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corvidist · 8 months

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Director faces off against wretched beasts then leaves - Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

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muttball · 1 year

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Bigleaf Lupine

#big leaf lupine #lupines #blue-pod lupine #cape breton island #wild flowers #visit Nova Scotia

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rabbitcruiser · 11 months

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World Fiddle Day

Schedule a lesson or find a performance to enjoy one of the classic instruments of the working class, the fiddle. Or sit down to watch Fiddler on the Roof!

World Fiddle Day is an annual music celebration day celebrated on the Third Saturday of May. This year it will be observed on May 19. Even though World Fiddle Day was created in 2012, it gained popularity all over the world within a few years. It was created to celebrate and to teach the playing of bowed string instruments throughout the world by conducting participatory and inclusive events. The fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, used by the players in all genres including classical music.

World Fiddle Day happens once a year and is meant to celebrate everything that everyone loves about the chirpy, fun and feisty art of fiddle music. You’ll see it being celebrated on the third Saturday of each May. The fiddle is always known to be something positive, with all the songs and notes it produces high energy, entertaining, and bringing something positive. Making the room dance, wherever the sound of a fiddle is played.

Around the world, this day is celebrated with dancing, music, and of course plenty of fiddle playing!

History of World Fiddle Day

Before we speak about the day, it may be best to get a better idea of the Fiddle that is being celebrated! The fiddle is a four-stringed musical instrument of the string family, also often referred to as a small type of violin. Like the violin, it is also played with a bow. The terms fiddling or fiddle playing actually refer to a style of music, most commonly folk music. The origins of the name ‘fiddle’ are not known but is believed to be derived from an early violin or the Old English word ‘fithele’. The fiddle is common to English folk music, Irish folk music, Scandinavian music, Austrian, French, Hungarian, Polish, American, Latin American, African, and even Australian music. There is no difference between the fiddle and small violin aside from the name and type of music the instrument is used for.

A fiddle has many parts including the neck, fingerboard, tuning pegs, scroll, pegbox, bridge, soundhole, strings, fine tuners, tailpiece, bass bar, soundboard, chinrest, button, backplate, and bow. The earliest fiddles (or violins) were derived from the bow instruments from the Middle Ages.

When it comes to building a high-quality fiddle, it can take as many as 200 hours for craftsmen to handcraft a professional fiddle, showing that for a relatively simple looking and fun instrument, a lot of craft and workmanship has to go into building one.

Traditional fiddle strings were made of pig, goat, horse, or sheep intestine. Today they are made from steel or aluminium over a nylon core. Now, the last fiddle fact that you may want to take down for your next game of trivia, is that the fastest fiddler/violinist on record is Ben lee who played ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ in just over a minute in 2010. He played an average of 13 notes each second for a total of 810 notes in all. Now that is pretty impressive, so now the fiddle has been explained, what about the day?

The day was founded in 2012 by one Caoimhin Mac Aoidh, a professional fiddler from Donegal in Ireland. The day was birthed from a deep respect for one of the most expert and revered violin makers in history.

This month was chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the death of the Italian violin craftsman Antonio Stradivari’s way back in 1737.

Stradivari is today considered the most significant creator of violins in history, with his surviving instruments today seen as the most prized and finest ever created. Although he also made the larger string instruments cellos and violas, it’s the violins that he lovingly crafted that he is most well-known and remembered for.

Though only a couple of hundred of his works still exists, they have been known to capture some huge prices at auction and are especially sought-after amongst professional violin players.

How to celebrate World Fiddle Day

If you ever learned how to play the violin in school, or you frequently play it either for pleasure or for work, today is a great day to get out your fiddle and play a couple of tunes! Perhaps play a little for friends or family, or show your children how to play some simple themes. If you do not own one, or do not know how to play it, then this could be a great time to learn. It is always fun and engaging to learn a new musical instrument, so why not start to learn the art of the fiddle, and maybe at next year’s celebrations you can play to the world what you have managed to learn!

If you aren’t lucky enough to have learned how to play this string instrument, you can celebrate its day by listening to some of the fantastic performances by string artists easily found on Youtube or Spotify. Add a spring to your daily commute with some Mozart, Barber or Brahms!

And if you’ve always fancied trying your hand at the violin, perhaps today you could take a trial lesson learning how to play? Who knows – by the time the next World Fiddle Day comes along, you could be able to play along with everyone else who is fiddling away!

Whatever you get up to, have a great World Fiddle Day!

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stressedoutart · 1 year

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Summer 2022, This was a quick late evening sketch from my car of the boardwalk in Inverness, Nova Scotia at sunset. I remember painting this in early summer so the nights were still quite cold. I still have paint on my steering wheel in my car from this piece. I can't wait to see where in the world this piece ends up. It is available for sale on my Etsy store: stressedoutshop.etsy.com

#rainbow #rainbow sunset #boardwalk #boardwalk art #landscape painting #cape breton #cape breton island #etsy store #inverness #landscape art #art #artists on tumblr #sunset painting #east coast sunset #landscape photography #original art

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professorpski · 2 years

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Piecework, Fall 2022

Piecework magazine offers both historical articles on needlework and instructions with patterns for some of items featured. I must say I always feel the ones with patterns are the best although I have not yet made any of them.

For the instructions, we have the tatted doilies are drawn from an 1889 called Weldon’s Practical Tatting and Katrina King suggests more modern uses like earrings for the smallest motifs and wedding veil for larger ones. The long cream kilt stockings, from ones worn by men who wore breeches instead of long pants, are adaptations from 18th Century Cape Breton Island examples. Barbara Kelly-Landry offers full instructions and she and Annamarie Hatcher recount the history of such stockings and how men’s calves used to be an object of interest for their shape. Yes, women ogled men’s calves. Maybe that it why it is my favorite pattern in this issue. ;-) The other pattern is for the colorwork sleeves you see here which were a separate part of traditional Macedonian clothing according to Ali Giles-Damjanovska in one of two articles on that tradition. Plus an early American sampler pattern is included.

Then, there are historical articles with information and inspiration but without patterns. So there is one on bobbin lace from Puerto Rico by Diana P. Martinez Rodriguez from which this christening gown image is taken. I thought it was crochet at first glance which may explain the popularity of crochet trim in the late 19th and early 20th century: its ability to mimic lace. There are more articles including one on patchwork quilts from India, on early European couching stitch embroidery, and a dress created by someone in a mental asylum, and no, I am not making that last one up.

You can find it at your local bookstore or newsstand or online here: https://pieceworkmagazine.com/subscription/

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traveltobeautifulplaces · 2 years

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Cape Breton Island - Nova Scotia - Canada 🇨🇦

#cape breton #canada #ingonish #Ingonish beach #cape breton island #nova scotia #beautiful places #travel #discover canada #vacation #vacation time #beach #ocean water #ocean #nature #nature photos #photo of the day #photo of the week

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ultradannyboyblog · 1 year

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Ellie, Some Things You Might Want To Know

Bill (Bopper) Fogarty and Ellie Fogarty Dear Ellie – There are some things about your dad and his dad that you should know – and although we have never met, I already know from your photo that you inherited your good looks from your mom Jen and Grandma Marj! Background I first met your family in Sydney, Nova Scotia, in July 1989 when I moved to the Maritimes from Vancouver, British…

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#ACDelco Canada #Allan Fogarty #Allan Ryan #auto parts #best friends forever #Bill (Bopper) Fogarty #Blog #Cancer #Cape Breton Island #Ellie Fogarty #General Motors of Canada #Jen Fogarty #Maritimes #Marj Fogarty #sydney nova scotia #White Rock BC

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travelchannelthe · 2 years

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Driving Through Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada

#youtube #cape breton #cape breton island #nova scotia #island #canada #travel #tourism #tourist #drive #driving #dash cam #dashcam #cabot trail

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vox-anglosphere · 2 months

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Our thoughts are with the Maritimes after this week's epic snowfall.

#Main Street #Sydney #Cape Breton #Nova Scotia #snowstorm #Prince Edward Island #New Brunswick #blizzard #5' of snow #Maritimes #downtown #abandoned cars #Canadian winter

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alexplantewpg · 1 year

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Canadian East Coast tourism posters!

#eastern canada #maritimes #new brunswick #hopewell rocks #cape breton #nova scotia #cabot trail #newfoundland #pei #prince edward island #cavendish beach #vintage tourism poster #canada #god i forgot to post SO MUCH ART here prepare yourself for a BARRAGE

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muttball · 1 year

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Stop for fresh lobster at the Rusty Anchor in Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island.

#restaurants #lobster dinner #cape breton island #seafood #travel photography #visit Nova Scotia

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rabbitcruiser · 9 months

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Bagpipe Appreciation Day

Today we celebrate the bagpipes! The instruments have long been associated with the Scottish Highlands, although they have come from many different places, and there are many variations of them. They have also been used in many different contexts.

The main components of the bagpipe are the bag, chanter, and drones. The bag is usually made of animal skin or rubberized cloth. It is inflated either by having air breathed into it through a blowpipe or by using a bellows. Air can then be fed throughout the instrument to make the sound, by placing arm pressure on the bag. The bag allows sound to be continuous while giving players the chance to take breaths, as well as for several tones to be played at the same time.

The chanter, or melody pipe, has finger holes that let a player make notes to form melodies. The other pipes, called drones, may have single or double reeds. They play single, constant notes that accompany the melody. They are tuned with the chanter by lengthening or shortening their extendable joints. The pipes are in wooden sockets, or stocks, which are tied into the bag.

Initially, folk instruments, bagpipes have remained as such, but also have been used in battle, at parades, funerals, weddings, and royal occasions. They were probably first used by pastoral sheep and goat herders, who played them to pass time while watching their flocks. They made them with easy-to-come-by materials such as skin, bones, and reeds. These instruments would quickly decay, so there is no physical evidence of them.

Bagpipes may have been used for centuries before any record of them was made. Most believe they were invented in the Middle East, and that the sheep and goat herders that used them were in Mesopotamia. There is some indication that they were used in ancient Egypt. A Hittite wall carving from around 1000 BCE shows a form of a bagpipe, and they are mentioned in the Bible in the book of Daniel. A bagpiper is also possibly depicted on an Alexandrian terracotta figure from around 100 BCE.

From the Middle East, bagpipes likely traveled to Greece, where they were known as "askaulos," meaning "wineskin pipe." They are mentioned in one of Aristophanes's plays from about the fourth century BCE and appear in other Latin and Greek references from around 100 CE. After the Romans invaded Greece, the bagpipe was adopted throughout the Empire just as other Greek culture was. They were mainly used by plebeians, but even Nero was known to play one. They were also used by the Roman infantry, while the Roman cavalry used the trumpet.

The British Isles became the most popular home for bagpipes. Invading Romans may have brought them there, or they may have later arrived by trade. They were mentioned in English author Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in the 1380s. Some think they were imported to the British Isle of Scotland from the Romans, while others believe they came from England, Ireland, or developed in Scotland on their own.

Original Scotland pipes probably had one drone, with a second drone likely added in the mid to late sixteenth century, and a third drone likely added in the early eighteenth century. Scottish Highlands bagpipes had two tenor drones and one bass drone. It was there that bagpipes became more popular than anywhere else in Scotland or the world. In the Highlands, players were influenced by Celtic legends as well as by the wild nature of their surroundings. The players held an honored position in their clans. There are references to Scottish Highland bagpipe players by the fifteenth century, who played at weddings and festivals and even replaced organists at church. During the mid-sixteenth century, at a time when bagpipe music was descendent through most of Europe, it was ascendant in the Highlands. The MacCrimmon family did much to nurture its growth. A classical musical form that used the bagpipes sprang up there; it was called piobaireachd and predated the piano and its classical music by about a century.

Originally pastoral and festive, the military began using the bagpipe in the eighteenth century and accompanied it with drums. Battlefields were loud, so instruments were used to communicate. Bagpipers from clans—who were often at war with each other—would inspire soldiers before battle, and played during battles to signal movements, attacks, and retreats. When the Scottish uprising of 1745 failed, military training was banned. Thus, the bagpipe could no longer be used in this context anymore, although it was not banned for other uses.

In the Scottish Lowlands, pipers held important positions in communities. There were town pipers, and those who played dance music and songs at weddings, feasts, and fairs. The soft sounding Scottish Lowland bagpipe was played from about 1750 to 1850; it had a bellows, and three drones in one stock.

When England and Scotland united in the early eighteenth century, bagpipes were brought all over the world to British colonies, to places such as Africa and Ceylon. In many places, there already were indigenous bagpipe type instruments, which had been used for folk music and military purposes. Some examples are the tulum of Turkey, pilai of Finland, zampogna of Italy, mashak of India, mizwad of Tunisia, tsampouna of Greece, volynka of Russia, gaita of Macedonia, and the Bedouin habban.

There are many variations of the bagpipe popular today, such as the cornemuse of central France, the aforementioned zampogna of Italy, and the Irish union pipe. The most popular is probably Scotland's Great Highland bagpipe. Today we celebrate all types of bagpipes, and their importance to culture and in bringing us music!

How to Observe Bagpipe Appreciation Day

Playing the bagpipe is probably the best way to celebrate the day. Perhaps you already have one and know how to play it, or maybe you still need to get one and learn. Listening to artists who feature a bagpipe is a great way to celebrate the day, as is listening to bagpipe versions of popular rock songs. You could also read a book on the history of bagpipes, or a book on Highland bagpipes. If you feel like seeing some bagpipes firsthand, you could visit the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, or plan a trip to the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum, or the International Bagpipe Museum.

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stressedoutart · 1 year

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This is a painting I did on site, en plein air, of Margaree Island from Inverness beach. I love looking at Margaree Island in the summer as the sun and the humidity warp what you are viewing; the shape of the island seems to change every minute on a hot day, an optical illusion, a mirage if you will. I am quite proud of how this little sketch panel came out and I hope this piece will one day bring some good memories and natures beauty into someone's home!

#en plein air #landscape painting #cabot trail painting #cape breton painting #margaree island painting #atlantic ocean painting #landscape art #inverness #etsy store #cape breton island #cape breton #art #artists on tumblr #landscape photography #original art #handmade #diy #acrylic painting #acrylic sketch

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zal-cryptid · 1 year

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#nova scotia #prince edward island #canada #maritimes #map #cartography #cape breton

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jakethesequel · 1 year

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Just read Ducks, by Kate Beaton

last night. I bought it a few weeks ago on a whim, with a Christmas gift card. I read Hark, a Vagrant! when I was younger, so I recognized the author, and decided to check it out even if just to support a fellow local comic creator. I was vaguely aware she had released a book about the oil sands to great reviews, but hadn't looked much into it. Finding out it was a memoir, and that she had worked on the oil sands to pay off her art school debt, interested me enough to buy it.

Nevertheless, it just hung around on my shelf for weeks. That's often the way it is with me, I have a constant backlog of books waiting to be started, and even more waiting to be finished. But I've been trying to make more time for reading in my life, so I cracked it open last night, hoping to read for maybe ten minutes before bed.

I read the whole book. All 400-some pages of it. Before I finally went to sleep, I cried.

A work of art making me cry is a very rare thing. Maybe the estrogen treatment makes me more emotional, but it still came as a shock. But, maybe I shouldn't be surprised. The memoir is incredibly close to so many facets of my own life, it was nearly impossible to detach my feelings.

The very format of the book is in service to its emotional impact. The sign, in my opinion, of a master comic artist is not just to tell a great story through the medium, but to know how to use the medium to enhance a great story. Beaton does wonderfully. Most of the book is formatted in 9-panel grids, on book-size paper rather than a TPB's ~6.67x10.25in pages. It does wonders to enhance the claustrophobia of living in either the Maritimes or the Alberta work camps, and makes it all the more intense when panels expand outward for emotionally critical moments. Especially when Beaton devotes to a single or even double page spread to the landscapes of her journey, from the sad and beautiful shores of Atlantic Canada to the eerie marvel of Northern Alberta oil fields.

Beaton is from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; and I'm from Prince Edward Island. Very similar places, all things considered, though PEI at least has the benefit of being its own province. The privilege of hosting the Confederation conference, I suppose. We're islands on the exact same latitude in the exact same bay, only separated by the Northumberland Strait.

We have the highest concentration of Scottish people in the world outside of Scotland, to the point that there's even a small minority of Gaelic speakers, and thats bleeds through into those who haven't lost their accents. (Of course, we all seem to get it back when we get pissed off.) I recognize every little quirk Beaton puts into the dialogue, and from it I know how a character would say any other word. PEI has a higher concentration of Scots than Nova Scotia as a whole, though I'd not be surprised if Cape Breton specifically was higher than us.

We're both fuck poor, but the whole Atlantic region is, really. Beaton calls Cape Breton "the have-not region of a have-not province," and that strikes pretty true. I didn't grow up in what you might consider the have-not region of PEI (though you might say my mother did), but to tell the truth, there isn't much even in the more populated part of PEI. Our provincial capital is most other places' small town, and even then, it isn't built for the Islanders. It's built for the tourists, like the rest of the Island.

Halifax, Nova Scotia is probably the closest we have to a proper city in the three Maritime provinces. That is to say, it can almost support its population on its own. And still, it's the least affordable city for young people to live in the whole country. An average deficit every month of $1290 (956USD). So it's no oasis. It's not entirely right to say it's supporting its population on its own, either, considering it hosts the country's largest military base.

Cape Breton's main industries are seafood, coal, steel, and what little Atlantic ocean shipping that wants a port a little bit closer to Europe than Halifax is already. But like the book shows, most of those industries are getting smaller and paying less.

Here in PEI, pretty much all we have is seafood, potatoes, and tourism. Farming and fishing is honest work, but hard on the body, and often difficult cut a profit unless you own the farm or the boat. And good luck with that, there's only so much to go around on an island. When a farmer or fisherman dies without heirs it usually gets bought up by a corporation anyway. Tourism -- fuck the tourism. A majority of our hospitality industry is run by members of the same goddamn rich family. The rest is government, like the national park. That fucking tourism industry takes every cent of public money to make the place look quaint and perfect for tourists to have a beach day without thinking about the people who live here. It's a fucking sham.

"Our main export is people" is a quote from the book, but also a truism I've hear time and again in the Maritimes. There's nothing for us here. Most of us, as the book mentions, don't really want to leave, we love the land and the sea. But we can't afford to stay.

I went to school in Arizona for a year. It's an incredibly beautiful place. But I think any east coaster, especially an Islander, feels inherently disoriented when landlocked. The sea is a constant, an even better navigator than a compass point. Taking it away feels like losing one of your senses. There's a scene in Ducks where the author stands in the Atlantic water before leaving for Alberta, and it reminded me of when I came home from Arizona. I'm not big with exercise, and I'm not huge on swimming because of body image stuff, but I made sure to go out and swim that summer, to walk out and just float effortlessly in the salt. It was rejuvenating, it felt like I was beyond myself, like I was a part of the island, in the way seaweed is.

Now that I'm back, I'm training to be a welder. Arizona didn't work out for a variety of reasons. I told myself before I started training that I'd never work in the oil industry. I can't justify it knowing the environmental impact and harm to indigenous people. But I'm very familiar with the process Beaton describes, people leaving home for the work camps so they can make money they'd never be able to here. I can't say it isn't tempting, considering my lack of money, apartment, car, anything. Hell, some places I wouldn't even have to finish my training. They'd take me as an apprentice and train me on the job. But I can't.

Still, I can't avoid its prescence. It's mentioned in classes all the time, which is no surprise. I'm sure half my classmates will be off there afterwards, it'd be insane for the instructors not to mention the most likely employ. It's mentioned by people when I say I'm learning welding. It's even been proposed by my environmentalist mom and stepdad, which surprised me. Even when I do find work, there's always going to be the knowledge I could be making more money with less work if I just sold my soul. I imagine I'll think about it with every bill.

CW Sexual Assault, Misogyny, Transphobia

I've never been sexually assaulted, so I won't speak too much about that element of the book, except to say that it's portrayal was incredibly moving.

I don't pass -- equally by choice as by circumstance -- so I am not a target for violent and aggressive sexual interest. But I am painfully aware of what the men around me think and say. I hear them just inside earshot. I see the graffiti on their locker doors. I know many of them, if they went out to the fields, would be no better than the men in Beaton's memoir.

I also know what it's like to feel unsafe as the minority in and around work in trades. To have to be always on your toes around the cis men that surround you. I'm forced to be aware of the height of every bathroom stall, to make sure I don't pull my underwear down far enough that someone might see. I'm lucky work clothes are ambiguous and baggy enough to grant plausible deniability. I still have to remind myself to keep my jumpsuit zipped up as often as possible, because I don't want to know what would happen if one of the guys saw a bra strap by the neck of my shirt. Or even just the outline of my bra through my shirt. They can be extremely perceptive when they aren't busy being ignorant. It's a dangerous world out there, if you aren't the social norm.

/CW

What I'm trying to get at is that this book is an intensely personal read, and strikes at the emotional core of fundamental subjects in my own life. To describe the feeling of reading it, it was like a conversation with your sibling about shared trauma you both previously left buried. Of course, I'm not actually that close with my sibling. But I am that close with this book. It felt like kin. Long-lost family, from just across the Strait.

#cw #ducks #kate beaton #cape breton #nova scotia #alberta #prince edward island #pei #comics #maritimes #atlantic canada

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espiritista-de-luz · 2 years

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Saint Anne is the patron of Indigenous Canadians and this began, arguably, with devotion to Saint Anne among the Mik'maq. Devotion to Saint Anne among the Mik'maq is widespread, She is absolutely beloved, She is known as the Grandmother of the Mik'maq.

In 1610 Grand Chief Membertou, along with twenty one members of his family, converted to Catholicism. While we can speculate on the conviction of his conversion, we do know that Grand Chief Membertou converted to solidify his relationships and trading with the French colonists. In 1628 Saint Anne was chosen as the patron saint of the Mik'maq.

Every year on the feast day of Saint Anne many Mik'maq will make a pilgrimage to Mniku (Chapel Island) off the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Mniku traditionally has always had deep significance among the Mik'maq it being where the yearly gathering of the Mik'maq Grand Council, as it is still done, would take place on Mniku.

The Mik'maq will have a procession and gather at Saint Anne's Church. A Mass of Saint Anne is performed in the church and from there dancing, singing, community gathering and feasting are done outside the church.

A custom done by the Women's Council during the feast of Saint Anne is to wash Her statue with cloth which is then cut into strips that are given out to members of the community. Saint Anne's Ribbons are believed to provide protection, healing, and to uplift the receiver. The ribbons are word around the wrist or ankle.

Another custom performed during the feast day of Saint Anne is Her statue will be carried in procession to "the stone", a boulder on which it's said a French priest said the first Mass on Mniku. There the Santé Mawi'omi (Mik'maq Grand Council) members will offer words of wisdom as will the priest of Saint Anne's Church.

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1. Saint Anne's statue, draped in a traditional Mik'maq woman's cloak and rabbit fur, carried in procession. 2. Procession to Saint Anne's Church. 3. Dancing and singing in front of Saint Anne's Church. 4. Saint Anne's Ribbons on a picture of Mniku (Chapel Island).

#folk catholicism #first nations #mikmaq #miknu #chapel island #cape breton #mikmaki #saint anne

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