Faith is tangible here on the Woods Harbour wharf. You can see it in the rocks piled neatly in a row like sentries. The carefully placed guardians of the fleet stand locked against the sometimes unstoppable waves that lash this coast.A breakwater is - after all - an act of faith. You can feel it here too. In the cold, coarse fibres of the colourful lines that lash open backed boats to wooden pilings. Thin cords of hope that strain...
The tinkling of wine bottles and the lacka-lack of shopping cart wheels echo through the alley. It's 5am on Christmas Eve and John Gray is on his final run through North-End Halifax. The 46 year-old parks his cart and heads for the dumpsters at the back of the alley. His boots lose grip on the ice and he reaches up to grab the cold steel edge of the nearest one. He laughs it off and ducks his head inside. No...
Staff Sgt. Scott Warnica laughs with his whole body. The wiry Mountie has the storyteller's gift. Each tale erupts from somewhere deep in his DNA. He can't hold them in. His hands flail, he leans forward and then back, his body punctuating every point, his eyes daring you to look away. Trouble is you want to look away from some of his stories. Things he was forced to see. He only shares those stories with the people who know....
Ashton Spinney stands on a boat launch beside an old wooden dory. It could be the time of year, but you might mistake him for a clean shaven Santa. His smile is quick and jolly, his hair the colour of snow. Pale blue eyes peer through a weathered squint forged over decades of tough sledding far beneath a sparkling Christmas sky.Spinney took to the sea in 1957, a few years after he stopped listening for the clatter of hoofs on...
Hercules 334 chases a brilliant moon to the western horizon as the orange glow from the east warms its tail. There are 10 of us on board, headed out to keep an eye on the flotilla of trap-laden lobster boats headed to sea. Flying in a Herc is like going to a rock concert. It's so loud you can barely think and you get tossed around a lot.The four big props pulling the Herc through the sky fill the plane...
