The pilgrimage all men must make

Brothers.

I have been there. I have seen it. I have touched it with my own two hands. I still feel the coarse stone beneath my fingers.

Once, long before, the temple was the centre of what binds us all together, Working man and CEO, retiree and underaged fake ID holders, Canadian and Canadian.

No more. That holy function has moved on to other places, and the great blessing with it. But before me, on that sunny morning, with gulls crying and the distant ding of some ship's bell mingling in with lazy Friday morning traffic, the building was as holy as the day its cornerstone was laid. In the pantheon of holy places, it stands tall among the Church of the Nativity in Jerusalem, the Great Mosque in Mecca and any Catholic cathedral you'd care to name.

And as I stood before it, I felt my spirits soar, and my lips dry from a sudden thirst.

Hmm? Oh. Yeah, I was talking about the original fucking Keith's brewery, yo.

Man, I love Halifax. I was there that weekend because the ACNA people bribed me with free booze and gas money to take pictures at their annual conference again this year. I had a free morning, though, so I went out to take in the sights of Halifax.

I was really only just on Lower Water Street or thereabouts. The thing I love about Halifax is how it's got a nice mixture of quaint old colonial and dominion buildings (like the imposing Art Deco stone one above), and some really modern stuff. You walk the downtown, and it feels like a big, thriving city. Which, by Maritime standards, it is. There's about 300,000 people in the 'Fax, and around 2.5 million in all of Atlantic Canada (Maritimes plus Newfoundland). After living for more than a year in a city of 18,000 (and dropping), my sense of scale's a bit warped.

It's a little tough to make out, but that's the Bluenose restaurant (yay, Canadiana!). I stopped in for a steak-and-eggs breakfast, grabbing a copy of the Chronicle Herald first. Over the meal, I got a close-up view of the ongoing election in Nova Scotia, which would eventually lead to an NDP victory, the first in Atlantic Canada.

The day I read the paper, it involved Tory premier Rodney MacDonald calling the NDP leader a car thief. Ahhhh, Tories. No matter the province, no matter the issue, it always comes down to the name calling.

While we're in Halifax, maybe this will mean something to you guys:

They tell me it comes from some kids' show. All I can say is, that must make quite the impression on ships coming from places like China or wherever.

Speaking of which:

Yes. There is a Chinese restaurant in the old Keith's building.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...but that's just the weirdest place I've yet seen one of those things.

Believe it or not, there's a big Chinese presence here in the Maritimes. In Miramichi, we have something like five Chinese restaurants (more than Fredericton, I've heard, tho' I don't believe it).

Which is neat! Yay, multiculturalism!

But...in the Keith's brewery?

Anyways, after my morning walkabout, I went to the ACNA conference, spent the day taking pictures of people I mostly didn't know. Then it was time for the booze cruise! We literally chartered a sailing ship and spent the evening drinking and eating as we sailed up and down the bay.

In between shots of the ACNA prez scoffing down the hors d'oeuvres, I had a glance at the shore. There's tons of old buildings and nice riverfront homes the further you get from the downtown core.

Just down from the Lower Water Street sights, you get a sense of Halifax's position as the great seaport for the east coast.

It was nice. If someone offered me citizenship and a nice job in Halifax, fuck yeah, I'd take it.

I'm not kidding: That city is the jewel of the east.