Tag: Bridgewater

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Blockhouse School getting recycled

École de la Rive-Sud and schoolbus
When it was the French school

Exciting things are happening around the old Blockhouse School near Mahone Bay. The 1962 building has been abandoned since the local French Acadian school moved to its new location outside Bridgewater in 2010. That left the property in the hands of the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg  (MODL).   Plan B was to bulldoze the property. They were looking for someone with Plan A.

A growing group of people has been coming together around a vision – repurpose the building, and show the world how it can be done.  Insulate it to its eyeballs and add active and passive solar heating. Use it as a business incubator for projects that will make the area more self-sufficient and sustainable.  Plant perennials that will add to our food supply in the long term, and teach people how to do the same. Aquaponics. Permaculture. Green roof. Composting toilets. Time-share commercial kitchen.

Possible future model
All these things have been done elsewhere; we just need a model of how to do it here.

Check out the new website at TheBlockhouseSchool.org.

 

 

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New Photo Section on LaHave River and Islands

I’ve been lucky to be able to explore the LaHave River and the LaHave Islands by car, sailboat, dinghy and on foot.  It is a very special area.  Samuel de Champlain was impressed enough with it when his ship landed in Green Bay in 1604, on their way to Port Royal, to encourage the king of France to establish it as the first capital of New France.  And in 1632, Louis XII’s orders to do so were carried out by the Viceroy, Isaac de Razilly.

The first school in Nova Scotia was established there. A new French Acadian school is currently being built outside Bridgewater, not far from the banks of the LaHave River, and the road leading to it will be named after Champlain.  (See the website of the École de la Rive-Sud, which I maintain.)

So it is with great pleasure that I unveil a new section of the Nova Scotia Photo Album dedicated to the LaHave River and Islands.  Drumroll please…

Fort Point Museum at the mouth of the LaHave River, site of Razilly's original fort.
Fort Point Museum at the mouth of the LaHave River, site of Razilly's original fort. Click photo to see more pictures of the LaHave River and LaHave Islands.