The Daily Noggin

Travel & Places

Lunenburg

From the Wikivoyage travel guide

By Wikivoyage contributors Wikivoyage

Lunenburg is a small fishing town in Nova Scotia that was established in 1753. Its Old Town is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. UNESCO considers the site the best example of planned British colonial settlement in North America, as it retains its original layout and appearance of the 1800s, including local wooden vernacular architecture.

The Mi'kmaq lived in a territory from the present site of Lunenburg to Mahone Bay. As many as 300 inhabited the site in the warm summer months. French colonists, who became known as Acadians, settled in the area around the 1620s.

The town was founded in 1753 as one of the first British attempts to settle Protestants in Nova Scotia. Its economy has been based on offshore fishery, and today Lunenburg is the site of Canada's largest secondary fish processing plant. The town flourished in the late 1800s, and much of the historic architecture dates from that period.

Health & Wellbeing

The Quiet Power of a Morning Walk

A short daily stroll may do more for body and mood than many people expect.

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Walking is one of the simplest habits a person can keep, and it asks for very little: comfortable shoes, a safe route and a few spare minutes.

Many people find that a morning walk sets the tone for the day. Daylight early in the day helps the body keep its natural rhythm, and the gentle movement loosens stiff joints after a night's rest.

There is a social side, too. Regular walkers often come to know the neighbours they pass, the dog that waits by the gate, the gardener who is always out before nine.

The best walk, most experts agree, is simply the one you will enjoy enough to repeat tomorrow.

Living Well

A Windowsill Kitchen Garden in Six Easy Pots

Fresh herbs within arm's reach, all year round.

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You do not need a garden to grow something good to eat. A bright windowsill and six small pots can keep a kitchen supplied with herbs through the winter.

Parsley, chives and mint are forgiving beginners. Basil likes the warmest, sunniest spot. Thyme and rosemary prefer to dry out a little between waterings.

Snip often and the plants will reward you by growing bushier. A pinch of fresh herbs can lift a simple soup or an omelette into something special.

Travel & Places

Postcard From a Little Harbour Town

Painted houses, fishing boats and the best chowder for miles.

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Some places are best seen slowly. This little harbour town, with its rows of painted cottages, rewards the traveller who is in no hurry at all.

Mornings belong to the fishing boats, which head out as the sky turns pink. By afternoon the quay is lined with benches, ice-cream stands and people watching the gulls.

A short walk up the hill leads to an old lighthouse, open on summer weekends, with a view that stretches far along the coast.

Science & Discovery

Astronomers Delight in a Newly Mapped Moon Crater

Fresh images reveal ancient lava channels in remarkable detail.

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A newly completed map of a large crater on the Moon's near side has given scientists their clearest view yet of the winding channels left by ancient lava.

The channels, some longer than a hundred miles, were carved billions of years ago when the young Moon was still volcanically active.

Researchers say the map will help plan where future explorers might land, and it offers a fascinating glimpse into the Moon's fiery youth.

Nature & Wildlife

Herons Return to the Old Mill Pond

After a long absence, a small colony has settled in once again.

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Visitors to the old mill pond have been treated to a welcome sight this season: a small colony of grey herons nesting in the tall trees along the far bank.

Herons are patient hunters. They can stand motionless in the shallows for many minutes before striking at a passing fish with lightning speed.

Local volunteers who cleared the pond's edges a few years ago are delighted. The best viewing, they say, is in the hour after sunrise.

History & Heritage

The Lighthouse Keepers' Logbooks

Daily entries from a century ago bring a lonely job vividly to life.

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For generations, lighthouse keepers wrote a short entry in the station logbook every day: the weather, the ships that passed, the oil burned through the night.

Read together, these plain notes paint a rich picture of a vanished way of life. There are storms and shipwrecks, but also visiting relatives, prize vegetables and a cat that refused to leave the lamp room.

Many logbooks now sit in local archives, where volunteers are slowly transcribing them so that anyone can read them.

Arts & Culture

Quilts as Works of Art

An exhibition celebrates a craft long passed from hand to hand.

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Quilts were made to keep families warm, but the best of them are also striking works of design: bold geometry, clever use of colour and countless tiny stitches.

A new exhibition gathers quilts made over more than a century, many by makers whose names were never recorded.

Visitors often find themselves standing close, tracing the patterns, and remembering a quilt from their own childhood home.