By Richard Bell  

Residents along the Eastern Shore are up in arms over the possibility that an HRM Municipal Compliance inspector will order the removal of a community-beloved horse from her home at 1783 East Petpeswick Road because of alleged violations of HRM zoning regulations.  

By Richard Bell 

The fate of Atlantic Gold’s ambitious plan for four open-pit gold mines along the Eastern Shore, which the company once called “a string of pearls,” is in the hands of provincial and federal regulators. Meanwhile the company is facing 32 charges under the province’s Environmental Act, although the courts have thus far allowed the company one postponement after another.  

By Richard Bell

The Cooperator has learned that Lighthouse Links withdrew from the letter of Offer to purchase Owls Head Provincial Park and convert it into a luxury housing development with a few golf courses after learning that the province had determined that the company’s plans for public consultation were inadequate, and that the province would require a more thoroughgoing public consultation process.

By Richard Bell

Lighthouse Links announced on November 23, 2021 that it is withdrawing from the December 16, 2019 letter of Offer that it had signed with the province to purchase Owls Head Provincial Park and convert it into a luxury housing development with a few golf courses.

By Richard Bell

The Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP) took a major step forward with the October 29 opening of its Visitor and Operations Centre in a 100-year-old house in Sherbrooke, not far from the site of the proposed sanctuary itself in Port Hilford. The pathbreaking nature of the project and its potential economic impact on the area was reflected in the turnout of federal, provincial, and local elected officials, including Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor Arthur Joseph LeBlanc and his wife Patricia, newly appointed federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser, several Guysborough Councillors, and HRM District 2 City Councillor David Hendsbee.

By Jennifer Deacon 

After a career in nursing that took her from Halifax to Yellowknife, Rosalie Parsons retired to Spry Harbour and a whole new career as a master quilter and teacher.  

The following memory is taken from one of the stories that will appear in a new book written by Brian Staple called, This Place Knows Me.  The book, scheduled for release this December is a collection of stories about life growing up in Musquodoboit Harbour. 

By Richard Bell 

Betting on the Eastern Shore has paid off handsomely for Bruce and Stephanie Murphy of Musquodoboit Harbour. In just over three years, they’ve gone from a start-up to The Shore Clothing Company, a small business that has thrived while the pandemic was claiming so many other small businesses across the country. We sat down for an interview in their old barn that they converted into a production studio.  

By Cassandra Grosse 

The long-running effort to secure land titles for hundreds of landowners in North Preston, East Preston, Cherry Brook/Lake Loon, Lincolnville and Sunnyville, the Land Titles Initiative (LTI), has a new Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Nova Scotia Office of Equity and Anti-Racism Initiatives, Alisha Brown-Fagan (photo). She succeeds Angela Simmonds, who took over LTI only last spring. Simmonds has moved on to the Nova Scotia Assembly, after winning the Liberal seat for the new Preston riding in the August 17, 2021, election. 

By Richard Bell 

The lack of piped water in the core of Musquodoboit Harbour has been the chief obstacle to fulfilling the village’s potential as a Rural District Growth Center under HRM’s Regional Plan. (The Community Development Plan includes water as a priority.) 

By Richard Bell

For more than 200 years, residents of many African-Nova Scotian communities have been unable to secure clear legal title to the land they their families have lived on for generations.

Editorial--

Wednesday night September 15, 2021, Matt Galloway, host of CBC’s The Current,* set up at the Old School Community Gathering Place in Musquodoboit Harbour to produce an extraordinary and sometimes heartbreaking show about the problems facing rural healthcare, in Nova Scotia and across Canada. For more than two hours, we heard testimony about both problems and solutions from patients, survivors, doctors, nurses, social workers, and community volunteers.

By Jennifer Deacon 

Tony Asprey is a Mi'kmaw carver who uses wood, bone, leather, and moose antlers. He creates walking sticks, folk art birdhouses, fishing boat, and carved moose antlers. About 15 years ago he died, was resuscitated, and suddenly discovered he had the newfound skill of chainsaw carving.

The Eastern Shore Cooperator continues to look for a part-time reporter through an extension of the Canada Summer Jobs program. The position will start in late October and run for 12 weeks at 15 hours per week, at the current Nova Scotia minimum wage of $12.95/hour. Applicants must be between the ages of 15 and 30. You do not have to be a current student, or intending to go back to school, to apply for this position.  

The three candidates below paid for web advertising. Click on the name of the candidate to see their respective campaign ads.

MP Sean Fraser--Central Nova

MP Darrel Samson--Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook

Angela Conrad--Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook

In the August 2021 edition of the Cooperator, we identified Kent Smith as the first president of the Musquodoboit Harbour & Area Chamber of Commerce and Civic Affairs (MHACCCA). Margo Hudson was the first president of the MHACCCA. We regret the error.  

The Clipper Gallery is pleased to award this year’s Clipper Gallery NSCAD Bursary to Jack Sanders. The bursary is awarded to a graduating student of ESDH who plans to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design as a first-year student. The gallery, and the community, wish Jack every success!