HRM Monument #27: Boer War Soldier

The Boer War in South Africa (from 1888 - 1902) marked the first time in Canada's history that it sent companies of volunteer troops to fight in a foreign war. From what I have read, it appears as though Canada sent two contingents to fight in South Africa - the first consisting of Nova Scotia's own H Company and numerous men from the 63rd Halifax Rifles and the Princess Louise Fusiliers. Later, the people of Halifax bid farewell with a huge reception at the Armouries for 1 32o more field artillery and cavalry men.

In honour of those brave volunteers who helped stabilize that region of the world, along with playing a significant role in announcing Canada's newly formed nationhood, the citizens of Halifax erected this monument next to Province House (Nova Scotia's parliament building) on October 19, 1901. The stone at the base of the monument was actually dedicated and laid by the Duke of Cornwallis and York during his Royal Visit to Halifax.

HRM Interesting Person #8: Art Moore

Art Moore is a high school English teacher in Moncton, New Brunswick. I met him in Halifax at the Atlantic Fringe Festival, where he was a performer. Art Moore is interesting because of one fantastic story he has.

The students in one of his classes decided to support a number of nearby University students from Haiti, who were waiting for word from relatives caught in the horrible earthquake there, by sending a large card on which they had all collaborated. When Art Moore went to the University to deliver the card, he was approached by a professor who was interested in leading a team to Haiti to help volunteer with the relief effort. The team needed someone with prior military experience to act as security, and that's where Mr. Moore comes in. As a former soldier with the Canadian Armed Forces, he accompanied the team and help starving, homeless Haitians over in Haiti.

I met Mr. Moore briefly, about a week apart. He was in a rush the first time I met him, because he had to head back to Moncton to teach school the next day. When he saw me again the next time though, he still remembered my name. Art Moore is an every day hero.

Atlantic Film Festival: September 16-25, 2010

The Atlantic Film Festival is an annual 10 day event held in Halifax that aims to showcase a collection of inspiring films from Canada and around the world. As well, the Festival attempts to provide much needed support and exposure to local, independent Maritime film makers. The Atlantic Film Festival is the largest film festival in Atlantic Canada, and 2010 marks its 30th season.

This year there were more than 200 films being screened, and at $12 a pop I obviously couldn't see many of them, so I decided to go for something uniquely Canadian and attended a collection of five short films, all with either an Inuit, Metis, or First Nations theme. There was even a short film illustrated and personally introduced by the world-famous (or at least I think he's world-famous) Nova Scotia artist, Alan Syliboy.

I can't comment on the festival much other than to say, that with my sweat pants and t-shirt on, I definitely stood out in the crowd of what seemed to be mostly art school film buffs and middle-aged hippie film buffs. I felt somewhat self conscious and out of place at first, but nonetheless was intrigued by the conversations going on around me.

By eavesdropping I managed to ascertain that the people in front of me were the wife and son of one of the directors, along with the director's manager (possibly? I'm not sure exactly what he was the manager of). Behind me was another director, and I was able to pick up all sorts of behind the scenes stories about shooting for the National Film Board of Canada from him and his other film making friends.

I thoroughly enjoyed the decidedly independent nature of the films, and my only regrets on the evening that I attended were that it was in fact only just one evening, and that the showing was so late getting started that I could barely stay awake (I've recently started a new job that requires me to wake up at 5:00 AM every morning, so I've been a little tired as of late). Hopefully by next year my finances will be in order to the point where I can buy a festival pass and attend more of the films. Until then, I'll shore up on my film watching skills by renting past Atlantic Film Festival movies from the award winning independent rental store, Video Difference, near my home. Don't worry though, I won't be wasting time, it's called "training."

Critical Mass: September 24, 2010

If you're going to be an Ea-pea, you've got to ride a bicycle; it's that simple. But even if you aren't an ea-pea, you should still ride a bicycle because it runs on fat and saves you money, as opposed to a car that runs on money and makes you fat.

The problem is that for many would-be-heroes, the streets can be a scary place. While I welcome the traffic whizzing by me dangerously close, because I get to thumb my nose at the drivers and look smug when they have to stop during traffic jams, and I pass on by them again, I realize that not all people are as keen as me on the idea of being a road warrior for awesomeness. Thankfully then, there is an event called Critical Mass in Halifax that runs on the last Friday of every month (and indeed in over 300 other cities around the world).

Critical Mass is essentially a semi-organized ride that celebrates being the most powerful force on the road, as it provides strength in numbers for two-wheeled obesity fighters. While the idea and concept of mass rides originated in the late seventies in Sweden (of course), it was not until 1992 in San Franscisco that the spectacle became a regular event.

While Critical Mass bicycle tours are often described as "protests" in the media, the participants themselves describe it as a "celebration of cycling," and this gets them around the sticky legal requirement of giving police advanced notice of an planned protest.

What generally happens at a Critical Mass style event is that any cyclist who wishes to join meets up at a pre-arranged meeting place and the course for the ride is determined by whoever is in front at any particular moment. When it comes to intersections, one or two riders will stop their bicycles and block or "cork" the oncoming traffic until all of the other cyclists have made it through. The rest of the cyclists ring their bells or cheer at the pitiful drivers who feel terrorized by the cyclists for a change (my words and feeling, not necessarily the official position of the organizers).

On September 24 I made my first ride in a Critical Mass event, and I must say that it was brilliant. While I didn't know anyone at first, I made a number of acquaintances along the ride and enjoyed for the first time being able to ride where I pleased without having to constantly look over my shoulder for oncoming murderers... I mean drivers.

I will make it a regular part of my routine to ride in every Critical Mass event that I can until I leave Halifax. To paraphrase Bill Nye: there's something wrong with a society that drives a car to the gym to ride a stationary bicycle. Furthermore, commuting to work in a car increases your nation's dependency on oil (mostly "foreign"), which in turn drives the demand for American "wars on terror", not to mention fuelling extremist fundamentalist terrorism. I don't have any facts for that, but I'm pretty sure it's true. In any event, it's best to be safe rather than sorry. Therefore I say to you, stop supporting terrorism; ride a bicycle.

(The unofficial organizer addresses the crowd of cyclists at Victoria Park underneath the Robbie Burns statue, before the big ride. This month's ride was in honour of a cyclist who was killed when he was hit by a transport truck attempting to pass on the highway.)

(The best scene in Halifax: dozens of cyclists blocking traffic.)

(Happy cyclist on Spring Garden Road. No, it's not me.)

(Where do you stop when you're a cyclist? If you have 60 friends, you stop wherever you want. Take that car drivers!)

Chuseok: September 22, 2010

It may not have anything to do with Canadian history, but September 22nd was the Korean holiday Chuseok (pronounced "chew-sock"). Chuseok is often described as Korean Thanksgiving since it happens more or less around the same time as our Thanksgiving. The main difference though, is that rather than celebrating the harvest (or simply a day off from school/work, which is how I think most Canadians view Thanksgiving), Chuseok in Korea is a time when families gather together to remember their deceased ancestors/relatives.

One of the many traditional activities that occurs at Chuseok is the making of songpyeon. Songpyeon is a form of pressed rice-cake (ddeok) that can be filled with an assortment of semi-sweet fillings. Traditionally in Korea, families would often get together and share their songpyeon creations with their neighbours. This practice can be traced back to around the 10th Century.

Earlier in the week my brother, EP Dan, and I had invited a Korean friend of mine - "English name" Joshua - and his wife over to our home. To return the favour, Joshua and Cristin (his wife) invited us over to their house for Chuseok (technically the day after Chuseok) to partake in a meal of delicious jabchae (among other things), and to make songpyeon.

(Left to right: Joshua, Cristin, EP Dan, EP Dave - me, sitting down for delicious Korean food.)

(EP Dan and I make songpyeon. We filled it with the delicious myung bean paste you can see in the bowl. Incidentally it's the same delicious paste found in jjinpang, which probably means nothing to many of you, but was a catalyst for many an adventure while I was in Korea.)

It was a wonderful night, and so was the afternoon spent at our house the weekend prior. While I'm having fun exploring Canada, I'm sorry to say that the most exciting part of living in Canada is hanging out with Koreans.

Nova Scotia National Historic Site #11: Fernwood

Fernwood Manor (above) is one of two houses, owned by brothers, that were the first houses along the Northwest Arm. Fernwood Manor and its sibling house are part of a Gothic revival neighbourhood near Point Pleasant Park in a southern suburb of peninsular Halifax. It's also a private, gated neighbourhood - which makes it really hard to photograph - nor is it well promoted either. I couldn't find any information about it on the Internweb, and even a local who questioned me on why I was taking pictures of private homes on private property didn't know that they were part of a neighbourhood that was a National Historic Site. Of course, after I mentioned I was a photographer for Ea-pea Dave's Terra Nova he was helpful and informed me about the brothers and bit about the Northwest Arm. But still....

(Note: if the picture seems a bit odd, it's because I was shooting directly into the sun, and tried to mend it afterwards on my computer with my limited retouching skills. Trust me, it's a lot better than it was.)

Hopscotch Urban Arts Festival: September 11, 2010

According to what I've read, Halifax once had a great hip-hop scene. Unfortunately, when many of its past up and coming artists "made it big", the rest of the hip-hop scene was left to pick up the pieces. This year "the scene" tried to do just that with the Hopscotch Urban Arts Festival.

(An unknown - to me - dancer gives a free "popping" lesson to some eager young students.)

All day long, for 9 hours from 1 to 10 PM on September 11th, there were free hip-hop workshops, free dance lessons, a 100 foot "art wall" graffiti competition, the first ever national break dancing competition in Atlantic Canada, and a free concert featuring Halifax hip-hop legends like the Juno Award winning Classified.

As expected, the Grand Parade where it was located featured what must have been the largest concentration of teenagers who look like they would steal your car in all of Halifax. (Seriously guys, your art is neat, but all joking aside Grandpa Ea-pea is here to say that you really need to pull up your pants, wear a belt, and put your caps on the right way round because you look ridiculous tripping over the crotch of your own trousers.)

Even more impressive was the announcement that the fantastic French urban art artists of Cellograff would be making their North American debut at this festival. Unlike most "graffiti" artists (I'm sure they don't like it being called graffiti, but there's only so many times I can type "urban art" in one post without hating myself), Cellograff do not paint on the side of some business owner's establishment or on one of CN's grain cars, but rather they use large sheets of cellophane plastic stretched out between two trees or street posts to create their unique masterpieces.

Quite frankly the whole thing was not really my bag, but it was impressive, and this rather well intentioned event would have been completely unknown to me had someone not thought to drop a flier in the basket of my EP Cruiser (my new bike), while I was busy volunteering for the Fringe Festival the night before. That's right, this great coming together of me and the Hopscotch festival was only possible because of this unknown canvasser. Score one for canvassing, score one for bike baskets, and more importantly score one for cycling.