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What’s Growing at Acadia: Student-Led Research

Author: November 15, 2019

What’s Growing at Acadia: Student-Led ResearchBy Laura Clerk, BScH 2020 Tucked away on the lower floor of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre, plants, lichen, and fungi are being dried and pressed, then carefully glued to paper. These specimens, preserved and displayed in an almost artistic way, will become part of the E.C. Smith Herbarium and Irving Biodiversity Collection. The mounting and labelling process is just one step of many that occur at the Herbarium, one of three parts of the biodiversity collection within the Centre. Although the Herbarium moved into the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre in 2002, its…
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Featurepreneur: Conrad Mullins Insight into the life of an architectural designer

Author: November 15, 2019

Featurepreneur: Conrad MullinsInsight into the life of an architectural designerBy Genevieve Allen Hearn Insight Design Co., owned and operated by Conrad Mullins, is a design firm based in Windsor. The company does many things, from conceptual drawings and drafting to consulting and project management, and it all started from a love of building tree forts. The Grapevine (GV): Tell us about what got you into architectural design.Conrad Mullins (CM): As a child I had a fascination with tree forts, endlessly redesigning my bedroom, carpentry, and now building science. GV: We have watched Insight Design work on some cool projects over…
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Repurposing to Bring us Joy

Author: October 31, 2019

Repurposing to Bring us JoyBy Laura Churchill Duke How often do you look around your home and see things that you don’t use, but yet you love them so much, you just can’t bear to part with them?Consider repurposing your items, starting with clothes. Brenda Wilson of Aldershot, NS is an expert at doing just this. She creates memory quilts from old clothes. She started about 10 years ago, when she made a quilt for her daughter out of her old onesies. “I couldn’t part with them, so I turned them into a blanket,” says Wilson. “There was no point…
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Canning Home to Ships and Soldiers

Author: October 31, 2019

Canning Home to Ships and SoldiersBy Tarina Bambrick & Bria StokesburyKings County Museum Known early on as Habitant Corner and Apple Tree Landing, the current name of Canning was bestowed in 1830 in honour of British Prime Minister George Canning. Over a century ago, Canning was the home of Sir Frederick Borden, a physician and businessman elected to the House of Commons in 1874. Under Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s administration in 1896, he was appointed to Cabinet as Minister of Militia and Defence. Sadly in 1900 Harold Borden, the only son of Sir Frederick, was killed in action during the Boer…
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What’s Growing at Acadia: Corophium: A Tasty Feast for Sandpipers

Author: October 21, 2019

What’s Growing at Acadia: Corophium: A Tasty Feast for SandpipersBy Sarah Lavallée (Class of 2022) This past summer was a busy one for student and Arthur Irving Scholar Sydney Scholten. Now in her final year at Acadia, Scholten spent the summer in the laboratories of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre and at Avonport Beach conducting research for her honours degree. Scholten’s honours research concerns what are commonly referred to as “mud shrimp” in the Bay of Fundy. Scientifically known as Corophium volutator, they are a member of a suborder of crustaceans called amphipods. Corophium is actually considered a keystone…
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What is a Mushroom Foray?

Author: October 21, 2019

What is a Mushroom Foray?By Philicity Byers This past weekend was the 11th annual fall mushroom foray organized by the Nova Scotia Mycological Society, held at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, near Canning. Upon my return from the event, my roommate asked me what a mushroom foray was, so, to my roommate and anyone else who is wondering: Most simply, a mushroom foray is an expedition for the purpose of collecting mushrooms, but it’s a lot more than just that. It’s a gathering of people who are interested in unearthing – literally and figuratively – the world of fungi….
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Featurepreneur: The Giving Vegetable

Author: October 21, 2019

Featurepreneur: The Giving VegetableGenevieve Allen Hearn The luffa gourd is native to the Asian tropics, but for three years now, Cindy Lou Oulton has managed to keep her plants prospering inside a garden tunnel on the grounds of TapRoot Farm in Port Williams. After harvesting, drying, and peeling the luffa, it is then sold as a bath sponge or dish scrubber. As far as she knows, she is the only one selling commercially-grown luffas in Canada. We wanted to know more about this versatile vegetable crop! The Grapevine (GV): For those readers who don’t know about luffa, tell us about…
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A. L. Hardy’s Impact on Tourism

Author: October 7, 2019

A. L. Hardy’s Impact on Tourism By Larry Keddy, Kings County Museum Amos Lawson Hardy was born on October 4, 1860 at Allendale, near Lockeport on the South Shore, yet it was in the spring of 1892, when he moved to Kentville and began work as a photographer, that he left a mark on his profession which lasted long after his death in 1935. In 1847, almost a hundred years after the expulsion of the Acadians, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Evangeline,” was published in Boston. In it, Longfellow immortalized a people, a place, and time, transforming historical fact into romantic…
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Dispatches from Acadia’s Walker Mycology Lab

Author: October 7, 2019

Dispatches from Acadia’s Walker Mycology Lab By Bruce Malloch When most people think of fungi, it is usually mushrooms and mouldy bread that come to mind, however an incredible diversity of fungi exist all around us. Many species go without being noticed because the body of a fungus is essentially a network of microscopic filaments. These filaments snake through all manner of habitats where they are not easily seen, such as in the roots and shoots of plants, or the dust in our homes. This growth form is so successful that they are virtually ubiquitous in the world, growing in…
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A Mushroom Foray at The Booker School

Author: October 7, 2019

A Mushroom Foray at The Booker School By Jen Wheeldon On Friday September 13, the ‘early years,’ primary, and grade one classes at The Booker School in Port Williams spent the afternoon exploring the school forest with Jocelyn Hatt and myself, Jen Wheeldon. As amateur naturalists and mycologists, Joss and I frequently spend time in the woods with our respective children. My daughter Norah attends The Booker School, and they spend time outdoors and use the natural environments at the school, such as the forest on campus, to enhance learning opportunities. The students at The Booker School often go on…
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