Cyril Smith Golden Acres Park is a 2.4 kilometer back trail located in Dartmouth that weaves around Albro Lake. The trail is used for hiking, walking, and trail running. People fish in Martin Lake and Albro Lake, and the Albro Lake beach is often filled with happy swimmers. It is a natural oasis whose northern edge is bordered by a four lane highway. Find a bench along the trail near to where the Albro Lake and Lancaster Drive trails meet. Sit while you listen to this song and enjoy the video.

My Home

The audio for My Home can be accessed anywhere at any time, on the “Carry the Spark” EP on Bandcamp!

It is an original folk song that explores the harmony and dissonance between natural and constructed environments. Four voices sing in simple harmony. The lyrics begin in celebration of the earth – rushing streams, sturdy trees, lush green fields – the natural beauty that is home to various living things. Soon, however, we encounter moments of dissonance, of counteracting rhythms and lyrics. Nova Scotian landscapes are interrupted by the sights and sounds of construction.

Our composition tells the story of the forced changes that nature (and those living there) must bear. Do we recognize the difference between living in harmony with nature and living in competition with it? Is there a new type of beauty in places that border both worlds – harbourfronts, cemeteries, ruins? Our chosen site, Cyril Smith Golden Acres Park, reflects this everyday interaction between constructed and natural environments.

BARE Theatre Co. is a Halifax-based collective consisting of Briony Merritt (she/her), Abby Weisbrot (she/they), Ryan Gallant (he/him), and Emma Vickers (she/her). Our group was first brought together at Festival Antigonish Summer Theatre in 2019, where we enjoyed devising original short plays to be performed around the community. Since then, BARE has continued to explore intimate, experimental, and folk-inspired works that highlight Atlantic Canadian stories.

Currently, BARE is a participant in the RBC Emerging Playwrights Unit hosted by Eastern Front Theatre and Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre. Our play-in-development, THE STATION, draws inspiration from Hazel Hill’s Trans-Atlantic Cable Station, weaving together characters from across four generations. A live reading of THE STATION was performed online as part of Eastern Front Theatre’s 2021 Stages Festival.

Our original composition, My Home, explores the harmony and dissonance that exist between natural and constructed environments.

As little as 1–5% of the forest in Nova Scotia is older than 100 years. In a place where Hemlock and White Pine once towered over 150 metres tall, a 400-year history of clearing land for agriculture and timber has done away with most older forests. Remains of old growth forest are now only found in small, isolated areas, like steep gorges that are inaccessible or areas that are protected in some way.

October 19, 2017 ​​Ecology Action Centre and the Healthy Forest Coalition cordially invite you to attend a memorial service for the Acadian Forest and all the critters who used to live there. Please come to pay your respects. An "open casket" of tiny "logs" will be followed by a procession of wildlife that have died through drastic losses of habitat. Pallbearers and forest mourners will walk from Grand Parade Square to the funeral ceremony at Province House. From there, the bodies will be carried to the very origin of forest mismanagement, the N.S. DNR office on Hollis Street. The funeral pays homage to the forest resources that Nova Scotia has lost through over-harvesting and rampant clearcutting. Come and demonstrate your dismay and anger. The time is now to curb industrial forestry impacts on our lands.

We mourn the loss of forests from Cape Breton to the Cobequids to Yarmouth and Digby. Funeral attire suggested and tissues, of course.