Caretakers of history
Charles Conroy and Mary Weathers were married in 1899 and settled into their St. John's home around 1905, where they went on to raise eight children.
"Their house was called 'Raheen,' an Irish word meaning 'a people’s place'," The Telegram's Juanita Mercer writes.
It's now called Georgestown Inn and it has had an interesting 115 years, hosting everyone from April Wine to nuns.
Home to John and Cindy Purtill, a bed and breakfast, a host of high teas and the tiniest Girl Guides, the building is also now a designated heritage property.
“The first family had eight children, so the thought that these kids were running up and down these stairs, and that the (Presentation) Sisters were big proponents in providing sheltering for kids and youth that were in need, and giving this house its love that it’s always shared is a big bonus to us," Cindy Purtill says when expressing the couples' pleasure with the heritage protection.
Learn more about the past, present and future of 50 Bonavista Ave.
Love for animals and P.E.I.
If you're looking for a warm, winter parka that doesn't sport fur, the Deng family of Charlottetown has you covered.
After a quarter-century running a coat company in China, the Dengs moved to P.E.I. where they launched a competitor to Canada Goose dubbed Cyanos Jay, a vegan-friendly brand of winter gear named after Maritime cities.
But the real warmth in Dave Stewart's article about the family comes in their descriptions of their adoration of their new home.
Iverson Deng, who lived in Vancouver before his parents came to the East Coast, describes his first visit to the province with affection:
“I took my parents all over the Island. We stopped in places like Souris and Georgetown. The feel is so different here. When I tried your lobster and oysters, I knew I was going to stay here."
"Immigration may have brought us here but we developed a love for this place," he added. "Even when the (provincial nominee) program is finished the (P.E.I.-based) brand will still exist. We will still sell the jackets. That is what our plan is for the future."
Read more about the company and the family.
Responsibility of the past
Of the many uncomfortable discussions that need to be had about race in this country, none is more uncomfortable for white folks than the question of reparations for historical, racial injustices against Black people.
A common refrain from those who dismiss reparations as impractical and indefinable is that “we” can't go back and right the wrongs of our ancestors — what American writer Ta-nehisi Coates refers to as the “cost-free escape from history.”
But reparations are as much — perhaps more — about addressing the inequities that exist today as a direct result of those historical injustices, as they are about making restitution for the sins of our fathers.
Black Canadians and Black Nova Scotians suffer from disproportionately high rates of poverty and all that goes with that because of the conditions imposed on them and their forebears by the dominant — white — culture.
That's the beginning of columnist Jim Vibert's case for reparations for those affected by the destruction of Africville, a Black community razed by the City of Halifax in the 60s in the name of progress.
What do you think of Vibert's argument?
Behind the story
"On the 21st anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada's Marshall decision, the Sipeken’katik First Nation made it clear to the federal government that it is tired of waiting," SaltWire's Tina Comeau wrote Sept. 17, 2020, as Mik'maw fishing boats headed out on St. Mary's Bay.
Two days earlier, she had covered a protest by non-Indigenous fishermen on the same Digby County wharf.
Celebrations, protests, talk and violence, along with national and international attention on Nova Scotia's coastal communities followed.
SaltWire journalists have been reporting on the issues for years.