2021-03: New Port Of Call
I know a guy who studies fossil trackways. I came across these petrified prints in a park. While it is theoretically possible that they belong to an extinct carrier pigeon, it's far more likely that they are an example of a fossil from an extant species. I think it's an interesting photograph, but the real reason I'm starting with it is because like that bird, I too have been making tracks...
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/800 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
This sunset is not over Antigonish Harbour. It is in the port town of Halifax, Nova Scotia's capital city. I have relocated there for a snazzy new job which I began on March 08, 2021.
Olympus E-PL9: f5, 1/400 sec, ISO 200, -0.7EV
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
As an unexpected side-effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, many parts of Canada are currently experiencing a housing crunch. Halifax certainly falls into that category! I was not able to get started in an apartment until April. Consequently, I spent my first half-month or so at a hotel (Hotels have too much vacancy, again because of the pandemic). I had a pretty nifty view from the top floor!
Olympus E-PL9: f5.6, 1 sec, ISO 1000
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
The last time I lived in the Halifax Regional Municipality, the tallest building in town was Fenwick Tower, a run-down student tenement. Fast forward a decade and a half, and the building is gentrifying into a more swanky spot, The Vüze. Seen from the hotel, it looks quite slick in its new black coat...
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
...Down on the street, however, it's a bit more obvious that the construction is still ongoing. From this vantage point, Fenwick Tower is mutating into something as-yet undiscernable. That seems to be true of the city as a whole. You may note that there's a grocery store also undergoing a facelift. Elsewhere in town, towers are popping up to fill some of that pent-up housing demand. There's a definite sense that Halifax is trying to develop its potential, even if it's not quite there yet.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/500 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
Here's one last shot from the hotel, before I move onto the second segment of my reflections on March 2021. We see here the ski-jump-shaped roof of a newer building fighting for sky-space with the spires of Citadel Hill and farther developments toward Spring Garden Road. Just about all the cities and towns I've visited share this contrast of old and new. Perhaps that says something not about cities, but about humans.
Olympus E-PL9: f5.9, 1/500 sec, ISO 250
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
On an unseasonably balmy day, I went for a walk in Point Pleasant Park with some friends. I believe it was my first time at the place in decades. It is located close to one of Halifax's ports.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
This squirrel was fairly brazen when it came to humans; not so much with the many dogs on trot. We think of urban settlements as places purely for people and their pets, but animals thrive on the concentration of resources that a city accumulates.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
George Lucas has been adamant that the AT-AT vehicle in Star Wars is not based on the container cranes visible from the office of the film series' special effects company. He claims that the walking tanks were inspired by an extinct giant rhinoceros. Seeing this crane peeking over the trees, however, I was struck by the similarity.
Olympus E-PL9: f8, 1/800 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
Halifax Harbour is known for being rather deep... This little pocket of it, however, is not. It looks rather comical in juxtaposition to the big ship beyond!
Olympus E-PL9: f7.1, 1/800 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
Here's one of those big cranes in action. I was a bit mesmerized watching it load the cargo ship. A few weeks after this was taken, a similar (but much wider and longer) vessel made waves in the news. The Ever Given ran aground and blocked passage through the Suez Canal for just under a week.
Olympus E-PL9: f8, 1/800 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
Halifax's central hospital, the venerable Victoria General, is nearing the end of its useable life. Its replacement is not yet built, but already parts of the VG are shuttered due to age. Among them is its helipad. Consequently, emergency airlifts are now routed to the port, and patients taken by ambulance to the hospital.
Olympus E-PL9: f7.1, 1/100 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
I have a fairly high baseline happiness. Wherever I find myself, I enjoy myself. I have been very content in Antigonish, so much so that I hope to return someday. I really liked my sojourn in Montreal in 2019, and my time in Ottawa years before that. I'm hoping that I enjoy Halifax!
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/800 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
I started this post with a dissertation on how Halifax is in the midst of a self-reinvention. Nowhere is that more evident than in the North End. Last time I lived in the HRM, the area was down on its luck. Today, though, it is facing serious revival. One of my new coworkers even said, "all the cool people live in the North End"... Just after I told him I was in the South End!
For the Northern residents, it's a double-edged sword; many people are at risk of their home neighbourhood pricing them out. This statue outside the local library branch evokes a literal hand-up. At this point, it's difficult to say if that will be the lived experience for the people caught up in Halifax's growth spurt.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1640 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
Now, of course, I have become a tiny part in the process of urban billowing. Working at an architecture firm, I will have a hand in the physical changes in the city. Disregarding my profession for a moment, though, just my being in town puts yet another point of pressure on the city's sails. A s the city strives to advance, so, too, do I. There's a quote that's always stayed with me from the television show Babylon 5: "we're not just holding jobs and having dinner. We are in the process of building the future".
