Multicultural Festival 2011: June 30 - July 3, 2011

The largest multicultural festival of its kind in Atlantic Canada, the annual RBC Multicultural Festival aims to give Nova Scotians an opportunity to explore the cultures of the world in Halifax, through music, dance, exhibits, crafts and food.

At its new location at the Halifax Seaport for the second year, the organizers were expecting such a large turnout, that they opened the festival one evening earlier than usual this time.

As anyone who's known me longer than a week will attest, I love food. And more than food, I love exotic food from around the world. The more eyeballs, testicles, and spices, the better!

Now, there weren't any balls of any kind this year (except for falafel), but there was enough chickpea and chicken to feed an army. I have a theory on this. It seems to me that it takes a special type of Western mentality to waste valuable land raising beef, when you could raise about a hundred chickens for the same price, in the same space.

This seems to be why many of the exciting cultures - where there have been enough people in a close enough space for a long enough time to actually have a unique culture - eat chicken. I'm sure you'll see my theory in textbooks within the next few years.

As a special treat, this year the African Diaspora Association of the Maritimes was serving up Ethiopian food (or a version of it). I was pretty excited about this because I've been trying to get my hands on some injera (moist, spongy, yeast-risen flat bread) again for more than five years now. Also, since I know you're wondering, "diaspora" is the African equivalent of "ex-pat."

With my belly happy, I went off to enrich my mind at the various cultural exhibits. Above, you can see me proudly displaying my recently acquired Taiwanese heritage.

At the Chinese Association of Nova Scotia's booth, I started a small trend (among those around me) by having the woman in yellow write out my name in Chinese. I also drank some Chinese oolong tea prepared traditionally (it involves a lot of theatrics, but still tastes like tea in the end.)

If I wasn't drinking tea, I was making friends. Here you can see Alexandra, from Russia, who was actually visiting Canada for about ten days and came to help out at the Russian Association booth. Additionally, I found the only set of straw woven, Russian-style sandals in Halifax here.

While I didn't get to see much of the cultural performances (technical difficulties), I did manage to sneak myself into an African dance workshop. A few eager young volunteers decided to give it a go on stage as well (future EPs, for sure.)

Canada Day 2011: July 1, 2011

After a very rainy May and June, the weather couldn't have been more beautiful for July 1st. The sun was out, and of course so was EP Dave for the annual Canada Day Parade.

Halifax loves having parades. Unfortunately it seems as though every parade features the same floats. What I love about the Canada Day Parade, is that it doubles as the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo Parade as well, and that means new acts every time.

The Tattoo is a half-circus, half-military marching band/drill team exhibition that runs annually. Every year the performers walk the parade route before winding up inside the Metro Centre for the start of the first show.

Representing the Acadiens, Le Baie en Joie are present at nearly every big event in Halifax. Rightfully so though, since they're a world-class dance troupe in their own right, as well as being home grown Nova Scotians (perhaps begrudgingly for them?). And yes, you are right astute reader. I am in exactly the same spot on Spring Garden Road I always stand for parades.

From New Zealand, the incredible all-female Lochiel Drill Team. They are 30-time New Zealand Champions, and you can see from this picture that they even walk down the street in unison.

At about this time I switched over to the other side of the street so that the sun was behind me. There's actually a BellAliant store behind this mega-jeep, and I originally had my hopes up that the military had finally received all my angry e-mails and was coming to destroy Bell. Alas, that was not the case...

Some English traditions die hard...

Champion German stunt cyclist, Domink Lange, has been doing tricks on his bicycle for so long now he's forgotten how to ride it normally. He was joined in the parade/Tattoo by two other German stunt cyclists - Carla and Henriette Hochdorfer. Needless to say their combination of acrobatics AND bicycles was a winning one in my eyes.

Germany has by far the largest non-Canadian contingent every year it seems. If they aren't sending over cyclists or trampoline acts, they can always be counted on to have top-calibre step-drill teams or marching bands in attendance.

Showing us a new way to get around town, the Gym Wheel team from Germany brought their incredible collection of hoops and human wheels. I shudder to think about how they got those through airport security. I have trouble getting a roll of toothpaste on the plane.

When the "horse play" was all over, a more serious float came along. This newly wed couple rented a wagon to pull them through the streets. What a special day for them, but I'm not so sure about the bride's face. The poor girl has a face like a cow.

Of course, what would Canada Day be without fireworks? Halifax loves its fireworks and will think up any excuse to fire them off.

There were whizzy ones...

And fizzy ones...

And smoking ones...

And great big finale ones.

It's interesting too, because it seems easy to take fireworks for granted when your city shoots them off about five times a year. I was talking with one of the young performers from the Tattoo a few days later, and she told me that she was amazed at how big and long the fireworks show was. She came from a small town in Denmark that only let off a few firecrackers once a year on New Years Day.

If I learned anything, I learned today that it's important to get out and talk to people because it helps put everything in a better perspective when you can see things from a different point of view. Stay tuned for more EP Dave-style cultural enlightenment.

EP Road Trip #3: Sugar Moon Farm

Recently I started volunteering at the YMCA Centre for Immigrant Programs. When I signed up I was told about a trip the Centre was taking to the Sugar Moon Farm in Englishtown. It's been a while since I've been on a Road Trip, so I was quite excited, and even more so when I heard it was a maple farm.

(The Sugar Moon Farm is located at one of the highest elevations in Nova Scotia, so the amount of snow it receives is exponentially greater than what I'm used to seeing in Halifax.)

While there are roughly 150 varieties of maple trees in the world, the Sugar Maple is the preferred species for making syrup because of its high sugar content. The Sugar Maple is native to the north-eastern United States and eastern Canada, which means this is the only region in the world that has the climate necessary for producing maple syrup.

Maple Sugaring is not a particularly new art form. In fact, First Nations people were slashing trees and collecting sap in birch bark buckets thousands of years before European settlers arrived. The European settlers though, were responsible for advancing the form to the more efficient drilling/tapping process used today.

(Our guide explains the early sap collecting process.)

Efficiency is a relative term I suppose, since sugar maple sap is 97% water. This means that you can easily drink it, but it also means that 40 Litres of sap must be evaporated to make 1 Litre of pure maple syrup. Furthermore, it means that one tree can only sustainably produce 1 Litre of syrup per year (sap only runs for a few weeks during the early spring).

(The brand new evaporator the farm installed this year.)

After the tour we received a free all-you-can-eat pancake lunch with pork sausages and veggie beans. I kindly helped the kitchen staff clean up by finishing off the leftovers to save on waste.

My favourite part of the tour was rolling maple sugar in the snow to make candy. The boiling hot, liquid maple sugar is ladled onto snow, and a popsicle stick is used to roll the quickly solidifying sugar into a lollipop-like treat.

I wanted to conclude this post by giving a big thank-you to the YMCA for allowing me to come along on the trip. It was a unique experience, and I look forward to many more.

HRM Monument #29: Swami Vivekanada

I'm not sure if it counts as an official HRM Monument, but in the interest of multiculturalism I thought I should include this statue of Swami Vivekananda outside a Hindu Temple near my home.

Swami Vivekananda was a 19th century monk and philosopher who preached in North America from 1893 to 1900, and is widely regarded as the father of the Hindu revival in modern India, as well as being the driving force behind Vedanta and Yoga's spread to Europe and North America.