Dog Parks.

Where you live are there dog parks ?  What are they like ?  

Halifax is blessed with some marvellous off leash dogs parks.  Does the image below look like a big dog park ?

Coz it's not.   It represents about 1% of Point Pleasant Park.  Can you imagine ?   The full park is 190 acres, of which 90% is designated "off leash" !   Ms. Wikipedia tells me that the park is owned by the Government of Canada (something I did not know) and is leased to Halifax for a ceremonial one shilling per year.   Prior to Hurricane Juan, which devastated the park in 2003, the shaded paths meandered through a massive forest of tall trees.

Before and after images depicting the devastating effects
of Hurricane Juan.  (Image from Wikipedia).

Now the park is far more open and bright with the new young under-story hiding the bare areas.

Located at the Southern tip of Halifax and facing the open ocean, Point Pleasant Park was once seen as a strategic military location,  hosting several artillery batteries,

and still contains the Prince of Wales Tower which is the oldest Martello Tower in North America (1796).

The Prince of Wales Tower

And if you know the right places to explore you can find some hidden ruins.

Many roads and narrower hiking paths criss-cross the park.

You could walk for hours without walking on the same path twice.

Sookie greets a dog walker with his large group of charges.  

And you'll never be short of doggie company !

A walk around the block.

After our "Lunch Bunch" choir at St. Matthew's Church in downtown Halifax today, I decided to go for a walk. 

And this is what I saw.

An incomplete (?) installation in front of the Architecture Building of Dalhousie University. 

The new public library is an intriguing structure, made up of three sections, each canted in a different direction.

I was fascinated by those fellows who were pouring and smoothing cement in the enormous construction site next door.  

Up to their knees in wet cement.

Isn't that the coolest thing ?  That fella rides around on that device smoothing out the concrete.  What fun !

Wouldn't want to step out that back door in the dark.

Old or new: in which would you prefer to live ?

Though we treasure our older beautiful buildings, we don't always take care of them as we should.

I much prefer THIS,

to THIS.

I wonder why some houses were built with entrances below street level ?

Time for me to head home and take the dogs out for a run.

Thanks for coming along. I hope you enjoyed our walk together.  Let's do this again some time.

To think that I saw it on Tulip Street.

I finally got around to visiting Tulip Street in Dartmouth, today.

Last fall some forward-thinking residents thought it would be rather fun to plant the medians (verges) on Tulip Street with ... wait for it ... tulips.

The residents organized a non-profit association, recruited the participation of at least 70% of their neighbours, and successfully applied to the City to receive funds from the wonderfully-named, "Awesome Foundation".

What a wonderful idea !

Can't wait to see if the denizens of Dahlia and Rose Streets decide to follow suit.

Thistle Street might me a more prickly problem.

Founded Upon A Rock

The book, "Founded Upon A Rock" is sub-titled "Historic Buildings in Halifax and Vicinity, Standing in 1967".  Produced by the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia, my copy is from the seventh printing, produced in 1975.  Sadly, in the intervening eight years, four of these historic buildings had already been destroyed.

I love the marvellous, colourful architecture that can be found in this historic city.  In an effort to see these important buildings for myself, I created a map of Halifax with all the places cited in the book marked with the appropriate page number from the book.

Today, between the Lunch Bunch choir and an evening concert with a different choir, I had several hours to kill.  I am happy to report that the hours were killed productively and I located all six of the homes displayed on the section of map shown above.

Fernwood - 700 Francklyn Street - #94 on the map

While searching for some of the marvellous buildings from this book, I stopped to capture other striking dwellings that for some reason had been omitted.

This impressive home is located on the busy corner of Inglis and Tower Road.  How would you like to live in a round room with all those wonderful windows ?

  

I love the blue paint job, and the contrasting pointed detail on this home.

This building, marked as #72 on the map, is called The Bower.  A large hedge prevented me from getting a good photo of it from the front.

Built around 1790 it has been greatly added to over the years, as demonstrated by the lower photo from the 1860's.

Six down, only 67 more to go.

A building inside a building

I was fascinated by this building shell back in 2010, when I took this photograph.

I have since learned that it is part of an historical, architecturally significant, streetscape, over whose future there was a lot of debate in 2008.

I suspect the buildings were sacrificed to the cause of "economic development", as only small parts of their exterior walls still remain.

And inside those pieces of preserved walls, a nine-storey building is being constructed.

While I am intrigued watching the process of constructing a building within a building, I am saddened that it is seen as an acceptable solution to the preservation of these treasured old buildings.

"Wikipedia" filled in some of the history:

The Armour Group's Waterside Centre involves demolishing six heritage buildings to be replaced by a nine story retail and office building with partially constructed facades of the some of the former heritage buildings. Halifax City Council rejected the development in the fall of 2008 but the developer immediately demolished one of the buildings and appealed Council's decision which was overturned by Nova Scotia's Utility and Review Board on March 26, 2009

Unlike most older North American cities, Halifax has no heritage districts preserving blocks of heritage buildings but only has individual building designation which may easily be overturned by developers seeking demolition.

 So ... is this progress ?

Having a gay ol' time

The following quote is taken from a recent Chronicle Herald article titled, "Remembering when it wasn't OK to be Gay", which talked about Halifax's very first pride parade 25 years ago.

"Mike Sangster marched with a paper bag over his head.

Alan Stewart walked past homophobic slurs.

About 70 others stepped to the terrible taunts of different times.

The chants of change

And the beat of history.

'Hey hey, no no, the status quo has got to go', the Halifax protestors called out 25 years ago.

'Faggots,' bystanders jeered back.

'One, two, three, four.  Our rights are what we're fighting for,' the men and women chanted along local streets.

Click, click, click, click --the spectators aimed their invisible guns.

'Five, six, seven, eight. Legislate -- without the wait!', they continued on as strangers formed their fingers into weapons and hurled angry insults that amaze Stewart still.

'Obscenities, terribly disgusting obscenities', he recalls, sitting outside today with his longtime partner Sangster, a rainbow pride flag blowing in the breeze, memories flowing like it was yesterday.

And so began Halifax's first gay pride parade, more of a protest really back then, when being gay in Nova Scotia could get you fired or evicted or even killed."

 › š›  š›  š›  š›  š›  š 

Fast forward to 2012.  Friends Amy and Mickie invited me to join them as part of the Nova Scotia Community College entry in this year's pride parade.  

I even sprayed my hair pink for the occasion.  

After decorating our truck with assorted flags and banners, we had loads of time to kill before the parade.

I wandered around checking out costumes and floats and revelling the happy, accepting, environment.   For some of the marchers, this may be the one day a year when they can publicly show who they truly are without fear.

 

Unlike that first parade there were no paper-bagged heads here.  No hidden identities.  No fear of acceptance.

While that first parade had 70 entrants this one boasted over 1,400.  

I expected to see entries representing our provincial NDP and Liberal political parties, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a small contingent representing the Progressive Conservative party too !  Kudos to them.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia's float was amazing.  The models at the back of the float posed in beautiful period costumes,

while the blank canvases constantly changed as the human behind the canvass moved.

Even the police joined the parade.

I support my gay father.

Rather than bigotry and hatred, this year's parade participants were greeted by a crowd of over 100,000 flag-waving, smiling people.

And some of them had signs for US.

I had to leave my country to marry the girl of my dreams.
Thankfully, she's Canadian.
Married, July 26, 2011.

While we have come a long way -- but we're not there yet.