SaltWire Selects July 2: East Coast stories you don't want to miss

These stories about Atlantic Canadians and their communities are worth your time

Samy and Ammar Hudhud pose for a photo at their home in Nova Scotia, where they moved in fall 2019. Leading up to Canada Day, the son and father duo crafted a couple hundred masks featuring Canada Day flags for people all over Canada to keep them safe and protected amid the COVID-19 pandemic. - Contributed

A thousand masks

When Ammar Hudhud and Kinaz Albaghada moved to Nova Scotia last fall as refugees, along with their two children, it was the end of a long journey.

The Syrian family had been living in Jordan and then Egypt after fleeing their conflict-zone home.

But smalltown Canada has quickly become home.

“It’s amazing. We love our home. We found nice people, a nice home and we are really happy to (be) here,” said Hudhud.

The lifelong tailor has started a sewing and clothing business in Antigonish, N.S., to make women's clothing.

But first? Masks, including a Canadian flag-inspired face covering.

“We feel very proud and very happy to (keep) people protected,” Ammar Hudhud told The Chronicle Herald's Noushin Ziafati.

Ammar Hudhud, who has 30 years of experience working as a tailor in Syria, returned to his passion and launched a sewing and clothing business in Antigonish two months ago. He and his son have crafted about 1,000 masks for Canadians in the past two months. - Contributed

Bubbling over

With the Atlantic bubble opening on July 3, Northumberland Ferries Ltd. will be returning to a seven-day schedule open to non-essential travel between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. - File photo

Tomorrow (July 3) Atlantic Canadians will be able to travel across their provincial borders. What the rules are, who is concerned and what happens next are topics our journalists across the region have been keeping up with.

Here's the most recent coverage to bring you up to speed:

Wondering what may happen next in the region, whether it's a resurgence of cases from the first wave of COVID-19 or an expected second wave?

SaltWire's Andrea Gunn spoke to health experts about what to expect.

“We just have to prepare as if it is going to happen, the worst-case scenario, if it doesn't happen, is we've over-prepared,” Susan Kirkland, professor and head of the department of community health and epidemiology at Dalhousie and a member of the national COVID-19 immunity task force, told Gunn.

Remembering the lost

July 1 is a day of remembrance in Newfoundland and Labrador, when the enormous losses the then-Dominion of Newfoundland suffered at the Battle of Beaumont Hamel 104 years ago.

Each year, members of the Elliston Great War Living History Committee participate in the Memorial Day service at Clarenville, N.L., standing vigil in period uniforms.

Unable to mark the sad occasion in the same way due to COVID-19, the committee came up with a video solution.

SaltWire's Barb Dean-Simmons reports.

The usual crowds did not gather at the war memorial in Clarenville today, July 1. But the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion placed a wreath in memory of the veterans of the first World War, and members of Great War Living History Committee stood vigil wearing 1916 era Regimental uniforms, and gas masks in deference to COVID-19. - Contributed

Quack action

Duck families seem to run into trouble each spring.

Six St. John's ducklings had a bit of misadventure on Canada Day when they fell into a storm drain near a retirement home.

Luckily for the baby birds, staff at the home had been keeping an eye on the ducks, noticed their absence and raised the alarm.

The Telegram's Keith Gosse has the story on how firefighters came to perform a fowl rescue.

Six ducklings were rescued from a storm drain in St. John's Wednesday night. Keith Gosse/The Telegram - Keith Gosse

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