I am slowly conquering the cliff.

“Grunt more!” an Earth-bound climber shouts.

Amazingly, it works. Roaring like an angry hyena I haul myself up the rock, jamming my feet into the cracks and balancing on centimetre-wide ledges. I get to the top to cheers and La Paix locks me to the anchor. It’s tight quarters and he’s got some fancy rope work to do before we can get back down.

“Sorry, I’m going to have to straddle you,” he says.

“So long as you’ve got the rubber,” I reply.

-30-

Twitter@jontattrie

Jon Tattrie is a journalist and the author of two books: The Hermit of Africville and Black Snow.

Rebirth planned for Halifax Explosion art piece

2011-08-09T16:09:00.000-03:00

i updated the case of the exploding halifax explosion sculpture for cbc last week. i wrote about its dismantling last year and advanced it late last year when the group seemed to be gathering momentum.

the storage facility isn't amazing - it's a metal unit outside at an HRM facility - but the pieces (minus the bronze child) are altogether for the first time in several years.

Rebirth planned for Halifax Explosion art piece

The pieces of a wrecked Halifax Explosion sculpture will be gathered together for the first time in years.

The big, spiky modern art piece sat outside the Halifax North Memorial Public Library for nearly 40 years. But it was dismantled in 2004.

A group that has been trying to save it will finally see the remnants on Thursday.

"We had to get things in one place. Now we can have a look and try to figure out what the next step should be," said John Little, a blacksmith and sculptor.

The piece was created by celebrated Spanish-born artist Jordi Bonet in 1966. It represented the aftermath of the 1917 disaster.

Janet Kitz, the author of many books about the Explosion, remembers it vividly.

"I found it a very powerful piece. It did represent the jagged pieces of ruins that were left after the explosion," said Kitz.

Decades of weather and vandalism took their toll. In 2004, the city broke up the sculpture. The pieces disappeared into storage facilities across the Halifax region.

Kitz is excited to see the pieces together, though she knows one part is missing.

"The doll — always known as the doll — is not actually a doll. It's a shape of a female figure and that represented the children who were killed in the explosion. Now it is the piece that has disappeared," she said.

Little said it's unlikely the memorial could be restored. He hopes a new work could be created to honour the original piece.

"We want this to move ahead as quickly as possible, but we don't know exactly where we're going with this," he said.

"The first steps have been taken and now there will be a lot more contemplation of what the next direction should be for our committee and the pieces."

getting near Big Death in the bay of fundy

2011-08-01T21:53:00.001-03:00

my wild summer adventure took a quieter, more awe-inspired turn sunday with a kayaking trip on the bay of fundy tides. it's one of my favourite places in nova scotia - a deep, ancient 'thin' place, as the celtic christians used to call it - even for an atheist such as myself.

this was less about 'near death' as in adrenaline-pumping on the edge of a violent end, and nearer to big death - the vastness of time and the smallness of our individual non-dead period.

Fundy tide, ancient cliffs inspire thanks

By JON TATTRIE
Near Death In Nova Scotia

Sun, Jul 31 - 4:54 AM

Floating on the heaving Bay of Fundy tide at the foot of the ancient cliffs, human vanities melt away.

Eventually, you and I and everyone we’ve ever known will be reduced to a speckle of bones folded into the billion-year-old scrapbook of life contained under Cape Chignecto Provincial Park.

The abundance of Earth and puniness of people overwhelms me as I paddle along the Fundy’s open-air cathedral in a tiny kayak on the immense saltwater river. The bay is exhaling, pushing 100 billion tonnes of water back into the Atlantic Ocean. Our band of seven kayakers set out from Advocate Harbour two hours ago and we’re slipping along the edge of the park.

From the back of our two-person boat, Else Marie Ostermann interprets the geological history painted on the rocks. Her Danish accent hints at another story and I ask her how she came to operate NovaShores Adventures.

She says she left Europe for a vacation in Canada 10 years ago. At the Parrsboro shore, she decided to go kayaking in the bay and found a man from British Columbia who had just started leading tours. Werner Ostermann agreed to rent her a boat, but he insisted she hire him as her guide — for safety reasons. Whether Werner meant the safety of the boat or of the woman was never established.

In any event, the weeklong adventure blossomed into a lifelong love as she moved to Nova Scotia and married Werner. Perhaps it’s the beauty of the cliffs that inspires such romantic leaps.

The Fundy is placid and the silence nearly complete this morning. You can spin your kayak in circles and humanity may as well have vanished. It could be 2011 or 2,011 years ago.

As we paddle through an arch by the Three Sisters, Else Marie points to an observation deck up in the trees of the park. Most people hike for hours just to get a glimpse of the famous sculpted sea stacks, but we take our time circling the trio — one a bony outcrop in profile, the second a voluptuous wicked stepsister and the third an elegant woman setting her chin to the far shore.

Werner points up near the deck to what is possibly the highest beach in Nova Scotia. He explains that during the last ice age, the weight of the glaciers bent the land down to the bay. As the ice melted, the coast sprang into the air like a diving board.

We pull ashore in Eatonville Harbour and the Ostermanns whip up a delicious lunch while the rest of us walk along the rocky beach. Not so long ago, this was a busy logging town complete with a mill, houses, a school and even a post office, but all that’s left are a few nails and the battered remnants of a bridge’s base. One hundred years ago, business here meant exploiting nature for resources. Today, it means guiding visitors along the bay to admire those same resources.

After lunch, we meander back down the coastline, poking our kayak into sea caves and stopping amid the newly high-and-dry rocks as Werner tells us about the secret sex lives of barnacles and the strange array of plants that call the coast home.

Five hours after we set out, we pull ashore back near Advocate Harbour. I’m exhausted, but as rested as if I’d just slept for a few millennia. I take in a deep breath and stretch my arms skyward. It’s always prayer time in Nova Scotia’s open-air cathedral.

( jon@jontattrie.ca)

Jon Tattrie is a journalist and the author of two books, The Hermit of Africville and Black Snow.

summer catch up - nearer my death to thee

2011-07-26T12:38:00.000-03:00

summer tends to be a busy time in freelancing, as normal people take advantage of the sun and warmth to take a break. freelancers step into the void. i've been doing a lot of that literally - filling in for vacationing others - and figuratively, with my lovely herald column. here is a bonus blog with two - count 'em two! - adventures: ultralight flying and zip lining. enjoy!

Flying with Icarus

Christopher Ball revs the engine on his winged motorbike as we crisscross Church Lake just outside of Bridgewater. The pontoons keep us afloat and Ball assures me the wings will keep us airborne – if we build up enough speed.

In my head, I hear Doc Brown telling Marty McFly, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,” as he floors the souped-up Delorean.

When Ball is satisfied the engine is running hot enough, he points our rattling contraption at the long end of the lake and guns it. As we’re ripping across the water and the wings start to lift, my eyes catch a small sign bolted in front of me: it warns this craft is amateur built. I ask Ball what exactly that means, but the engine and open air tear the words out of my mouth.

Seconds later, we’re flying. Our ultralight aircraft soars above the trees, above the birds and just below the sun. It can climb 3,000 metres into the sky, but we’re buzzing around 450 metres to maximize the view of lakes Big Mushamush, Caribou, and Langille.

The freedom is dizzying – and so is the scenery. I’m strapped in and wearing a survival suit and helmet, but there’s nothing between me and the forest, rivers and Tonka-truck vehicles below but open air.

Ultralight aircraft are just that – the lightest way you can fly. Anything extraneous to the core business of aviation – frivolities such as doors, walls or roofs – are ditched.

Ball teaches ultralight flying at the Lunenburg County Flight School and uses the plane for some of his film work, but he admits it’s mostly for fun. “It’s the exhilaration,” he tells me once I’ve worked out how to use the intercom, “the complete freedom to explore.”

He tips the wings and we drop down over an island conspicuous for a giant, fenced off hole at one end. “Oak Island,” he explains. It’s the legendary money pit.

We’re hammering through the air at 60 kilometres an hour and the wind in my face and roar of the engine behind me reduce conversation to the minimum. After 25 minutes of flight, we zip out over the ocean. Ball banks again and we fly inland over a familiar sight: Mahone Bay, with its three churches reaching up to our God’s-eye view.

Ball shouts back that he can carry enough fuel for four hours of flight, which means he can hop in the plane – which he keeps parked in his backyard – and instantly take to the air in search of a remote camping or hiking site anywhere in mainland Nova Scotia. If he stops to refuel, he can reach Cape Breton Island.

As we skim up the coastline, Ball reveals a disconcerting habit of telling me all of the things that can go wrong with ultralight flight. If you turn too sharply, or not evenly enough, the wings lose their grip on the air and the plane crashes. If you use too much or too little rudder, the plane will spiral to the ground. Too much incline and it stalls, flinging you back to the earth. He illustrates each potential calamity by adjusting the plane so it’s closer to disaster.

I am consoled by the knowledge that while I may not have a parachute, the plane does. If it stalls and there’s nowhere to land, Ball has shown me the cord to pull to deploy the massive chute that will (hopefully) float us to safety.

We don’t need it. After an hour, Ball lands the plane so softly I can’t tell when we’ve touched glassy Church Lake.

Driving home, I feel trapped. I can only go where the road builder wanted me to go. Glancing up at the Icarus sky, I wonder if I can gather enough wax for one more flight.

Zip-a-de-do-da

- Ziplining in NS -

I struggle up the rocky hill behind Tim Harrison on a brutish trail through the woods behind his house outside of New Glasgow. He’s chatting up a storm as he bats away flies and explains how he came to have thrill-seekers from around the world flying through his backyard.

He had spent decades labouring at the TrentonWorks railcar plant before getting laid off when it closed in 2007. Like about 330 other workers, he was unexpectedly forced to find a new job after the job-for-life vanished. He was logging a hill on his property to get firewood when he saw the line he used to zip the trees down in a new light.

“I seen on TV they had one out in B.C., a zipline going out across the valley. I had a valley out back and figured I’d try that,” he explains. “It was just research – trying to find a job.”

I puff out questions as he storms up the steep incline. He spent a year researching ziplining and found the skills he had honed maneuvering heavy machinery from one part of the plant to another transferred quite nicely to transferring adrenaline junkies from the top of his hill to the bottom. At high speed.

He and his horse cleared a path and set up a sturdy zipline. “It took some trial and error,” he admits. “I had my buddies do it.”

He blames a temporary bad back for getting his unemployed friends to soar over the valley to make sure the trees were low enough and the line strong enough. When they all landed safely, his back improved and he gave it a go. “It was scary,” he says. “You’re just hanging off a wire.”

We get to the top of the hill and I collapse, panting, into a grassy clearing next to a little hut with an ominous high wire coming out of it. Harrison tells me he opened Anchors Above in 2008.

“It’s a lot better than going welding. A lot less smoke,” he says and he begins to attach me to the line. “Just got to put up with nature. Flies. And flies. And flies.”

At present, I’m more worried about flying than flies.

Harrison hooks his harness in ahead of me and spins to face me. “I’ll go first to catch you. Just wait for me to tap the line,” he says, and off he goes, zooming high above the trees under the vast blue sky. Half-way down, he turns himself upside down and starts spinning above the trees.

Suddenly, I have lots of questions. What happens if I get turned backwards? What if a bird comes cruising at me like that goose that hit Fabio in the face as he tested a new roller coaster?

Harrison taps the line.

I take a deep breath and leap off the edge.

Instantly, I’m racing past and then over trees, spinning around, staring wide-eyed at the distant coastline, vast forest and the paths far below. The zipline screams above me, or maybe that’s just me screaming, as my hands clench the harness in a death grip. One of my spins shows the rapidly approaching landing hut and I try to face it feet first, but my back turns to it, going fast enough to blast right through the shed.

At the last second, the zipline stops and I’m dangling inches above the platform. Harrison calmly unstraps me. I stumble back to earth – the flight didn’t last long in normal time, but had that car-accident quality of stretching seconds into minutes as your wigged-out brain takes in every detail.

Then I notice we’re only halfway down the hill. “Um, how do I get back to my car?” I ask.

Harrison answers by strapping us onto a second, much steeper, zipline. As he turns to leap off, he tries to reassure me.

“Don’t worry,” he shouts. “This one is much faster.”

near death in nova scotia: mixed martial arts

2011-07-14T16:11:00.000-03:00

let the beatings begin! after exploring nova scotia in my trusty yaris hilton in
Road Warrior and then checking out its claims to global fame in Biggest & Best
last year, i'm back in the ring for round three: Near Death in Nova Scotia.
over the next couple of months, i'll be delving into the province's extreme
sports and those who love them.

first up: mixed martial arts.

CLOSE WINDOW

Published: 2011-07-10

Finding my inner Gumby
through mixed martial arts

By JON TATTRIE | Near Death In Nova Scotia

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sometimes, life can get too comfortable.
To counter that, reporter Jon Tattrie is going near death in
Nova Scotia this summer to investigate extreme sports
and the people who love them.

By Jon Tattrie

The walls of Palooka’s Boxing Club in Halifax drip with sweat and testosterone. I slink in and ask for the mixed martial arts class. The guy at the desk nods me over to the boxing ring, where men with veins bigger than my biceps clash on floor mats.

I try not to look terrified, but realize I'm standing with my legs twined and my hands clasped coyly in front of me. I plant my feet firmly on the ground, fold my spindly arms across my bony chest and avoid eye contact.

I eventually find a giant called Peter Martell, my guide into the violent world of MMA, a.k.a. ultimate fighting, a.k.a. cage fighting. Martell has been studying the art of bodily destruction for 18 years and has a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu, along with expertise in muay thai, wrestling, judo and taekwondo. He runs Titan MMA in Halifax and Sackville.

I expect to start with stretching and gentle techniques on the bags, but Martell hands me boxing gloves and throws me in with a professional fighter. I tell the bulky man this is all new to me and he punches me in the face.

"Sorry! I thought you were ready," he apologizes, checking I'm okay.

I assure him I am ready, and he punches me in the face again. I get a burst of testosterone and decide to attack. He counters by punching me in the face.

I try different techniques with different fighters, but everything ends with a punch to my face. They’re clearly thinking two or three moves ahead of me. Martell, I’m told, is usually seven moves ahead of his opponent. It’s like chess in real life, where you actually try to kill the other guy's king.

A solid right sends my chin to my shoulder blades and me to my knees. Martell pulls me aside. "You want to take a few minutes after a shot like that,” he advises.

When the birds stop chirping, Martell tells me it’s time to work on my floor game. He lies on his back and invites me to hit him in the face. I drop to my knees and unleash a vicious punch – Martell catches it like it's a butterfly and bends my arm to my shoulder blades.

After a few more rounds of Martell introducing me to my inner Gumby, we switch spots. Martell conducts some amateur plastic surgery on my face before nodding another fighter in. I explain this is new to me; he nods, we touch gloves, and then he touches my chin with his glove. Hard.

I tell my fists to punch back, but my arms appear to have hit the showers early and do not respond. They are accustomed to punching keyboards, not men weighing 100 kilograms.

The third fighter returns for his third round grounding and pounding me. He quickly positions himself on my neck and smacks my chin like a bongo drum, before growing bored starting on my ribs. Then my thigh. It's like I'm fighting Jackson Pollock and he's painting me with bruises. How can I put this delicately? I’ve never spent so much time at another man’s junk yard. I feel like I’ve gotten a direct message from Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account.

I roll off to the side for a breather before Martell stands me up again. Then lowers me to the ground in a rear naked choke hold.

As my forehead touches my chest and the lights start to go out, inspiration strikes. I remember a move I saw on a TV and am certain it will end the fight. I take a deep breath – as deep a breath as I can take in the circumstances – and unleash it.

I reach for Martell’s shoulder and tap out.

www.jontattrie.ca

Jon Tattrie is a journalist and the author of The Hermit of Africville and Black Snow.

VIDEO update from africville - eddie carvery on the return of the bulldozers

2011-07-06T15:14:00.000-03:00

i was in africville today catching up with eddie carvery. we hadn't connected in a few weeks and in the meantime, everything went and changed. work on the memorial church started a few weeks ago and rapidly transformed the landscape. eddie's former protest site has vanished under a pile of dirt and his winterized hut is gone. the hole for the foundation for the new church is dug, chucking up some curious artifacts.

eddie seems in good spirits. he's always got one eye on the distant future and one eye on the present. the eye on the present is unhappy with the way the church is coming about - the eviction letter and lack of a glass of water from the africville heritage trust, as he puts it - but happy one part of africville is joining him after 41 years of protesting.

i had a long chat with the site foreman after talking to eddie. he was very interested to hear more about eddie's story and learn about the land he was working on. he said a copy of the hermit of africville is in his office, so at least the crew understands where they are - the old seaview park/africville divide can make for confusing geography. eddie said the crews have treated him with respect - apart from damaging his truck when they moved it.

click on the video for more of his thoughts on where things stand today. oh! and one more piece of exciting news (at least for me) - AHT has informally offered to buy eddie's old protest trailer from him (the one on the cover with the writing on it) to use as a part of the museum exhibit. as eddie says in the video, he's almost old enough himself to be installed in a museum. it's worth watching to the end for the slight blooper reel on the nature of the protest...

"We now go live to Jon Tattrie's eyebrows"

2011-06-28T15:24:00.000-03:00

i made my broadcast reporting debut last week on the cbc. i spent the week before crash-course training on how to do radio and tv - a steep incline to brush up on the skills learned a long time ago in a j-school far away.

i've never been a great talker - i love the quiet, paced life of writing the news. even when you're on a hard deadline for print, it's not quite the same urgency as a cameraman pointing at you as he turns his light on.

that said, the adrenaline rush of reporting as it happens and the power of using people's own voices for radio and images for TV made it a huge amount of fun to do.

my goal in reporting is always to capture people's own voices and take them to a wider audience - how better to do that than by letting them speak for themselves directly?

you can see from this lovely screengrab that me and my eyebrows found ourselves on the scene of a house haunting in north-end halifax. no - it was a dispute over potentially demolishing a heritage home. my bad. you can watch the clip here.

later in the week i was sitting down at my desk digging into a bingo story when someone called the newsroom to say a first nations protest had just blocked off highway 102. i grabbed my things and jumped into the truck with the cameraman and we zipped along to the scene. we were there first - slightly after the cops, who only learned about it when the assignment editor called to confirm the tip - and i filed a radio report from the highway.

as i said - the immediacy is addictive.

it also made me realize how broadcast is unalterably a team effort. for the heritage story, for example, an assignment editor spotted the notice in the paper's ads section and passed it on to another reporter, who did the first story. i did my piece with the cameraman, using the previous reporter's background, and the sat with one of the cbc's amazing editors as he zipped the piece together as the 11pm news deadline loomed.

i figure at least 10 people went into the story, and it was just over 1 minute long.

i'm back to writing for the next little bit, but should get to report a few more times over the summer. if only i can find my hedge trimmer to shrink those forehead caterpillars....

updates on brooks and carvery fights for justice in halifax magazine

2011-06-10T08:16:00.000-03:00

the new halifax is on the stands, with a great cover story on activist/comedian/recovering lawyer candy palmater. given that last month's cover was about connie brooks's fight for justice, that means back to back issues focused on strong mi'kmaq women - not something you see everyday in nova scotia.

i have a couple of updates, which i'll post below. one was the memorial march for tanya brooks and the other was eddie carvery's eviction letter.

Connie Brooks fights for justice

By Jon Tattrie | Jun 1, 2011

The family of Tanya Jean Brooks endured heavy rain and wind to hold two memorial walks to mark the second anniversary of the Millbrook woman’s unsolved murder in May. (See the cover story “Justice delayed” from Halifax Magazine, May 2011).

A frail Connie Brooks led the marches of family, friends and supporters of her daughter first in Millbrook First Nation and then in Halifax. The Halifax march from the Mi’kmaq Friendship Centre to the Halifax Regional Police headquarters on Gottingen Street was followed by an intense smudging ceremony and service in the centre.

Tanya Brooks, 35, was found dead at Halifax’s St Patrick’s-Alexander School in 2009 and police have made no arrests in the case. Four officers attended the memorial, but Tanya’s brother Quissy Brooks says it wasn’t enough to bring justice for his “best friend.”

“Today was very difficult,” he says. “I was incarcerated when my sister was murdered. It hurts like hell. Imagine losing your sister to murder on Mother’s Day, of all days.” Quissy Brooks chokes back tears. “There’s a lot of support here—that’s why we come here. This is our people.”

He says if his sister had been white, police would be working flat out to solve the case, but because she was Mi’kmaq her case is being forgotten. Marching is the family’s way of keeping Tanya’s memory alive. “My mother is as tough as nails, but later on, it’ll affect her,” he says. “Healing is happening. This whole thing is about healing a bunch of people—not only the ones who are alive, but also those who are deceased.”

Cheyenne Labrador led a group of Mi’kmaq women in drumming and chanting as part of the memorial. The group performed the Honour song, the Strong Womansong and White Skies. “Being at the drum is like nothing you will ever experience in your life,” Labrador says. “The beat of the drum is Mother Earth’s heartbeat. While we’re singing and we’re drumming, we’re praying for [Tanya].”

Last Africvillian evicted

By Jon Tattrie

The Africville Heritage Trust has evicted long-time protester Eddie Carvery from his site near Seaview Park. Carvery, who began his protest in 1970 after Halifax evicted residents of Africville and then bulldozed the community, received a letter dated April 29, telling him he had to clear out by May 5.

AHT chairwoman Daurene Lewis said Carvery had to vacate AHT lands to allow the construction of a planned replica church. In an interview with Halifax Magazine days before she issued the letter, Lewis said he had to leave all AHT property. “It’s his decision where he goes,” she said. Carvery wasn’t offered compensation for losing his winterized hut, which will be demolished.

The letter goes on to warn Carvery of the consequences of staying. “We would prefer not to call upon more formal measures to ensure that plans to construct the church can move ahead,” Lewis writes.

On May 5, Carvery and his brother Victor moved his trailer and possessions to the nearby waterfront on Halifax Port Authority land slated to be transferred to AHT.

“My protest isn’t over. I’m fighting for the same reason I started – I’m fighting racism, I’m fighting for a public inquiry, I’m fighting for justice. I’m one of the last residents in Africville,” Eddie Carvery said. “Once again they’re taking my home and they’re not giving me the dignity or satisfaction to know that I’ve done a job that is of any importance.”

Meanwhile, AHT has recruited an executive director, though the name had not been made public as of press time. The tender to build the church has also been issued and Lewis said she is confident it will be up and running before the Africville reunion in July. Construction had not started as of early May.

The eviction notice and a video interview with Carvery can be viewed at Halifaxmag.com.

-30-

Eviction notice, page 1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/hermitofafricville/5684243725/

Page 2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/hermitofafricville/5684244517/

YouTube interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEaVrqJRmPg

MP replies to hermit of africville social media campaign - and so does eddie

2011-06-03T12:27:00.001-03:00

after two weeks of steady emailing, the social media campaign to get the africville heritage trust to rescind its eviction notice to long-time protester eddie carvery got its first reply. the emails are directed to AHT chairwoman daurene lewis, but CC other involved parties, including halifax ndp mp megan leslie.

click here to get details about sending yours today.

i stopped by africville this morning and taped eddie's response to the letters of support. last week, i printed them off and brought them to him. i went out for a few minutes to fill his propane tank and when i came back, he was wiping tears from his eyes. it means a lot to him to know others share his fight and support his cause.

you can click on the video to see his response.

the reply came from leslie and i'll paste it below, followed by a few thoughts.

Dear X,

Thank you for your recent email regarding Eddie Carvery and Africville.

I have spoken with Dr. Lewis, who has provided me with some background on the project, and on the Trust’s relationship with Mr. Carvery. As noted in the media coverage, the AHT Board has recognized Mr. Carvery’s support for the construction of the replica Church in Africville. His move will allow the construction to move forward without risk to Mr. Carvery, or anyone else, as a result of his occupation of the building site.

I look forward to seeing the Church rise in Africville as a symbol of the spirit of Africville, and the struggle by all of the people of Africville for recognition. I also look forward to the day that school children from Halifax and across Nova Scotia will visit the Church to learn the lessons of courage and community in the face of racism.

It is my understanding that Mr. Carvery’s continuing protest will form part of the story of Africville that will be included in the memorial project—and that his struggle will be part of the lesson taught to students and other visitors as part of the programming within the Church.

Thank you for your interest in the project—and for your commitment to social justice.

Warm regards,

Megan

Megan Leslie, MP

1-2207 Gottingen St., Halifax, NS B3K 3B5

it's interesting that "the AHT Board has recognized Mr. Carvery’s support for the construction of the replica Church in Africville. His move will allow the construction to move forward without risk to Mr. Carvery, or anyone else, as a result of his occupation of the building site."

Eddie Carvery at his former protest site in Africville on June 3 2011.

- note that AHT has not recognized his protest, or his 41-year fight to expose the racism that is buried beneath so much of our history - including the destruction of africville -, but his support for the replica church. and note how it is framed to suggest he was occupying the building site - as though he had recently arrived for that purpose, rather than that he has been on that particular site for more than a decade and in africville since he was born in 1946.

and of course there is no mention of the central issue - the eviction threat that continues to hang over his head.

but it's great that megan is taking an interest - i understand she recently had a good conversation with eddie about his protest.

meanwhile, a month after the frantic effort to evict eddie to make way for the bridge - sorry, to make way for the church this time - the site remains undisturbed, apart from a few signs forbidding access.

FREEDOM!!! is just another word for working from home

2011-06-01T10:14:00.000-03:00

when the daily news closed 3.5 years ago, flinging me and my colleagues out of work and precariously near to the streets, i started looking for a new job. so did everyone else. after six months of losing out job after job to my more qualified colleagues, i started to rethink. i had, of course, been a 'freelance journalist' the entire time. us journos are never unemployed - we freelance. but at the time, my lance was very free. i waved it around, offering to go to battle for numerous publications, but got little action. (all your perverts can stop inventing double entendres right now please and thanks.)

but a lack of job offers forced me to remain self-employed and as my former DN colleagues got new jobs, freelance hirers got increasingly desperate for writers and started giving me a chance. the attrition strategy accidentally paid off and i eventually stopped looking for a staff job.

there are many, many joys to being self-employed (and many downsides), but one of the best is working from home. today is - as you doubtless know - national work from home day. workopolis, the online recruiter, is leading the charge to make it an official, legislated day and urged employers and employees to make it happen today. i'll paste my metro article below.

some work-from-homers are like me - self-employed. but a rising number have regular staff jobs, but telecommute once or twice a week. as you'll see in the article, this has many advantages for staff and bosses. the woman i interviewed telecommutes twice a week - saving her a four-hour drive each day. people, it is inhumane for a person to be needlessly stuck in their car for 20 hours a week - nearly a full, round-the-clock day - to do work they could use technology to do from home.

i am evangelical for WFM options - it seems a mature, civilized advance on the chained-to-the-office approach, and i didn't even have space to get into the environmental advantages (think of the number of cars you could take off the roads each day if people worked from home twice a week). and inevitable. jump on board while the bandwagon is just speeding up.

read, and talk to your bosses about making it happen for you and join me in crying, FREEDOM!!!!!

Happy National Work From Home Day!

Jon Tattrie

01 June 2011 05:19

If you’re reading this in your office and notice some of your colleagues are missing today, don’t fear that the Rapture was just delayed – today is National Work From Home Day.

The unofficial movement toward greater workplace flexibility is driven by Workopolis, the online recruiter, and more than 75,000 Canadians have “liked” their idea on Facebook.

Andrea Garson, vice-president of human resources, says the goal is to make it an official, legislated event and for companies to develop programs that allow eligible workers to telecommute some or all of the time. Calgary already has a tele-work week and Ottawa is moving toward introducing tele-working options at City Hall.

“From a worker’s perspective, there’s obviously a greater flexibility in things like choosing your work hours, flexibility, working on your own terms,” she says.

“There’s a reduction of stress and the ability to care for others if they have a disabled family member.”

It also boosts mental health to such an extent that the Canadian Mental Health Association supports the call for a work-from-home day.

For employers, it can lead to smaller office needs, happier workers, increased productivity and greater access to qualified candidates. “There’s a whole group of people who are now saying this is important to them,” Garson says.

That includes rising talent from 20-somethings who crave flexible bosses to blend with their flexible lifestyles. Telecommuting options also help retain new parents who might otherwise quit.

Karen Scully will be among the ranks telecommuting Wednesday. She does reports for a call centre in Toronto and works from home two days per week and from the office three days a week.

“Everything is on a server and I can talk to my coworkers via MSN,” she says of the ease of telecommuting.

It’s great for her, as she has a four-hour roundtrip commute. Replacing that twice a week by walking to her in-house office saves her about $250 a month in gas and prevents her ailing back from being agitated by the long drive. It’s good for her bosses, too, as she arrives for work cheerful, rested and precisely on time. Commuters “arrive at work angry,” she laughs.

“Somebody’s going to make you angry driving.”

Scully also never has to leave work early to catch a carpool ride and rarely misses a telecommute day.

“I don’t get snow days anymore,” she laments, noting that one year before she telecommuted she had to miss five days due to blizzards.

eddie carvery, action hero, is allegedly franked in Frank

2011-05-30T11:24:00.000-03:00

so i was lying in my hammock, basking in the brief sun sunday, and reading anything i could get my hands on to while away a pleasant afternoon. i read the saturday globe cover to cover - including the business section! i then plowed through the herald, the weekend metro and scanned a few cereal boxes before settling into the operating manual for a vacuum cleaner i had thrown out two years previously.

having exhausted my reading supply, it appeared i would have to pass the rest of the day staring at the trees, when a fortuitous breeze blew a dirty copy of frank magazine into my lap. i flipped through, getting my fill of gossip and good news to see if there were any stories i could steal for freelancing, when i gasped to see a familiar face - eddie carvery, Franked into a comic strip.

FRANKTV's Roomies! tells the story of three prominent, political haligonians recently shifted off their homes - eddie carvery, evicted by the mute africville heritage trust, francesca rogier, owner of brindi the high profile biting dog, recently evicted from her unsafe home, and trevor zinck, the allegedly ethically challenged mla foreclosed out of his home.

i especially love the first photo of eddie strutting action-hero like from his exploding protest site. i started to wonder where frank got all the photos of eddie from, when i realized it was from my flikr page. it seems only fair play that i re-rip them off by posting the comic to my blog without their permission.

i won't ruin it for you, but suffice to say eddie rides to the rescue as a 'powerless little guy who's taking a stand to demand some basic human dignity after the terrible injustice done to me and my community' before having an unfortunate run in with brindi.

so people - if our beloved frank magazine is finally on board the eddie express, who are we to continue to loiter in the station? climb on board and send your email today to make sure the last eviction letter he got is indeed the last eviction letter he'll ever get.

how the bay of fundy tides help an atheist understand life

2011-05-24T10:37:00.000-03:00

my first readers digest article is in the new edition - it just dropped into my mailbox this morning. i submitted it ages ago, but things move slowly in the land of national magazines.

it's a profile of dick lemon and his amazing not since moses run - this year's is scheduled for july 3. it's an extraordinary event.

RD ended up shortening and reshaping it, but i've put the original below.

Not Since Moses

When Dick Lemon arrived in Five Islands, Nova Scotia, locals had to show him which island was his. The retired California lawyer had bought the 20-acre property online, more or less on a whim, after his Israeli rabbi called praising the beauty of Canada’s ocean playground. Lemon was raised a Methodist and is an atheist, but he and his rabbi discuss the Torah every Tuesday at 8 a.m.

Walking along the green fields in front of the bed and breakfast, Lemon stopped at the steep cliff of the Parrsboro shore. A deep stretch of the Bay of Fundy separated him from his tree-topped paradise. Hours later, the highest tide in the world reversed and a muddy plain connected the mainland to the island. Lemon strapped on his sneakers. Crabs struggled to make sense of their suddenly waterless world as he squished by.

It looked like a painter had smeared the fossil-studded cliffs orange, brown and red as the retreating tides scrapped back another layer of the 300-million-year-old rain forest that was once Nova Scotia. The air tasted delicious. Lemon circled his island and headed back. The tide was already nudging his shoes.

In 2007, Lemon organized a charity run to share the parting of the seas and called it Not Since Moses. More than 100 runners journeyed to Lemon’s island. There they awaited the rising tide, and the boats that would ferry them home. The course has changed, but the mud-splashed runners and walkers have steadily increased, reaching 1,500 in 2010.

In 2009, a woman signed up with her five best friends, only to be diagnosed with cancer shortly before the race. They ran anyway. Her rapidly failing body needed help to make the crossing and the journey carried the friendships to a deeper place. The woman died two months later. Her friends wrote to thank Lemon for the otherworldly final memory.

“I believe we are re-enacting something important here. Not that Moses really happened, but the idea that the seas can part and you can escape from slavery. That’s a meaningful thing for us, because there are so many ways we are slaves,” Lemon muses.

At a certain point on the course, stragglers must turn back, because 100 million tons of water racing in at four metres a second cannot be stopped. The primordial beauty of running on the ocean floor is a fleeting period of grace. Lemon finds it a potent metaphor for life.

“Time becomes critical,” he says. “There is no afterlife to make up. It’s right now, so I’ve got to do it now. I suffer or I feel joy, but it’s my responsibility.”

Lemon understands that for most, Not Since Moses will be a quirky experience. But some will escape to Israel.

letters supporting eddie carvery pour in - help a hermit today!

2011-05-20T13:02:00.001-03:00

the hermit of africville was up for the d250 atlantic book award for historical writing last night - it didn't win, but it was great seeing eddie's face on the giant cover projected at the front of the room when they announced the finalists. halifax's mp, megan leslie, read out the short list - she hasn't replied to the social media campaign yet, but at least i know she's fully briefed on eddie's protest.

the first week has seen 12 emails sent so far, but no response to any of them from the africville heritage trust. some people have sent the basic letter, which you can copy and paste from here, while many others have taken the time to write moving, thoughtful letters of their own. with their permission, i'm going to include a couple below. i've printed them off to take to eddie today - i'll shoot a short video on his response to all of the support and post it next week.

it is important to act soon, because the land eddie moved his protest to is in transition to hrm/aht - and when they get it, they have stated they intend to evict him. we need to change their mind now, before eddie finds his home demolished yet again. you can see the eviction letter here and here. the second page makes clear he must leave all hrm/aht land - or face 'more formal measures.' read police.

it's the same old story in africville - after the rush to run eddie off the land - a one-week notice expiring may 5 - absolutely nothing has happened. no construction, no water piped in - just empty space where the church is not.

as you can see in this herald article, other key promises from the apology 15 months ago remain nothing but paper.

'A living testament'

Dear Daurene Lewis,

On behalf of community members who value the preservation of our city’s history, I congratulate you and the AHT on the upcoming construction of the Africville Heritage Project. Upholding the spirit of Africville through the replica Church and Interpretive Centre is an important step in the right direction.

This construction will become a symbol of victory over injustice; an important lesson for today’s diverse HRM community to take to heart. As it stands presently, our community only has one symbol left standing for Africville, and that is Eddie Carvery. So it was with great surprise and heartbreak that I recently learned about the Africville Heritage Trust’s attempts to evict Africville’s only remaining reside

As you well know, Mr.Carvery has proudly withstood over forty years of injustice, and for the people who have the pleasure of meeting him, his memories serve as a living testament of the fortitude of the former Africville residents. Though this gentleman’s past has been less than perfect, Mr.Carvery has been bravely forthcoming and repentant regarding his personal flaws, and over the years has become a source of pride for many Halifax residents. Though his methods of demonstration may not be sophisticated, it is Mr.Carvery’s unconventional residence in Africville, and the ensuing media attention it garnered that has helped your cause persevere. His actions greatly contributed to the city’s willingness to acknowledge the Africville tragedy and subsequently grant funds to the Africville Heritage Trust.

I am sure you can understand, then, why a move to evict Mr.Carvery at this point would be viewed by the community as an act of disloyalty to a man who is himself a symbol of loyalty to Africville. As such, I ask that you do not actively pursue this eviction and instead campaign for Africville’s only resident to find a home within the land that rightfully belongs to its people.

You mentioned in your eviction notice there are municipal issues that you feel you do not have the “authority nor resources to negotiate a benefit to an individual.” However, I feel that the resource you do have at your disposal is the strong support of the community and of the media. If you so chose to file applications for rezoning and go through the proper channels, or to simply not take further measures to expel Mr.Carvery, the authority and support of many municipal taxpayers would be in your favour.

I thank you for your attention in this matter. As you know, Africville was never a conglomerate of wood, brick and mortar as much as it was a kinship of its people, and the only way to bring dignity to the memory of Africville is to bring its last resident home.

Respectfully yours,

Michelle Thornhill

Honour our heroes

Dear Daurene Lewis,

I was born in the North end of Halifax, within a few miles of Africville and within a month of Eddie’s birth. As I have said to Eddie we both grew up in Halifax, but it was not the same city.

At one time I thought that the whole Africville relocation was something done in the best interests of the community of Africville, although not handled well. As I got to know Eddie through books, interviews and actually visiting him over this past year I came to understand the force that racism has played in our city over the years.

Another factor that has opened my eyes was my visit to the Museum of Civil rights in Memphis in the Lorraine motel where Dr. King was assassinated. I saw the way that the civil rights leaders in the United States are now honoured and are an example to us today. We have too few people that we honour in the Nova Scotia history of civil and human rights, only recently Viola Desmond, was named as such an example. You also are an example, as the first female black mayor in North America along with many of your achievements. I believe that Eddie also will go down in our history as such a leader. We need to honour him, not evict him.

Some civil rights leaders protested by working within the system to change history, others by standing still and saying “ here I am”. The 50^th anniversary of the Freedom riders this month celebrates people who just sat on a bus and said “here we are”, we are not going to stop until changes are made.

Eddie Carvery is actively engaged in the longest civil rights protest in the history of Canada. At the heart of his protest is a refusal to accept racism, the social poison that caused the destruction of Africville, his childhood home. To this end, he has lived on the land of Africville for 41 years, despite many past efforts to evict him.

For you, as a person representing the taxpayer-funded property rights of a trust, to tell Eddie Carvery that he “will be part of the overall story” of Africville, but to ask him to leave Africville, is disrespectful. He has happily moved off the site slated for the replica church he has worked so hard for and he should be safe in the knowledge that he will not be evicted from his new location on the waterfront of Africville.

I ask that you and the AHS apologize to Eddie Carvery and drop your threat to evict him from his civil rights protest in Africville.

Sincerely,

The Rev Canon Jack Tattrie

"African Nova Scotians still lack promised city office"

2011-05-20T13:02:00.000-03:00

Chronicle Herald - May 19, 2011

African Nova Scotians still lack promised city office

By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE City Hall Reporter

Setting up Halifax city hall’s African-Nova Scotian affairs office remains a work in progress.

A municipal spokeswoman said Wednesday the mandate of the new part of civic government is being worked on by city staff, as is the job description for the person who will staff the office.
"We are now working on the job description and getting feedback on it," Shaune MacKinlay said in an email message.
The municipal office of African-Nova Scotian affairs is part of Halifax Regional Municipality’s 2011-12 budget. It is being established under terms of the Africville compensation package announced last year.
Mayor Peter Kelly has said the new staffer will work with black organizations and other groups dedicated to improving race relations in the Halifax area.
"It will be a process engaging the community," the mayor told The Chronicle Herald last month. "So this will be a multi-stakeholdered approach that we will use to delve further into some of these issues and challenges."
The office will be part of the chief administrative officer’s business unit, said Kelly.
Asked how much money is being earmarked for the office, MacKinlay couldn’t say.
City hall used to have a volunteer race relations advisory committee but that group is defunct.
The Africville agreement, which included a formal apology Kelly delivered last year, was an out-of-court settlement that covered reparations for residents of the former north-end neighbourhood and their descendants.
No individual compensation was given.
Africville was razed in the 1960s in the name of urban renewal. A sundial monument in what is now Seaview Park pays tribute to the area’s founding families.
Changing the park’s name back to Africville is another part of the redress deal.
Last month, the Africville Heritage Trust asked activist Eddie Carvery to vacate the section of the park he’s long occupied so a $4.5-million memorial project can proceed. The volunteer group is working toward having a church replica ready for the annual Africville reunion in July.
Carvery moved his small encampment nearby to a parcel of land owned by the Halifax Port Authority.
According to Statistics Canada, the Halifax region’s population in 2006 was 369,455. Of those residents, 13,270 were African-Nova Scotian — about 3.5 per cent.
( mlightstone@herald.ca)

bringing the hermit to the big screen (sort of), cbc mainstreet and drinks at the old triangle - welcome to atlantic book week!

2011-05-18T13:27:00.000-03:00

i had a great event at dartmouth's woodlawn library last night. i hadn't been since it was a hole in the mall and was blown away by the gorgeous new facility - big windows, big computers, and even a few books. i gave my talk in the presentation room - a converted movie theatre. comfy stadium seating chairs, a giant projection screen, great sound system - an ideal spot.

lots of great questions and observations from the audience after, too. one woman new to the city told me how she mentioned in passing to colleagues that she was going to take her dog for a walk in seaview park. one laughed and warned her not to stray too close to the back of the park - lest the crazy old man in the camper leap over the fence and attack her.

right....

another woman told me how she had used eddie's story - plus his videos on youtube - to teach her son about africville and about his own african nova scotian roots.

i'm on the run now - i'll be on cbc mainstreet just after 3pm to talk about atlantic book week - in particular, the panel discussion i'll be hosting tonight at the old triangle in halifax.

tune in - and hopefully turn up for a few drinks at the triangle.

Book Event! Wednesday, May 18: The Author-Publisher Relationship. 5pm at The Old Triangle in Halifax

Celebrate this year's Best Atlantic-Published Book Award Nominees!

Where: The Old Triangle, 5136 Prince St. Halifax, NS

When: Wedesday, May 18, 2011, 5:00 p.m.

Free! All Welcome.

Please join us for a lively discussion on the author/publisher relationship as publishers, authors and creators discuss what makes the relationship work. A celebration of the Best Atlantic-Published Books of 2011!

With authors Kate Evans (Where Old Ghosts Meet) and Elizabeth Peirce (Grow Organic), Rebecca Rose, President, Breakwater Books Ltd. and Patrick Murphy, Editor, Nimbus Publishing.

Moderated by author, journalist and fellow book award nominee, Jon Tattrie.

Light refreshments and cash bar available. For more information call 420-0711.

writers in paradise and dinner at the martins

2011-05-17T11:59:00.000-03:00

life as a published writer is a delightfully strange experience. people who write - and people who like writers - run across the full range of society. i spent the weekend in a writer's paradise - literally, for dave and paulette whitman of bailey chase books had organized the second annual word in the hall in paradise, nova scotia.

it was a wondrous meeting of writers. unlike many literary festivals, which focus on big shot writers talking to the masses and selling books, the paradise festival celebrates writing in its purist form. some, like mike parker, were established local writers who have sold thousands of books. others, like an elderly woman who wondered if she could print just 20 copies of her book for her family, were unknowns to all but those who matter most.

'a writer is a writer is a writer,' paulette said to me in a moment of epiphany. and it's true: the difference between a published writer and an unpublished writer is not to do with their writing, but with how life has played out for them. getting published is about having talent, but it is also largely about tenacity - writing a book is hard work. getting it published is more hard work.

and so it was grand to sit with kindred spirits and talk about that which we love most: writing.

i'll be talking more about writing tonight at the woodlawn library, with a presentation on the hermit of africville as part of book week. tomorrow i'll be hosting a round-table chat from 5:00–6:30 pm: The author-publisher relationship: featuring nominees for the APMA Best-Atlantic Published Book Award, Old Triangle Irish Alehouse, Halifax. you can see a full list of events here. thursday night's the big night: the unveiling of the awards. fingers crossed.

in the meantime, i thought i'd post this true short story from a couple of years ago. it's about an odd experience i had just after black snow came out. i've only changed some of the names. it was a curious night - and apart from giselle, i never heard from any of them again.

Dinner with the Martins

He invited me to dinner after a magazine ran a two-page spread on my first novel. He invited my wife, too, but agreed my girlfriend would do.

“We’d love to see you,” he said over the phone.

“I have no idea who this man is,” I told Giselle as we drove slowly in the city, looking for his address. “He could be a freaky old pervert luring us to our death, or a fabulously wealthy benefactor who will kick start my career.”

“Either way, it’s bound to be interesting,” she said.

We had been dating a matter of months.

It was a nice, but not spectacular, Victorian building. From the outside, it was impossible to tell if it was a private home or apartments. The front door was open so we went into the foyer and rang the bell at the second door. After a few seconds, a young man opened the door, revealing a dark room with an elegant wood staircase, several closed doors and a coat rack. The man was in his early 20s, with short hair, wearing a polo shirt, khakis and deck shoes.

“I can take your coats,” he said.

He hung them on the coat rack as Giselle and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“I’m Jon,” I said, offering him my hand.

“Jason,” he said, shaking briefly. He seemed surprised. I introduced Giselle; he nodded and led us upstairs.

“George will be in in a minute,” Jason said, depositing us in the front room. “Can I get you a glass of wine?”

We sat on one of two plush sofas facing each other across a bowl of crackers and cheese. An armchair completed the U of furniture and a piano sat in front of the bay window behind us. The room was light, brightly coloured and contained items that looked like they had been purchased at Wal-Mart’s International section: African fertility gods and metre-high wooden giraffes. Tchaikovsky was playing loudly – a children’s version of his music, with a young narrator speaking over the orchestra.

George Martin swept into the room. He was an old man, with thinning white hair and a slight belly. He wore casual slacks and a button-up shirt, and shoes. Everybody in that house was wearing shoes. He shook both our hands before flopping stiffly into the armchair.

“I love Tchaikovsky,” he said, eyes closed to better take in the sounds. “Don’t you? Our other guests are joining us shortly. They are in the symphony: he is the chief violinist here and she plays cello in Brussels; they jet back and forth.”

He opened his eyes after a moment and noticed the copy of my novel I held in my hands.

“This is for you,” I said, rising and handing the book to him. I had signed it to “The Martins,” but was starting to fear I had made a mistake.

“Thank you!” George said, briefly examining my book before setting on the small table beside his chair. He told us he had moved here from out west to teach at Dalhousie University. The money was not to his liking and he stumbled into real estate, making a nice profit when the south end started booming. He moved onto tales from his world travels, revealing that he and Jason were soon heading to Egypt as part of a cruise. He grumbled about the inconveniences of travel.

“I’ve always thought ‘relaxing vacation’ was an oxymoron,” Giselle chimed in. George looked at her for a moment, as though she had announced she ate children. “Because of the security, and then being stuffed into a plane like sardines,” she elaborated.

“Oh. I don’t know. We always travel first class,” he replied. “It’s very nice.”

Tchaikovsky filled the silence.

The other guests arrived: a young, good-looking couple. We exchanged names. George started talking again.

“Dinner’s ready,” said Jason, sticking his head into the living room. We moved to the big table stuffed into the hall above the stairs. The doors around us were open, apart from one white door in the corner. The walls were dark wood and the space contained what I imagined was the bulk of George’s travel collection.

Dinner was salmon, to accommodate my vegetarian diet. Jason had cooked it, but got George to serve it. The couples sat facing across the table; George sat at one end and Jason at the other. Conversation naturally turned to music.

“Jason is taking flute lessons, but he’s too lazy to be any good,” George announced. We couples could not avoid staring at Jason. “I don’t know why I bother paying for the classes, he never goes.”

“I always go,” Jason countered, irritated.

“You didn’t go last week.”

“My grandmother died.”

George shrugged. Jason gave him a dirty look. George didn’t notice.

“How do you like the salmon?” he asked.

We murmured our approval.

“I caught it myself this morning,” he beamed. “Jason and I were up at the crack of dawn and hauled it in before noon.”

“Wow,” said the violinist.

Later, George asked how we liked the potatoes. He had grown them in the backyard. The joke was repeated over dinner until it touched upon all of the dishes.

“Ron’s written a book,” George announced. We all looked at him, pleased for Ron. “It’s about the Halifax explosion,” he added.

I wondered at the coincidence, until George held up my book. “I’m sure Ron will sign a copy for you two, if you’d like,” he said.

After dinner, George suggested we retire to the library. The two couples went; George and Jason disappeared into the kitchen.

The library appeared to belong to Sherlock Holmes. On one side, the oak book cases held well-bound Reader’s Digest condensed books. The other side was a mishmash of Stephen King, celebrity biography and best sellers. A giant plasma television hung from the wall over a defunct fire place.

The couples chatted awkwardly. The woman was bored and wanted to go home. The man seemed to consider time in the library a part of his job with the symphony. I think they both wondered why we were there. We wondered why we were there.

George entered the library holding a CD.

“It’s time to continue your musical education,” he said to the violinist, struggling to get the CD into the machine until Jason came in and did it for him. Crackling, upper-class BBC voices loudly filled the room, accompanied by piano.

“Flanders and Swann,” George announced.

“Ah,” said the violinist.

“I’m teaching this young man about music. He had never heard of Tchaikovsky’s Peter and the Wolf, so we played that, and now it’s time for Flanders and Swann!”

“Good,” said the violinist, exchanging looks with his wife, who was frequently consulting her watch.

“Coffee?” asked Jason. The expression on his face had not changed from mild contempt all night.

After intense, subterranean negotiations, the musical couple agreed to coffee. We followed suit.

George flopped stiffly into the armchair, eyes closed, feet up. The violinist folded his hands in his lap, stretched out his long legs, and closed his eyes. His wife looked at him hard, but he would not open his eyes, so she sighed. Giselle and I sat holding hands.

“People have always eaten people, What else is there to eat? If the Juju had meant us not to eat people, He wouldn't have made us of meat!” sang Swann, or perhaps Flanders. The other countered that he did not eat people. It was all very amusing, if you found dark foreigners funny.

The song ended.

“Track 10!” shouted George, eyes still closed.

There was a pause before the violinist popped open his eyes, leapt up, and advanced the CD.

“This is the very first of the animal songs,” said Flanders, or perhaps Swann. “Some people think the title of this song is irrelevant. It’s not irrelevant, it’s an hippopotamus,” he continued in a funny voice. The recorded, long-dead audience laughed.

The duo sang in harmony. They hit the chorus: “Mud, mud, glorious mud...”

George moved his hand in musical accompaniment.

After more lyrics, the recorded audience joined in on Mud, mud. George started to mumble along, realized we weren’t with him, and stopped.

“Track 14!”

The violinist was ready this time and the transition was smooth.

The coffee arrived.

We sipped as track 14 played.

“Jason!” called George.

Jason re-entered.

“Yes?”

“Bring up the dog. And Cabaret.”

“Cabaret?”

“Cabaret.”

Jason flipped through a shelf of videos, selecting Cabaret.

“Ah, VHS,” said the violinist, admiring the ancient technology.

“Beta,” corrected George. “It’s a fine system.”

Jason slid the video into the player: a crackling woke up the sleeping surround-sound speakers and lines flickered across the screen. The violinist’s wife shot him a desperate look. When Jason departed, the violinist followed.

That left the four of us.

And Liza Minnelli.

She fluttered her eyes prettily in the 1972 musical. When she opened her mouth, a garborator sang.

“Oh dear,” said George. “Jason!”

Liza crooned like a detuned radio.

“Jason!”

The song finished. Jason appeared.

“Can you fix the tape? There was nothing wrong with it when we watched it in the afternoon,” George assured us. “We didn’t watch it – we just had it on in the background while we … did other things. And it was fine.”

The violinist re-entered the room, winked at his wife. Jason fiddled with the tape. He pressed play again, but now the screen swooned with wavy lines, as though Liza were dreaming. The sound was worse.

“Drat,” said George.

“I guess that’s the problem with the old tapes,” consoled the violinist, “the quality goes on them.”

George was upset. He lowered his recliner’s footrest sadly. Picked up the phone. “Send up Sam!”

He explained that Sam came up at 9pm every night, had a bone, and then went to bed. Sam slept in a cage.

With a clatter of feet sliding on floor, a Labrador burst into the room, ecstatic to see its owner, then angrily shocked to see us. The dog barked fiercely and ran straight at me. His teeth gnashed a few inches from my crotch while Jason and George shouted at him. Jason finally grabbed the dog and pulled him out of the room.

“I’m so sorry about Cabaret,” said George. “Perhaps we can find another film.”

The four of us rose together as if we were at mass.

“Well, actually, we’d better get going,” I said. I stretched and yawned for effect. “Early start tomorrow.”

Giselle had a little stretch too, to show we meant business. Everyone was stretching.

“Another time, then,” said George, gazing sadly at the screen, where a now-muted Liza launched into a burlesque show tune. We stood there for a bit. The violinist took the initiative and led us out of the library. George followed. Jason emerged from the kitchen, assessed the situation, and headed downstairs. To get downstairs, we had to pass the kitchen. Sam was in the kitchen; a six-inch wood panel was all that blocked his path.

“It fell on him when he was a puppy,” explained Jason. “He’s terrified of it.”

Single-file, we passed the dog. He looked at us, tried to leave the kitchen, but couldn’t bring himself to approach the panel.

George stayed upstairs after bidding us goodnight. Jason handed us our coats silently.

We walked out into the night.

how you can help africville protester eddie carvery fight off his latest eviction threat

2011-05-11T14:33:00.001-03:00

Hi Friends,

You will recall last winter California journalist Michael Lawlor of Transmopolis started a highly successful social media campaign to force the city of Halifax to go public with much-delayed plans for the rebuilding of the Africville church.

The good news is that plans appear to be moving ahead. The bad news is the only physical step the Africville Heritage Trust has taken toward this is to evict long-time Africville protester Eddie Carvery.

You can read the letter here and here. Eddie has happily moved his protest to the waterfront, but the AHT has pledged to evict him from all of Africville – which will soon include the land he is now on. You can watch this short YouTube video of Eddie’s response.

Michael called last week about restarting the social media campaign and I took his ideas to Eddie, who gave his blessing. Michael sent the first email Monday May 9 and asked me to spread the word.

The plan is simple: copy and paste the letter below and send it to Daurene Lewis, chairwoman of AHT and author of the eviction letter, from your own email, CC’ing those listed (MP Megan Leslie and MLA Percy Paris, Mayor Peter Kelly, plus Michael and myself). Of course, feel free to write your own message, or to add a note at the top of the main message. The idea is to make clear that we, the citizens of Halifax and beyond, value Eddie’s protest and do not want our tax money spent evicting him from Africville again, 41 years after so many others were evicted from Africville.

Then, ask five of your friends to do the same – Facebook it, tweet it and email it. Eddie is doing his job to fight racism with the protest, but he still has no electricity, no phone, no internet. This part is our job.

Thanks for all your support – it means a lot to Eddie.

Yours,

Jon Tattrie, author of The Hermit of Africville

Halifax, NS

SUBJECT: On Evicting Africville Protester Eddie Carvery


To:	Daurene.Lewis@nscc.ca
Cc:	jon@jontattrie.ca; michael@transmopolis.com; leslim1@parl.gc.ca; percy@percyparis.ca; kellyp@halifax.ca

Dear Daurene Lewis,

I am writing to voice my concern about the April 29, 2011 "order to vacate" letter that you delivered to Mr Eddie Carvery. This letter (page 1, page 2) has become a topic of discussion on Facebook and other social media websites.

I take exception to your statement that Eddie Carvery “will be part of the overall story” of Africville and your decision to evict him from all Africville Heritage Trust lands.

Eddie Carvery is part of the story of Africville and he has been part of the story of Africville since the day he was born. Through his 41-year live-in protest in Africville, he has kept the issue of Africville visible for decades and is recognized around the world as the voice of Africville.

Eddie has told the story of Africville in books, magazine articles, radio broadcasts, documentary films, and public speaking engagements at schools & universities for over 40 years.

Eddie has spoken out against racism on The World at Six, On This Day, and Information Morning CBC radio programs. His voice can be heard in Halifax Hearld newspaper articles and CBC News reports. His Africville protest has inspired an award winning biography, as well as feature stories in Halifax Magazine and the New York Times. Eddie appears in Remember Africville, a National Film Board production and he has spoken about Africville on many CBC television programs that are now available in the CBC Digital Archives on the Internet.

Eddie's voice has become the sound of Africville. He has shaped the story of Africville for more than forty years.

Eddie Carvery is actively engaged in the longest civil rights protest in the history of Canada. At the heart of his protest is a refusal to accept racism, the social poison that caused the destruction of Africville, his childhood home. To this end, he has lived on the land of Africville for 41 years, despite many past efforts to evict him.

For you, as a person representing the taxpayer-funded property rights of a trust, to tell Eddie Carvery that he “will be part of the overall story” of Africville, but to ask him to leave Africville, is disrespectful. He has happily moved off the site slatted for the replica church he has worked so hard for and he should be safe in the knowledge that he will not be evicted from his new location on the waterfront of Africville.

I ask that you apologize to Eddie Carvery and drop your threat to evict him from his civil rights protest in Africville.

Sincerley,

YOUR NAME

YOUR LOCATION

tanya brooks has been dead two years - so who killed her?

2011-05-10T09:51:00.001-03:00

just over two years ago, i heard about an upcoming sisters in spirit talk in halifax. the national group for aboriginal women was coming to the city to talk about the disturbingly high numbers of first nations women killed or missing, and the disproportionately high percentage that went unsolved. i did the interview in advance and circled the may date for the public talk at halifax's north end library.

a few days before the talk, tanya jean brooks, a mi'kmaq woman from millbrook, was found murdered outside a halifax school. so that evening, the sisters in spirit representative, along with several local women, spoke about murdered aboriginal women and why their killers aren't caught - if you looked out the library window behind them, you could see the school where tanya was found.

it was a disturbing, violent, public murder, but two years on there have been no arrests, no police campaigns for information - just another dead aboriginal woman whose murder remains unsolved.

a few weeks ago i contacted her mother, connie brooks, and we talked on the phone for a while. she agreed to let me visit her home and i drove out and spent some time with her. it resulted in the cover article for Halifax Magazine, which i'll paste below. read the magazine's strong editorial about her unsolved murder here.

there was a memorial walk for tanya in millbrook yesterday and there will be another one in halifax today. the family is welcoming all support - stop by if you can.

"The 2nd Memorial Walk for Tanya Brooks will begin at 1:00pm from the Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Centre crossing the street to walk up Gottingen Street to the Halifax Police Station. There will be drumming and singing on the way, so please bring your drums and voices. We will cross over on Gottingen Street and proceed back down Gottingen Street to end at the Friendship Centre.
A reception will be held at the Mi’kmaq Friendship Centre Community room upstairs after the Walk.
1:00 pm-Opening Prayers and Smudging
All Nations Women’s Drummers-
Mi’kmaq Honor Song
Strong Women Song
Speakers: N.S. Native Women’s Assoc. –Sisters In Spirit
Dorene Bernard, Grassroots Grandmothers Circle
Connie Brooks Adams, Mother of Tanya Brooks
Light Refreshments will be served
Contact for information: Dorene Bernard, flagroot@hotmail.com or 758-3593

Justice Delayed

By Jon Tattrie

Connie Brooks sits in her living room in Millbrook First Nation surrounded by newspaper clippings about her daughter, Tanya Jean Brooks. She stores them in brown envelops and takes them out one by one. The oldest is from 1989; the most recent from May 2010. Memories of Tanya hover in the air as heavy as the cigarette smoke. Connie can see Tanya’s old house through her kitchen window. Bright, cheery art Tanya created for her mother decorates her home – a painted wooden box, a Welcome plaque, signed “Tan.” They are happy images. “Just like Tanya,” Connie says. “Happy as a bumblebee.” The phone rings. Connie exhales, lets it go to voicemail.

It’s been almost two years since a teacher at St. Patrick's-Alexandra in Halifax heard a phone ringing in the schoolyard and followed the tone to a basement window well. The call was coming from Connie. She hadn’t heard from her daughter since the previous day and was getting worried. The teacher peered over the ledge and gasped in shock. Tanya was lying at the bottom. The teacher called the police and the students were led away. Crime-scene tape surrounded the yard. Tanya’s body was removed that night. Police opened a homicide investigation, but the killer - or killers - remain unknown and at large.

May 2011 marks a string of bitter anniversaries for Connie and on this spring afternoon, she’s trying to find the strength to stand for her daughter again; to spark interest in a distant police force; to face down her daughter’s faceless killers. May 8 is Mother’s Day. May 10 marks the two-year anniversary of Tanya’s death, May 11 of when she was found. May 28 would have been her 37th birthday.

“There’s a big void in there,” Connie says, fighting back tears. “And the hardest is yet to come. Whenever they catch the murderers, we got to go Halifax and see pictures and evidence, you know?”

Tanya was cremated and her remains are in Millbrook, but the medical examiner had to keep her brain as evidence in case there is a trial. “She’s not complete. She’s not resting. I don’t know what death is all about, but if I don’t have my complete daughter …”

Her mother trails off without finishing the thought.

Connie last spoke to Tanya in Halifax on May 10, 2009 – Mother’s Day. Tanya, who had five children, was in good spirits, though she had been involved in a verbal altercation with a car full of young men that afternoon. Connie told her daughter to go to brother’s home if the trouble grew. “I kept calling her and calling her, but she kept saying she had to let me go,” Connie remembers. “I said I love you and happy Mother’s Day.”

Connie spoke to Tanya in the afternoon and police estimate she died around 9 p.m. In the days after the murder, a man living near the school told a reporter he had seen a gang of men following a woman down an alley the night Tanya died.

Sgt. Kevin Smith is the officer in charge of homicide at Halifax Regional Police. “With respect to Tanya Brooks, there has not been a whole lot of progress made,” he says.

Smith won’t say how she died, or if police have a theory as to who killed her or why or even where. The police learned about the alley witness on the evening news. “It certainly sounded like he had valid information, certainly possibly relevant given the time and location, however it’s not a game breaker,” Smith says.

The police hope a witness comes forward who will testify in court. “A witness to either her being involved in an altercation with somebody, a witness to somebody saying something to what might have happened to her – that would certainly be a game breaker,” Smith says.

“At this stage, [the investigation] is not really active. Solid motive, with respect to Tanya, is still up in the air. Does it have something to do the fact that she was a prostitute? We’re open to that. Is it a random situation? Who knows?”

The last detail – rumours that Tanya Brooks had worked in the sex trade – dominated media accounts of her murder, but there is no suggestion she was working the day she died or that it had anything to do with her killing.

Katharine Irngau works for Sisters in Spirit, a Native Women’s Association of Canada program that calls attention to the hundreds of murdered or missing aboriginal women across the country. By grim coincidence, SIS was in Halifax days after the Mi’kmaq woman’s murder for a long-scheduled talk about the hidden horror. The audience could look out the window of the north end library and see the school where Brooks’s body was found.

The national clearance rate for murdered women is about 78 per cent; for aboriginal women, it drops to 53 per cent, Irngau says. “Historically speaking, devaluation of aboriginal women has led to a slow response to investigations,” she says.

“There’s a perception that aboriginal women have no ties, no community or culture, no education. The ties that keep families together are fractured and people assume that the fracture is to blame.”

Police and media can add to that devaluation by emphasizing a history of drug use or sex work. “That victim blaming happens right away,” Irngau says. It saps public outcry for justice, which in turn weakens police efforts to solve murders.

Tanya grew up in Millbrook before running away to Toronto at 16. She later returned to Nova Scotia and raised her four boys and a girl, who today range from 10 to 21. When she was 30, a friend produced a needle and tempted Tanya with a better high than alcohol. “They say that if one needle, you like the feeling, then you’re hooked. If you don’t like the feeling, then no. I guess she liked the feeling,” Connie says.

The next few years were dominated by the search for more of the drug, likely heroin, which led to Tanya’s apparent stint in the sex trade. According to friends and family, Tanya was clean in spring 2009 and looking to enroll at NSCC to take a new direction with her life.

Back in Millbrook, Connie Brooks looks at her daughter’s photo in the brittle, yellowed 1989 edition of The Record, an Ontario newspaper. It’s a feature on street kids and the reporter talks to Tanya, who looks depressed and is upset about her “big mistake” of running away. She shows the reporter some of her artwork and says she is trying to raise $88 to get home for Christmas. “I think my family wants me home. I think my [Indian] band wants me home. I think they are afraid I’ll be going home in a wooden casket,” Tanya told the reporter. “When I go home, I will go to school for my mother. I will find a job for my mother.”

Connie Brooks looks out her window. She prays that this year, justice will be done for her daughter, so she can finally bring Tanya home.

"A sweet, smart play"—my Hfx mag review of neptune's "The Fly Fisher's Companion"

2011-05-09T11:06:00.000-03:00

my review of neptune studio theatre's last play of the season, The Fly Fisher's Companion, is on the Halifax Magazine website today. it's also below:

By Jon Tattrie

The Fly Fisher’s Companion opens with two old men fussing with their fishing gear in a ramshackle shack near Cape Breton’s glorious Margaree River. The weather is foul, and so is the temperament of crotchety old Don (John Dartt), a workaholic businessman angry to be away from his company for a weekend of fishing with his old pal, the idealistic writer and dreamer, Wes (Don Ritchie). They are old, feeble men who have faced many hard things together – but it’s the few outstanding items they looked away from that haunt this play at Neptune’s Studio Theatre.

The basic template of the story is familiar – idealist battles cynic over the meaning or meaninglessness of life – and was covered last year at Neptune in Mesa, a play about a young idealist writer driving his cynical old father-in-law to a retirement home in Arizona. As such, it’s a bit of a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, but the smart, sensitive writing of Halifax’s Michael Melski (Growing Op, Corvette Crossing) and the strong performances by the two leads lift it above the fray.

“A man who buys his tackle at Walmart will only get his salmon at Sobeys,” Wes slyly digs at one point, one of the many sharp lines in the play. Much like Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, The Fly Fisher’s Companion is very local – Cape Breton, to be precise – yet universal. Don’s body is ravaged by arthritis and aches, and he’s losing his memory to early stages Alzheimer’s disease. Wes appears to be fit as a fiddle-de-dee (his favourite expression), but we soon learn that he’s staring down a dark diagnosis. At the start of the play, Wes seems 20 years too young to be a contemporary of grumpy old Don, but he is transformed as the story unfolds, and emerges looking 20 years too old. It’s a remarkable performance by Ritchie.

Together, Ritchie and Dartt create a wonderful and all-too-rare portrait of a long, loving male friendship. At the movies and on TV, male friends are inevitable idiots of the Knocked Up variety: horny, stupid and with no ambition. Don and Wes are 3D portraits of two different men whose complex and thoughtful lives have overlapped.

I know nothing about fishing and as a vegetarian, have little interest in learning how to cast a rod or tie a fly, but Melski again lifts it out of the specific and into a universal metaphor for life, and how to make difficult choices when the short-term outcome is unknown, but the long-term outcome is inevitably death.

This is a sweet, smart play, and it’s only here until mid-May. Make it an early Father’s Day present, or send your parents to it for Mother’s Day. Trust me, you’ll fall for it hook, line and sinker.

Jon Tattrie is a freelance journalist and author based in Halifax.

The Fly Fisher’s Companion is at Neptune’s Studio Theatre until May 15. Call 429-7070 or go to Neptunetheatre.com for details.

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herald update: eddie carvery relocates his africville protest

2011-05-06T12:07:00.001-03:00

an africville update in today's chronicle herald:

Africville protester makes way for church
Squatter now on port authority land

By EVA HOARE Staff Reporter
Fri, May 6 - 4:54 AM
The man who’s stood his ground at Halifax’s Seaview Park in protest for several years packed up his belongings Thursday and moved away — but not very far.
Abiding by a request from the Africville Heritage Trust, activist Eddie Carvery moved one of his trailers to a property adjacent to the spot he’s occupied at Seaview. He is now residing on a piece of land owned by the Halifax Port Authority.
The trust needed Carvery to move so it could proceed with plans to build a replica of the Africville church at Seaview. Construction is to start after the tender is awarded within the next week.
Michelle Peverill, spokeswoman for the port authority, confirmed Thursday a trailer had been moved onto the port’s waterfront property. The land adjoins Seaview Park, she said.
"In the last 24 hours, we’ve been made aware of the fact that this trailer has moved onto our property."
As of late Thursday, the port didn’t plan to take any action, Peverill said.
The land Carvery moved to is to be transferred to Halifax Regional Municipality as part of the settlement deal for Africville, Peverill said.
The handover has been part of discussions between the municipality and the port for some time, she said.
"We don’t have any immediate plans to do anything today. Essentially our intention is to continue to work with HRM," said Peverill. "We’ll deal with HRM about that."
Shaune MacKinlay, who speaks for the municipality, said Carvery’s move to port property will be "part of the discussion we have with the port," adding it would be "premature to say anything beyond that."
A member of the trust said Thursday that board members were aware Carvery had moved as requested.
"That paves the path for us to move forward with the church," said April Howe.
Last week, trust members asked the activist to vacate the section of the park he’s occupied so a $4.5-million memorial project can proceed. The group is working toward having the church replica ready for the annual Africville reunion on July 21.
The trust was formed last year after a multimillion-dollar reparations package for Africville was announced. Part of the package involves changing the park’s name from Seaview back to Africville.
In a previous interview, Eddie Carvery’s brother Irvine, president of the genealogy society and a member of the trust’s board, said the trust was trying to work with the squatter so his protest could continue.
Irvine Carvery could not be reached for comment Thursday.

etipping point: the secret story of how the sentimentalists became an ebook best seller

2011-05-05T10:16:00.000-03:00

maritime noon is discussing ereaders in atlantic canada on cbc radio today - check out my article on the same topic in the latest edition of atlantic books today.

By Jon Tattrie

When Johanna Skibsrud shocked Canada by winning the Giller Prize for The Sentimentalists last fall, the story quickly soured as it turned to her Nova Scotia publisher’s frantic efforts to keep up with demand. As Gaspeareau Press cranked out copies, countless readers simply downloaded it onto their ereader.

Fittingly for a book called The Sentimentalists, it balanced between the old world of print books and the new world of ebooks. Michael Tamblyn, vice-president of sales and marketing for the ereader Kobo, thinks it was part of a tipping point for the entire industry. The Sentimentalists was available as an ebook because as soon as Kobo saw it was shortlisted for the Giller, it reached out to Gaspeareau and helped them convert it.

“We have been more aggressive than any other ebook retailer in reaching out to publishers in the Canadian market and in some cases helping them to get digital versions made of important books,” Tamblyn says. “We treat this much more as a challenge of book selling than as a technology challenge.”

Kobo is largely staffed by people who previously worked in the print world and they were delighted to help Skibsrud reach as wide an audience as possible. For the record, Skibsrud herself doesn’t have an ereader, but she tells ABT she’s got her eye on the Kindle for portability and environmental reasons.

“I think what we saw this Christmas was ereading and ereaders reaching the mass market and the general consumer for the first time. Ereading transitioned from that early adopter phase to the beginning of mass adoption,” Tamblyn says.

Most of the new ereaders are not young techies playing with gadgets, but the same people who buy print books: 40-plus, largely Baby Boomers. They buy the same books, too, with Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy topping the charts along with Skibsrud.

“These are not technology-focused people who are being drawn to books; these are book readers who are finding technology to enable their reading,” Tamblyn says.

Atlantic Canadian content is scarce. Publishers such as Newfoundland’s Breakwater Books and Flanker Press, New Brunswick’s Goose Lane Editions and Nova Scotia’s Formac Publishing are leading the move into ebooks, selling the titles either on their own websites or via ereaders such as Kobo.

Tamblyn admits the numbers can be tougher for publishers. Consumers expect digital books to be cheaper than print books, but removing the paper cuts only about 15 per cent of the cost of producing a book and converting adds to the expense. According to the Association of Canadian Publishers, if a publisher has a digital version of the book (e.g. a pdf) and converts through a retailer with a large conversion house, it can cost $50. If the publisher only has a hard copy of the book, scanning and converting it can cost $550 or more.

Tamblyn says economics may force regional publishers to look at expanding into the global market to stay competitive.

“That really is the challenge that publishers have: can they price the book at a level that’s attractive while at the same time continuing to make enough money to grow their businesses?” he asks.

Anna Kate Newman, publishing operations manager at Newfoundland’s Breakwater Books, is hoping the answer is yes. Breakwater recently tweeted that two of its bestsellers, Chad Pelley’s Away From Everywhere and Trudy Morgan-Cole’s By the Rivers of Brooklyn, have been converted into ebooks.

Newman says Breakwater now has about 60 of its 250 titles available as ebooks. It is focusing on books it believes have a national and international appeal. Regional books are at the back of the queue for now, as it has yet to see a big market for them.

“It’s really about pleasing the authors and making sure they know we’re up to date and doing all we can to represent their work in all markets,” she says.

Marketing ebooks specifically is tricky, as ereading people still tend to learn about print books the old-fashioned way – advertising, reviews, awards – and then seek an ebook version. For now, Breakwater has solved the financial problem by charging the same for print books and ebooks. Kobo, Sony and Barnes and Noble have discounted the ebooks, but Breakwater still gets the full price. Sales have been slow, but are picking up. Authors get a “healthier” return on ebooks, Newman says, and never have to face the horror of remainders or books going out of print.

The hope is that in the near future, Breakwater will release ebooks and print books simultaneously and sell both on its website. “Then you have a larger piece of the pie to share with your authors,” Newman explains.

Ebooks have become an increasingly important part of libraries, too. Debbie LeBel, collection development manager at the Halifax Public Libraries, says they saw the Christmas boom in the form of

borrowers arriving in January with new ereaders and lots of questions.

LeBel says the most popular ebooks mirror print books, dominated again by Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Sentimentalists and the Twilight series.

“There are a lot of seniors using them, people who have difficulty with regular printed works,” she says, as well as teenagers. Seniors and boomers are especially enthusiastic because they can increase the font size to a comfortable reading level without requiring a thick, large-print book and snow birds can download new titles from the comfort of their Florida apartment.

The library has 5,268 etitles so far, which sounds like a lot, but pales next to its total print book collection of approximately 849,000. For the library to lend copies, publishers must first convert them and then make them available via Overdrive, the ebook provider the library uses. That means there is a shortage of Atlantic Canadian titles, LeBel says. Many Atlantic Canadian publishers are making forays into the field, but it’s still pre-tipping point.

“We were able to purchase The Sentimentalists, but typically we can’t get a lot of what we would call local content,” she says. “We would love to buy more.”

“Because we’ve had so much demand for it, we’re starting some introductory classes about using ebooks,”

she adds. “It’s focused on our own collection, but also lets folks know about other sources they can get ebooks from.”

Help is available for publishers who want to enter the brave new world of epublishing via the Association of Canadian Publishers. It launched Canadian Publishers Digital Services in 2009 to assist publishers in converting books. Carolyn McNeillie, digital services coordinator for CPDS, says curious publishers can start by contacting them to learn how it’s done. CPDS also liaises deals between publishers and ebook companies.

“We help smooth the process for publishers getting their epubs into the world,” McNeillie says. The small margins most publishers operate on make adding the new costs of epublishing daunting, but readers are increasingly moving to a mix of print and ebooks, she says.

“Things are changing. There are a lot of romantic feelings about print books and there are a lot of reasons why print books work really well,” she concludes. “But at the same time there is a demand for digital books and at the end of the day, the best part of a book, no matter how beautifully it is designed, is the content. Digital books are just another way of getting that into the reader’s hands.”

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Sidebar

Ereaders range from light standalone devices such as the Kobo, Kindle and Sony Reader Pocket Edition (all under $180) to heavier multi-media tablets such as the IPad and Samsung’s Galaxy (both starting around $600). Some people prefer standalones because of price and because they are specifically designed as an ereader, while others go for tablets as they can also surf the internet and play games. Standalones read like a book while tablets read like a computer screen. The battery life of standalones is weeks, whereas tablets last for less than a day.

Gerry Fostaty, author of Goose Lane’s nonfiction title As You Were, tried ereading on his IPod Touch before buying a Kindle. “At first I was skeptical. I thought, ‘Nah, you like to hold a book in your hand,’” he says. “But the Kindle … really is marvelous.”

The reading experience is great, the device is light and it is easy to bring with him on his frequent travels. As a writer, he loves that people can buy his books as soon as the impulse strikes. He can also read his manuscripts on his ereader to help editing in the early stages.

Fostaty says it isn’t the end of print books, though – if he loves an ebook, he buys a hard copy for subsequent re-readings.

the last africvillian gets his eviction notice

2011-05-03T16:21:00.002-03:00

"While we respect your right to continue your protest for individual compensation for former residents and for a public enquiry, for the reasons outlined above we are not able to accommodate your wish to remain on the site.

"Therefore ... we have no alternative but to request that you vacate the site forthwith."

- Africville Heritage Trust eviction notice to Africville protester Eddie carvery, dated April 29, 2011

i've just come from seeing eddie carvery in africville and am shaking with anger. he showed me the eviction letter the africville heritage trust sent him last week - it is sickening that the last person living in africville would be evicted by the africville heritage trust board - a board entrusted with spending millions of our taxpayers' dollars to preserve the memory of africville.

imagine if, during construction, they found a cross from the original church. there would be celebrations - and photo ops for media - and it would be given a place of honour. instead, what they have is the real thing - a man who has lived in africville his whole life, who was baptized and had visions in that church, who watched the city tear it down in the middle of the night - and they sweep him aside like one more piece of trash for the dump.

eddie is calm. he's moved most of his stuff across the way so that the church can be built. he won't be able to take the little hut he spent so much time and money building last winter - the concrete foundation, the insulation to keep him warm in the cold winters. so he's displaced again. but he won't leave.

i'm posting the letter below with his permission - signed by daurene lewis, chair of the board. read it, retweet it, repost it - turn the flood lights on so this dirty deed won't be done in the dark. if you can't make it out, read page one here and page two here on flickr. i've also posted them to facebook - go to fb and search for the group 'The Hermit of Africville - The Life of Eddie Carvery'

i'm going on the rick howe show on news 95.7 at about 640pm. tune in. spread the word.

also, you can share your thoughts with ms lewis at 902.491.4642 or Daurene.Lewis@nscc.ca.

disturbing developments in africville

2011-05-03T07:24:00.000-03:00

today's chronicle herald reports on a story i've been working on. the africville heritage trust, the board appointed to preserve the memory of africville, is doing so by asking the last resident to leave - and offering him nothing in return.

CLOSE WINDOW

Published: 2011-05-03

Squatter asked to leave park
Africville Trust to get $4.5-million memorial project underway
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE City Hall Reporter

Plans are in the works to bring an end to the drawn-out Africville land protest at Seaview Park in north-end Halifax.

The Africville Heritage Trust wants squatter Eddie Carvery to vacate a section of the park he has occupied for years so a $4.5-million memorial project can proceed.

Last week, the trust announced it’s issuing a tender call for the building of a replica of Africville’s original church. The replica is to include a museum component, and is part of the compensation deal released in February 2010.

The tender closes May 12. Trust members are hoping the project will be ready for the annual Africville reunion in the park this summer.

Redress was negotiated between Halifax Regional Municipality and the Africville Geneology Society for the decades-old destruction of Africville and relocation of its residents.

Carvery, a former resident of the black neighbourhood, told The Chronicle Herald Monday he’s received a notice from the trust asking him to leave. He has two trailers in his campground in the park.

Carvery’s brother, Irvine, president of the genealogy society and a member of the trust’s board, said the board is trying to work with the protester so his protest can continue — but not at the site he’s occupying.

"Eddie is a part of the story of Africville," Irvine Carvery said in an interview Monday. "We’re hoping that we can reach some common ground here."

Asked what the heritage trust would do if Eddie Carvery refuses to leave his spot, he said board members are hoping for the best. "I guess we’re going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it," Irvine Carvery said.

The volunteer heritage trust was formed last year shortly after a multimillion-dollar reparations package for Africville was announced.

Most of the trust’s members lived in the defunct Bedford Basin-area neighbourhood or are their descendants.

Part of the compensation agreement is to change the park’s name back to Africville. That’s happening, too.

( mlightstone@herald.ca)

CLOSE WINDOW

the power of summer camp

2011-05-02T16:00:00.001-03:00

metro has its summer guide in today's paper, including my as-told-to story about david mckeage, founder of camp brigadoon for chronically ill children.

David McKeage is the founder and executive director of Brigadoon Children’s Camp, an $8 million, year-round facility hosting residential camps for children and youth living with chronic illness. It opens this summer in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. McKeage, who had Hodgkin’s disease at age 12, told his story to Jon Tattrie.

“My first summer camp was with Camp Goodtime. I was 17. It was for children living with cancer or brain tumours.

We had to take a swimming test so you could go to the lake. One of the people that I took my swimming test with wore a wig. He was a young man and didn’t want anyone to see him take his wig off, so we were able to do our swimming test just with the lifeguard. It was just the two of us and one lifeguard and no one was around to see us do that. He took his wig off and did the test and then put it back on.

The next morning when we went to breakfast, all the senior staff boys at the camp had shaved their heads.

This was in the ‘80s, so shaving your head was not a popular thing – Michael Jordan wasn’t around to make it fashionable! It was a very powerful statement about teenage boys supporting another teenage boy, and it was very organic. No one asked them to do this and no one made a big deal about it. It was a very powerful statement.

I still get goose bumps! That moment really changed my life. It’s the community that exists when you’re at camp. It’s the safety of being who you are and being accepted for who you are. It was a really awesome, temporary community.

The relationship between the camper and the counsellor is very powerful in terms of what the camper teaches the counsellor and what the counsellor can teach the camper. It’s a really cool, mutually beneficial give-and-take.

It stayed with me over the years and was the catalyst for creating Camp Brigadoon. We realized there was a large, unmet need in the Maritimes that Brigadoon could address.

We’re thrilled – it’s been a ten-year project. It’s been an amazing learning experience and I think it’s stimulated the Maritimes at all levels – academic, health-care providers, non-profit groups - to take a look at how we service the pediatric chronic-illness populations and their families and what we can do to improve that.

-30-

farmers, cloggers and wrestlers: meet the Atlantic Book Award D250 nominees

2011-04-27T17:14:00.001-03:00

the new copy of Atlantic Books Today is out. i've got an article in it about who's doing what with ebooks on the east coast, which i'll post later this week.

in the meantime, check out the profiles of myself and my fellow D250 nominees. you can see the other awards here.

D250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing

Apr 27,2011

Rusty Bittermann, Sailor’s Hope

(McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Josie Penny, So Few on Earth

(Dundurn Press)

Jon Tattrie, The Hermit of Africville

(Pottersfield Press)

Rusty Bittermann, Sailor’s Hope (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

In 140 characters or less (à la Twitter) tell us what your nominated book is about:

Scottish-born sailor, farmer, politician and boat-builder who sought to transform nineteenth-century P.E.I. and of his family’s emigration to California during the Gold Rush.

How does it feel to be nominated?

Delightful.

Who or what is your major influence when writing?

This book was shaped by years of archival research in Scotland, England, Eastern Canada and California; by exploring on foot the places William Cooper and his family lived in Scotland, London, Prince Edward Island and California, and by my access to private correspondence held by William Cooper’s great grandson.

What compelled you to become a writer?

See above.

Of all living and deceased authors, who would you like to meet and why?

At this point, the subject of the biography: William Cooper (he wrote political pamphlets and scores—nay hundreds—of letters to the editor). There are more than a few lingering questions that I would like to resolve!

Briefly share 3 things about yourself that we don't know:

1) Like William Cooper, I once earned my livelihood as a farmer and a logger.

2) My wife and I have recently purchased a PEI farm and intend to return to a life of farming.

3) I share Cooper’s affection for PEI (even in the depth of winter).

Josie Penny, So Few on Earth (Dundurn Press)

What compelled you to become a writer?

After moving from Labrador to Ontario in 1977 with four teenagers I suddenly realized they would never know from where they came unless I wrote about it. So I wrote my story for them.

How does it feel to be nominated?

I feel proud and overwhelmed that so many people care! It means that Labradorians matter, we deserve to be heard! We have a voice...

In 140 characters or less (a la Twitter) tell us what your nominated book is about:

Growing up in total isolation where survival (not education) was paramount. How I struggled in vain to maintain my own identity. How I became a depersonalized person.

Who or what is your major influence when writing?

My first writing teacher at MacMaster University, when I realized that with only a grade seven education I needed to learn the basics of how to write my story!

Of all living and deceased authors, who would you like to meet and why?

I would like to meet Farley Mowatt, because I thought he was authentic, and wrote as he saw it and was not influenced by outsiders.

Briefly share 3 things about yourself that we don't know:

1) I’m inquisitive and love to learn

2) I appeared on national TV in 1977 for clogging (the event that got us out of Labrador).

3) I love to play my accordion and lots of other instruments.

Jon Tattrie, The Hermit of Africville (Pottersfield Press)

Who or what is your major influence when writing?

Stephen King taught me how to tell a ripping good yarn; Kurt Vonnegut showed me how to do it in fewer words.

How does it feel to be nominated?

To be nominated for any award is enough to make one giddy, but for The Hermit of Africville to be shortlisted for the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing is especially exciting. They say journalists write the first draft of history; in this case, I got to do the second draft, too.

In 140 characters or less (a la Twitter) tell us what your nominated book is about:

In the 1960s, Halifax destroyed Eddie Carvery’s village, Africville. In 1970, he started a live-in protest. He’s still there.

What compelled you to become a writer?

Writing fiction is how I make sense of the world–how I turn the high-speed stream of events that make up life into solid ground under my feet. It allows me to better understand myself and move forward. I write non-fiction to try and bring that traction to others.

Of all living and deceased authors, who would you like to meet and why?

Albert Camus. The French writer mixed great stories with deep philosophical examinations of the human condition in novels like The Outsider and The Plague. Plus, he died before finishing his last novel, The First Man. I’d like to ask him how it was going to end.

Briefly share 3 things about yourself that we don’t know:

1) I spent my twenties living in Europe and going by my middle name, Adam.

2) When I started university, I planned to become a police officer.

3) When I started junior high, I planned to become a professional wrestler. My wrestling name was ‘Cool J’ and my specialty was the sleeper hold.

a sudden avalanche of black snow

2011-04-26T11:54:00.000-03:00

since its launch last summer, the hermit of africville has rather dominated my life as a writer, so it was a pleasant surprise when black snow roared back into my life last week.

it started with a superb book club visit to chapters in mic mac mall. when us writers crawl out of our caves and blink into the sunlight of reader-writer interactions, anything can happen. you will recall that i have been berated and had books thrown at me at past events. so one is cautious.

the first thing that amazed me thursday night was the fantastic turnout - about 30 book lovers had gathered in a big circle at the back of the book store. Gaye DeWolf, the chapters staffer who also runs the 'For the Love of Books' book club, met me at the front door, treated me to a tea and welcomed me to the circle. she had done her homework and gave a jian ghomeshi-style introduction touching on much of my writing career. she then started things off with some questions about black snow and we had a great conversation about writing and reading.

usually, writers are asked about the subjects of their books, not the actual writing. it was great fun to go under the hood with black snow as the conversation dug into the techniques of actually writing - why it's in the first person, present tense, why the the sentences, paragraphs and chapters are short and choppy, why it jumps between the present and the past. (basically, i wanted to blow the dust off the explosion and make it feel like it is happening to the reader right now and to hook them along with the pringles approach to writing - bet you can't read just one chapter).

we also talked about how to actually write a book (do it every day. even if it's just 500 words, it adds up and makes a dreamy project real) and how to get published (tenacity - don't take rejection personally and keep hunting publishers until you find yours).

it was a great evening - one of the best events i've been invited to as a writer.

the following day, a reader tweeted me to say she'd loved BS - i assumed she had been at chapters, but it turns out she had just coincidentally finished reading it.

the finale of my BS week came while watching the CBC news friday. colleen jones had done a piece on an award-winning halifax teacher called andrew stickings whose grade 5s at Ecole Grosvenor Wentworth had won an award for their film on the halifax explosion called Black Snow. you can watch the CBC piece here.

i had interviewed andrew before about past awards and he invited me to talk to his class in the fall as they created their explosion piece. the pic is of me visiting the class and holding the Black Snow clapboard. i can't find their movie online yet, but you can see some of the grade's past work here. i suspect he'll post it there when it's ready.

does voting really matter? what to do when the doorknockers come for you

2011-04-20T12:46:00.000-03:00

did you ever wonder if you should bother voting? i mean, if pollsters can ask a few hundred canadians what they think and accurately predict the outcome of the election, what difference does it make if 40%, 50% or 100% of citizens actually vote? sure, the raw numbers look good - but does it actually alter the outcome?

personally, i suspect that it doesn't - unless there's a hot, obama-like candidate charging up from the outside. when you have the usual leaders offering variations on a theme, i suspect it doesn't really matter if i walk down to the polling booth and cast my lone vote. in my particular riding - halifax west - the incumbent won by 5,000 votes last time. if the pollsters are right - and they usually are - our next parliament will look more or less like the last parliament.

anyhoo, metro asked me to write a column on the election and i based it on two recent doorbell rings. one was a politician seeking my vote. i was still in my robe and surprised by his appearance, and had no intelligent questions for him, even when he asked me what issues were important to me. so i talked to a dal poli-scie prof and we came up with some questions to get you started when your own politicians come knocking.

the second was a visit from the jehovah witnesses. i told her i had expected to find a politician at my door. without missing a beat, she pointed to jesus on the watch tower and said: 'that's the only government that can solve our problems.'

snap! nicely played.

here's my column from today's metro:

Be Heard: A Halifax voter's political primer

Jon Tattrie

20 April 2011 05:00

When my doorbell rang last week and I reluctantly opened it a crack -- expecting to see another politician with another pamphlet -- but instead was overjoyed to find a door-to-door religious evangelist, I knew I was sick with a bad case of election fever.

The noise of the federal election can seem like an incoherent roar out on the East Coast as national party leaders clash over personalities and policies. What’s an ordinary citizen to do when a political suitor asks for your hand in voting? Seeking expert advice, I called Jennifer Smith, a professor of government and political science at Dalhousie University.

Smith helped me formulate a few questions voters can put to door-stepping politicians. Post this article by your front door and next time a candidate knocks, you’ll be prepared.

That way, you will at least know where Halifax stands - and where your candidate stands.

The Lower Churchill hydroelectric project: The Conservatives have pledged to underwrite loans to fund this mammoth plan to bring power from Newfoundland to (among other places) Nova Scotia. It’s a huge issue, economically and environmentally. Would you support backing this project?
Shipyard funding: Halifax is fighting for a multi-billion-dollar shipbuilding contract for the navy and coast guard. Whoever forms the next government will decided which city wins it. Would you bring it to Halifax?
Learning Passport: The Liberals have proposed a “learning passport” to help students attend college or university. Given Halifax’s huge student population, this is a policy that could affect pocketbooks in HRM. What would your party do to help students financially?
Health care/home care: Many health care issues are handled provincially, but the federal government plays an important role. Nova Scotia has an aging population and demographic trends suggest that we are getting greyer. How do you plan to help seniors?
Convention centre: If that hole on Argyle Street is to become a convention centre, it requires three levels of government funding. Would you federally fund this project or other projects, such as a stadium, in Halifax?
The Debate debate: The Green party got almost one million votes in 2008, but was not invited to the 2011 leaders’ debate because they don’t have an MP. How do you ensure all Canadians are heard at a federal level?
Corporate taxes: the NDP promises to repeal scheduled decreases in corporate tax cuts. Would you support this move?

Now, if only I could find a divinity professor to supply me with questions for my next religious visitor.

99 problems with west side story

2011-04-12T12:36:00.001-03:00

i've been on a jay z kick lately, devouring his fascinating book Decoded and thrilling off the sharp rhymes, brilliant lyric play and irresistible music from albums like the black album and the blueprint 3. walking into neptune's production of West Side Story fresh with jay z's empire state of mind and his compelling stories from the gang streets of modern new york was perhaps not fair for the 1950's musical.

my review for Halifax Magazine is below:

When you’re a Jet
You’re a Jet all the way,
From your first pirouette
To your last trip to the ballet

OK, those aren’t exactly the lyrics that kicked off West Side Story at its Neptune Theatredebut Friday night, but given the amount of spinning, sliding and leaping going on during the dance routines, it might have been a truer account. It was hard to imagine any of those good-boys-gone-gooder lighting a cigarette, let alone risking an early death.

Liam Tobin, Anthony MacPherson, Adam Sergison and friends combine to form the softest gang to ever menace the streets of New York. These boys seem closer to their childhood cribs than any hoodlum’s crib. It’s hard to imagine them holding a stare, let along an inner city block, and it’s never clear why they’re so hyped to fight off rivals to their turf. In the words of another celebrated New York gangster, Jay Z, you know the type: loud as a motorbike, but wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight.

As the musical opens, they’re bristling to bash with a worthy rival, which prepares us for the muscly, menacing, mean Sharks. Stephenos Christou and his boys make for legit gangsters, and when they square off with the Jets, it’s a battle between boys vs. men. Puzzlingly, two of the Sharks–regularly mocked by Jets and cops as dark-skinned Puerto Ricans–are white. One is wearing a tweed jacket. It’s not clear if this is a progressive, multi-cultural gang or if there just weren’t enough non-white actors auditioning for the roles.

Christou is great as the reluctant warrior, an immigrant once dazzled by the bright lights, now soured on the Big Apple. He doesn’t want to fight with the little Jets–they look more like hang gliders, to be frank–but he is forced to by their belligerence as they buzz around him.

Things come to a boil when Jet legend Tony (Tobin) locks eyes on Shark sweetheart Maria (Anwyn Musico) and the two lock lips at the dance. They are perfect strangers and apart from both being pretty and witty and bright, it’s never revealed why they are so hot and bothered for each other. It’s Romeo and Juliet, but without any of the clever word wooing that Shakespeare used to pull us into his young lovers’ world.

With breathtaking speed, both Shark and Jet jettison familial and friendly ties to risk their lives in a bid to hook up, and soon Sharks and Jets are dancing their way into an early grave.

When the last body was carted off stage and the curtain dropped, it received warm applause, and my musical-loving friend swooned, but I was little moved. I’m sure there’s a place for this play somewhere, but not in my heart or head.

West Side Story plays at Neptune Theatre until May 29.

'That far shore' up for AJA

2011-04-04T12:20:00.001-03:00

monday got off to a great start with news my halifax magazine profile of kristin roe is up for an atlantic journalism award: best profile article.

fellow halifax magazine Chad Lucas is up in the same category for Across the Sea.

my piece illustrates why i love writing for halifax mag. the profile came about when my editor said they were looking for a cover story for the end of the year. they'd had a string of men on the cover and wanted a woman - kristin was the first that came to mind. i'd covered her amazing swim across the english channel from a distance and was hungry to learn more about it - and more about her.

i went with a largely 'live' feel for the writing, as though the reader was hanging over the edge of her support boat cheering her on, and then pulled back to fill in how she got there and what she was doing, before zooming back in as she climbed out of the water in france.

most amazingly of all, i managed to avoid making any 'roe your boats' puns.

Swimming Mount Everest

By Jon Tattrie

As midnight approached on July 22, 2010, Kristin Roe lifted her head above the water to try and make out what her panicked crew was shouting from the support boat.

“Swim hard!” hollered her step-father, David Mills. “There’s a ferry coming!”

The Halifax woman was swimming the English Channel to raise money to fight AIDS in Africa, but powerful tidal waters had pushed her into a ferry lane. A ship was bearing down on her, bright lights in a black world. Roe had been swimming for 15 hours and now she was being told to sprint.

The moonlight sparkled on the rough waters, illuminating a shadow on the distant horizon. France. England was 30 kilometres behind her and Calais was still five kilometers in front. The choppy waters had her swimming over waves and drifting up and down the channel, turning the passage into a treadmill.

She was out of gas. She knew that 90 per cent of swimmers fail in their first attempt at the channel. She had recently met a strapping 6”2 Australian man who had been pulled out of the water four times.

Physically, he was fine, but the mental strain broke him again and again.

“Can I make it?” she asked weakly as salt water rushed into her mouth. “Just keep swimming,” the crew called back.

Images of Africa filled her head – the women, men and children battling the vicious AIDS epidemic on the ground. If they could stay strong, so could she. No one said swimming the aquatic world’s Mount Everest was going to be easy.

She breathed in over a tongue swollen with salt, put her head down and tried to pull five more kilometres out of her battered body.

qqq

Eight hours before, Roe had thought she was done. The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world and the regular traffic of Carnival cruises, passenger ferries and container ships churn the water, sending swimmers bobbing off course. It left Roe constantly heaving up the contents of her stomach, or “feeding the fish,” as she preferred to call it. She felt terrible and just wanted to take a nap. The

seasickness meant she couldn’t hold down any of the nutrients vital to fuelling the second half of her trip.

The looming sense of failure was devastating. Roe, 30, had crisscrossed Canada’s Northumberland Strait and the shark-infested waters off South Africa to Robben Island, but she had never been tested this severely.

She paused to tread water. The diesel fumes from the boat turned her stomach. Another container ship sent a wake splashing over her head.

“I don’t know if this is in the cards for me today,” she called up to the boat. It was the first time the marathon swimmer had contemplated defeat.

The boat crew huddled together. The pilot, hired by the English Channel Association, said Roe needed to get out of the water. He’d never seen someone so sick.

“Well, she’s not dying,” countered her step-father. “She’s not drowning. She’s not hypothermic. She’s not incoherent. How about we do another hour?”

He sent Roe her bottle. She opened it up and took a sip: hot, sugary Earl Gray poured out. Roe had a cup of afternoon tea in the English Channel and swam on.

qqq

When Roe had stepped into the water eight hours earlier, she had waved goodbye to the white cliffs of Dover in good cheer. Her elbows, armpits and knees were covered in grease to avoid chaffing, but otherwise, all she wore was a swimsuit, cap and goggles. Her plan was to swim the channel to raise $100,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Nova Scotia Gambia Association to fight AIDS in Africa.

She had never been personally affected by the disease, but she had been personally affected by a speech Lewis gave in Nova Scotia. She says the Canadian icon inspired her, but Lewis says it’s the other way around.

“The Kristin Roes of this world make me feel it’s all worthwhile. She’s an elixir to me,” says Lewis. “The impact on people is one almost of incredulity: Did she really do that to raise money for the foundation? That’s amazing.’ It almost defies belief.”

Lewis, a former Ontario politician who served as UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa before starting his fundraising foundation in 2003 for the same cause, says the strength that keeps Roe afloat comes from the same deep well that drives the grandmothers in Africa to raise their grandchildren after the AIDS epidemic has taken their parents.

“At the moment of truth, when the swim seems overpowering, she draws on a sense that it must be completed for the cause. Somehow, she overcomes the tremendous ennui and sense of difficulty. It’s quite amazing,” Lewis says. “She’s very direct, unselfconscious and straightforward. There’s not a shred of false humility. She cares about the world rather more than she cares about herself.”

qqq

As the clock struck midnight on July 23, Roe escaped the ferry. Throwing handfuls of sea behind her, she propelled herself to the shore. The support boat stopped when the water became too shallow. A Zodiac went ahead of her to keep watch on Roe. “Follow the light,” the pilot said as he vanished in the enveloping darkness. Roe had been wrestling the channel for two-thirds of a day.

The green light stick on her swimming cap was the only thing separating her from the pitch black. Just a little further. Just a little longer.

“Fifteen more strokes!” her step-father yelled from the darkness. An elation rose in her, making the water seem like a dream. Swimming turned to flying and the shore drew effortlessly nearer.

“Stand up! Stand up!” the Zodiac pilot shouted. Roe put her feet on solid ground for the first time in 1,000 minutes. Her jelly legs nearly crumpled under her as she staggered ashore alone on a remote beach in France.

It’s hard to grin when your nose, mouth and tongue are swollen almost shut, but grin she did. She did a little dance, too, and scooped up a handful of sand. “Don’t ever forget this,” she whispered to herself.

Roe beat the ocean’s Everest, but she’s got another mountain to go: her swim has only raised $60,000 of her $100,000 goal. To help her get to the top, go to channelinghope.com.

-30-

Other websites: http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/

http://www.novascotiagambia.ca/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB1V6IVgS6I youtube video highlights of swim

hermit finalist for d250 historical writing award

2011-03-28T09:02:00.000-03:00

the hermit of africville is a finalist for the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing at the atlantic book awards this may. it's a surprising (for me) and great honour, as a major driving force in writing the book was to rescue a critical part of our history that was on the verge of disappearing. eddie's long - and continuing - struggle is for recognition and this is a major boost.

gus wedderburn, the human rights activist brought in by halifax in the 1960s to offer his opinion of africville, was horrified to find his brothers and sisters living by the dump and in poor conditions. at the 1989 meeting to discuss africville captured in the nfb doc Remember Africville, he famously repeats the refrain, 'I did not see the flowers."

eddie carvery is the last flower blooming in africville. let's hope well-meaning people see him this time.

--

it's a good year for pottersfield: in addition to the hermit,

Christopher A. Walsh, Under the Electric Sky (Pottersfield Press).

is up for the Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Prize for Non-fiction.

our publisher, lesley choyce, is also up for the Dartmouth Book Award for Raising Orion (Thistledown Press).

you can read the cbc article here or the library blog here.

flipping the virtual death switch

2011-03-15T13:30:00.000-03:00

a dead man's switch is a device on things like trains and tractors that the operator must hold down to keep the engine running. your lawn mower probably has one. should the operator drop dead, the switch is flipped and the engine stops, preventing further death caused by out-of-control steel.

david eagleman heard about these and got to wondering, what happens to our virtual selves when we die? surely we should install some sort of dead man's switch on our emails, facebook, twitter, etc, so that after we've departed, our online avatars can tie off loose ends and conclude our business for us? and so david first wrote a very short story called Death Switch in his charming and thought-provoking book, Sum, and started a website called deathswitch. i first heard him on cbc's wiretap (you can hear another Sum story in this episode), though i had forgotten about that by the time i pitched a deathswitch article to metro canada, and so was pleased to chase my own tale back to eagleman.

he's not only a writer and online entrepreneur, he's also a neuroscientist in texas. that's actually his main job, but he has brilliant ideas at the same pace as i check my facebook, so he tends to spill over into other worlds. his ted talk on possibilianism offers a new position on the atheist-vs-religious debates of recent years.

needless to say, i was looking forward to our brief chat last week. here's the resulting, and all too short, article for metro.

Post-mortem protection for passwords and private info

By Jon Tattrie

For Metro Canada

Do you ever wonder what happens to your virtual self after you die? In an online world where passwords to vast amounts of critical workplace information are stored only in one person’s head, there’s a real risk your posthumous avatar will fall as silent as your fleshly existence after the last whistle blows.

Enter Deathswitch.com, the website that bills itself as “information insurance.” “Don’t die with secrets that need to be free,” it warns.

A free basic version or an inexpensive premium version lets you load up Deathswitch.com with your passwords, financial information and even personal secrets. The website will email you at regular intervals to check you’re still alive. When you stop responding after a pre-determined period of time, it flips the Deathswitch and sends your information to your selected recipients. Your colleagues can then carry on in your absence.

Keith Murphy, CEO of the Ottawa-based information security firm Defence Intelligence, says many companies have no posthumous plans for protecting employee secrets and so lose them to an online purgatory, but he cautions against storing too much information on one external website.

“The basics of security is you would never want a single point of failure,” he says.

Murphy suggests storing the actual information elsewhere – perhaps in a locked drawer – and using a Deathswitch-style email to tell colleagues how to locate it. You could also send password hints to someone who could decode them.

David Eagleman is the brains behind Deathswitch.com, but the neuroscientist at Texas’s Baylor College of Medicine is not your usual dot.com geek. He’s also the best-selling author of Sum (which contains the short story that birthed Deathswitch.com) and has given a TED talk on possibilianism, his answer to the theism versus atheism debate. Reached on his cellphone in Richmond, Virginia, he says he started Deathswitch.com in 2006.

It uses high-level security encryption that would thwart any hacker, and even he doesn’t know what’s stored on its servers, Eagleman says.

As most people use the free version, it only generates enough money to pay its bills. “It’s almost entirely a philosophical exercise” for him, he says. “I did it because it’s a tool that should exist in the world.”

He says the Deathswitch emails are good reminders to keep your work and personal affairs in order and take precautions to ensure that when you die, your virtual self can stick around long enough to pass on the critical information.

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