The Inverness Oran

-by Bill Dunphy

Frances MacLeod displays the gold medal she won at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa last month, racing in the U20 Female 3,000m steeplechase.

                Frances MacLeod began running at local road races, like Saturday’s 44^th Annual Hugh Arnold Campbell Memorial in Mabou, when she was four years old.

                Fourteen years later she is still running at local road races, but this time as a national champion.

                MacLeod, who calls Dartmouth home but has spent every summer with her family in Inverness-Port Hood, won the U20 women’s 3,000m steeplechase at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa on June 17-21.

                And despite a fall on one of the hurdles, MacLeod battled back for the win in 10:36.51 – just short of Athletics Canada’s world qualifying standard of 10:31.73.

                “I started running steeplechase two years ago, an event I know they held nationals for,” she said Saturday after winning the Hugh Arnold Campbell 5k race in a time of 19:06.

                “My goal is to make the national team (and) I’m just a few seconds away from the world standard.”

                MacLeod trains with the Athletics East Track and Field Club in Halifax. This past school year she won the Atlantic University Sport championship in cross-country. At Canada Games in St. John’s, NL, last August, she set a personal best of 10:35.12 in the 3,000m steeplechase.

                Steeplechase is a unique track and field event where athletes run 3,000 meters while navigating 28 solid barriers and seven water jumps, totaling 35 obstacles over roughly seven and a half laps on a standard 400-meter track. Unlike regular hurdles, the barriers are heavy, immobile, and bolted to the track, allowing runners to step on them or hurdle over them in any manner, provided the trailing leg clears the top of the barrier. The water jump, about 12 feet long, is deepest near the barrier and gradually shallows out, making it the most physically demanding part of the race.

                The U20 World Championships are scheduled for Aug. 5-9 at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

                MacLeod has two or three more chances to shave those seconds off her PB to qualify before the July 20 deadline, beginning this Sunday at the Legion selection meet in Dartmouth.

                But despite her competitive nature, MacLeod said she has learned to take things in stride from her parents. Her mother, Crystal Garrett, and her father, Alexander MacLeod, were both elite runners in their youth and will still enter Inverness County Running Circuit races when the joints say it’s okay.

                “My parents are my biggest inspiration,” she said. “Some runners take it too seriously, when it should be something you do for fun.”

*****

                Along with MacLeod’s top time in Saturday’s road race in Mabou, Sawyer Nadasdi was a close second to win the Youth Male division in 19:22.

                In the Open (19-39) division, Ashley Petrie was the top female (24:15) while Jonathan Brophy turned in the fastest male time (24:07).

                The Masters (40-59) division, Lindsay MacDonald was top female (26:56) and Shane Nadasdi was top male (37:35).

                And in the Golden Masters (60-over) division, Jean Hayley turned in a time of 40:07 for top female while Lloyd Withers blazed a path to be top male, stopping the clock at 27:32.

                In the 10k race, Jason McGuigan won the Open Male title with a time of 40:49 while Katie MacDonald was the Open Female winner in 54:08.

                Kate MacInnes laced up the running shoes for the first time since her memorable Boston Marathon experience and won the Masters Female division with a time of 41:19 – good for second place overall.

                Matt Swinkels had the best Masters Male time of 44:07.

                The following are the complete results of the 44^th Hugh Arnold Campbell Memorial road race:

5k

                Female (under 18) Frances MacLeod, 19.06; Jayla Andrews, 24.1; Maggie MacDonald, 25.2; Myra MacDonnell, 28.05; Laura Beaton, 30.01; Gabe Murphy, 33.27; Lexi Andrews, 33.28; Kailee Roach, 33.28; Eilidh Leadbetter, 39.04; Chloe Macaueen, 41.34.

                Male (under 18) Sawyer Nadasdi, 19.22; Ben Swinkels, 19.43; Hayden Gillies, 20.09; Ethan Gillis, 20.24; Jayden Cameron, 21.43; Jake MacDonald, 23.5; Dawson Burns, 29.4; Jonathon Petrie, 30.15; Kirk Williams, 32.07.

                Female (19-39) Ashley Petrie, 24.15; Laura MacMillan, 25.12; Shannon MacLennan; 26.33; Mary Chisholm; 27.36; Seanna Cameron, 28.09; Makayla Nadasdi, 30.01; Shoneth Leadbetter, 30.1; Kathryn MacIntyre, 31.5; Grace MacDonald, 33.51; Emily Cameron, 35.48; Connie Campbell, 36.22; Hannah Nadasdi, 37.35; Ella MacRitchie, 38.54; Keshi Moonian, 39.17; Haley Morrison, 41.07; Lauren Krszwda, 43.17.

                Male (19-39) Kirk MacLean, 22.1; John Brophy, 24.07; Campbell MacIntyre, 26.24; Matt Stewart, 27.26; Tonet Dan, 33.37; William Petrie, 38.34.

                Female (40-59) Lindsay MacDonald, 26.56; Lindsay MacDonald, 27.57; Deana MacKeil, 29.2; Michelle Andrews, 29.47; Angie MacDonnell, 32.09; Stephanie Swinkels, 41.17.

                Male (40-59) Shane Nadasdi, 37.35; Preston Burns, 38.03.

                Female (60-over) Jean Haley, 40.07; Marie MacRitchie, 44.06; Andrea Brophy, 44.06.

                Male (60-over) Lloyd Withers, 27.32.

10k

                Female (19-39) Katie MacDonald, 54.08; Madeline Ferguson, 59.17; Jasmin Cameron, 59.17; Avery MacKinnon, 62.4.

                Male (19-39) Jason McGuigan, 40.49; Peter MacInnis, 52.05.

                Female (40-59) Kate MacInnes, 41.19.

                Male (40-59) Matt Swinkels, 44.07; Jesse Fraser, 46.13.

Fun run

                Nolan Beaton, Emerson Cameron, Ivy Beaton, Nathan Swinkels, Elise Gillis, Ainsley Lawless, Freddie Gillis, Reese Lawless, Maggie Leadbetter, Kace Hussey, Mary Catherine Cameron, Arlo MacDonald, Vaeda MacDonald, Avery Cameron.

Ken Woroner looks forward to sharing his love of film at the inaugural Unama'ki/Cape Breton Film Festival in September.

-by Beverley Phillips

What began as an offhand comment over lunch turned into the inaugural Unama’ki / Cape Breton Film Festival.

                From September 25^th to 27^th, film lovers can enjoy the Unama’ki / Cape Breton Film Festival at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts (ICCA).

                Festival organizer Ken Woroner has worked in the television and film industry for decades as a stills photographer. His photographs serve as promotional material for the show or film, and he has worked on productions such as Frankenstein, Priscilla, and Murdoch Mysteries.

                The idea first arose over lunch with Bill Culp, film industry liaison for the Cape Breton Partnership. “At some point, I said it’d be cool if there was a Cape Breton film festival.” And he said, ‘Yeah, you should do that.” Woroner replied, “Yeah, maybe one day,” but didn’t really think it was a serious suggestion.

                Fast forward one year and ICCA discovers that they lost funding in the provincial budget cuts and were looking for fundraising ideas. “The idea for a film series came up,” he said, “and it landed in my lap. From there, it grew into a film festival.”

                “The genre of movies will be anything and everything,” he said. “But the unifying theme is that the movies are somehow connected to Cape Breton due to being shot here, about here, or have some kind of tangential connection.”

                By that, he meant movies that have themes or settings Cape Bretoners can identify with, perhaps by having a Celtic flair, or a coastal community setting.

                Woroner has lived in Cape Breton for seven years now and is still discovering what it means to be a Cape Bretoner. It’s the idea of place that draws him. “What is interesting to me,” he said, “is, what is Cape Breton? As somebody who only very recently moved to Cape Breton and yet drawn to this place, I’m looking to learn. Watching movies that have something to do with this place and watching older movies from this place helps answer that question.”

                Woroner’s knowledge of such movies is vast. He has a long list that he would be interested in showing and is in the process of evaluating and choosing them. “I don’t want to just show movies,” he said. “I want to show movies I think are worth showing, and I think there’s a lot of them. There are some interesting movies over the years I think are worth revisiting.”

                “I like being a tour guide,” he added. “And there are interesting movies that I've come across in the course of just my general looking for things that I would love to show to other people, and hopefully they would go, “Wow, that's cool.”

                For Woroner, sharing movies with others goes back before he was working in the movie industry. “I have had screenings over the years, where it's just a gang of friends, and you get a movie. In Toronto, you used to be able to rent 16 millimetre projectors, with 16 millimetre films from a film library that was part of the Toronto Public Library. And that was something I used to do.”

                And it’s that friends hanging out watching movies and discussing them is what he hopes to create with this festival. Plans aren’t firm yet, but he hopes there will be two screenings per day with associated events.

                While he is leading the charge for the festival, Woroner is not a one-man show. His team has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the film and arts communities.

                First on board with this idea was his wife, Academy Award–winning Film Production Designer Tamara Deverell. “Film,” she said, “has the power to connect people through stories, places, and shared experiences. Creating opportunities for audiences to engage with filmmakers and celebrate local talent is essential to building a vibrant cultural community. The Unama’ki/Cape Breton Film Festival is an exciting step forward for our region.”

                Also encouraging the idea from the beginning was Bill Culp. Culp said, “This is an opportunity to celebrate exceptional filmmaking while investing in the future of arts, culture, tourism, and the creative economy in our communities.”

                From there, they added: Amber Bernard, a Mi’kmaw filmmaker and journalist from We’koqma’q; Beth Ryan, a founding member of Cape Breton Film Inc.; PR and communications expert Carly Appleton; retired book editor and past board member of the Cabot Trail Writer’s Festival, Alicia Peres; and Nova Scotia–based film and television producer, Penny MacDonald.

                As a pre-festival event, there will be a screening of Andy Hines’ Little Lorraine at Strathspey Place in Mabou on Thursday, July 30^th. The movie has been a great success for Hines in his directorial debut feature. The film, inspired by a true story, of three miners from Little Lorraine who got caught up in an international drug smuggling ring.

                All proceeds from ticket sales will support the festival in September. “Every ticket purchased helps build the foundation for a festival that we hope will become a signature annual cultural event for Unama’ki and Cape Breton,” said Culp.

                And along with being a fundraiser, it also gives people on the west side of Cape Breton, who may not have made it to Sydney for its theatre run, a chance to see the movie on the big screen.

                While everyone has gotten used to watching movies at home on TV, Woroner said, “Watching movies at home is fine, but there’s nothing to compare with the large screen experience – at least for me. The big sound, the big picture, the opportunity to collectively experience a show in a big dark room with a large group of people and talk about it afterwards beats Netflix on the couch every time.”

                Tickets for Little Lorraine are $15 and are available on Eventbrite. For more information, and to keep up-to-date on the latest film festival news, visit their website at: unamakicapebretonfilmfestival.ca or follow them on Instagram or Facebook.

Kathleen Martin is passionate about conserving leatherback sea turtles and encourages others to join her in the mission

-by Beverley Phillips

Note: This is the fifth and final instalment of the series on Dina, the leatherback sea turtle who died having tried to navigate around the Canso Causeway nine times in the fall of 2024.

                Dina was not the first leatherback sea turtle to die because she couldn’t get through the Canso Causeway, and she won’t be the last.

                It has only been since 1998 that leatherback sea turtles have even been on the Canadian radar. That was the when the Canadian Sea Turtle Network (CSTN) began operations and started asking people, “Have you seen this turtle?” Kathleen Martin, executive director of the CSTN, said that once people started looking for them, they started hearing about them. Before that, it was simply not something that was noted. There have been no specific studies on how many leatherbacks die in our waters because of the Canso Causeway. It would be a very difficult statistic to measure as not all wash up on shore nearby. Dina’s never did. She died at sea, and her body was not recovered.

                But Hoodie’s was. Hoodie was a leatherback sea turtle found by Mary Janet MacDonald on Port Hood Beach on November 30^th, 2024, just as a saga of Dina was playing out, just weeks before she died.

                Martin was part of his recovery mission. Initially, they hoped he would survive, but he didn’t. “He was just emaciated,” she said. “When leatherbacks are in Nova Scotian or Atlantic Canadian waters, they are 33 per cent heavier than when they are on a nesting beach. They come here to get fat on jellyfish. Three of us picked that animal up. Usually you can’t move a leatherback turtle because they weigh 1000 pounds.”

                Martin remained with Hoodie for the necropsy with Dr. Laura Bourque, a pathologist at the Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) in Prince Edward Island. “It was so hard to see,” said Martin. “There were marks going down the side of his carapace, and Bourque said, ‘Oh God, it’s chafing.’”

                “When leatherbacks get cold, they swim faster,” continued Martin, “because they’re trying to warm up. The animal was swimming so fast he chafed down the side of his carapace. If you could spend just two minutes, imagining the panic and the strain in that animal. How stressed he would be because he’s supposed to be going south and what it would feel like when the water temperature drops and you’re in there, and you can’t get out of it, and you’re frantic about it. It’s a horrific way to die. It’s not like they just pleasantly get colder. He was fighting for his life.”

                An email from veterinarian Dr. Lara Cusak of the AVC turned up in the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) document that revealed how the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was responding to the news of Dina being stuck in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On December 18^th, Cusack wrote to Mike James, an aquatic science biologist, stating her animal welfare concerns for Dina. “It is obvious to me that her prolonged stay in our waters poses significant welfare concerns, such as loss of body condition, hypothermia, and ultimately death. This animal will undoubtedly suffer and experience prolonged deterioration prior to her death. I think the ability to prevent animal suffering makes it very much worth the effort to try and save this animal.”

                At this point, the rescue mission had already been called off by the Executive Director of MAR, and this message set off a flurry of emails and rationale to mount a response.

                But no response was coming, and media lines were being drafted by DFO communications specialists. DFO was only willing to give so much information, but had responses ready for questions “If pressed on…” by the media. For example, “If pressed on responding to sea turtles in distress: Response efforts may take place for sea turtles that are injured, stranded, or entangled. The tagged leatherback turtle is not injured, stranded, or entangled.”

                As reported last week, advocates for action want to see a safe passage for wildlife created at the Canso Causeway, likely in the form of a bridge, replacing part of it. This would bring the causeway in compliance with the Fisheries Act. If this were to happen, some may be concerned about what it would mean for the ice-free harbour status of the south side of the Causeway.

                Mike Dadswell, Acadia University biology professor and former DFO scientist, said the space needed for wildlife to get through wouldn’t need to be that big, and that little ice would get through.

                Bruce Hatcher, Chair of Marine Ecosystem Research at CBU, added it was likely the increase in water circulation would actually decrease the amount of ice on the north side because the water would be moving more. And as the south side would become more energetic, any ice that did come through would be moved out quickly.

                In his opinion, climate change is the bigger unknown, as it has rapidly been changing ocean conditions and its movements.

                This is why Hatcher wants to see more science done in the area. Though not related to this issue, he has a post-doctoral student beginning this summer who will be looking at some of the physical, chemical, and biological water properties from the Northumberland Strait, through the Strait of Canso, down to the Chedabucto Bay, measuring such things as salinity, temperature and alkalinity.

                He also thought, should a bridge be in the Causeway's future, that it would be a good idea to look to capture the energy of the water movements and turn it into electricity. This would also help manage the current, slowing the passage of water through the gap. “Of course,” he added, “it would have to be designed to not kill any organisms.”

                He saw this as a real opportunity for Port Hawkesbury. “I think it is a time of a great deal of capacity building in the Strait area,” he said. “We've got the nautical institute there, the NSCC, all kinds of people with engineering smarts and so on. If there's any place that this alteration to the structure and function of the causeway could be done, to both improve the ecological function of that part of the ocean, while at the same time providing renewable energy to the people that live there. I think that's certainly worth thinking about.”

                The cost of replacing a piece of the Causeway with a bridge would be formidable, but Darren Porter, the fisherman who got the ATIP, has an idea about that. “This is the mother of all offsets,” he said.

                Offset projects are required for projects and industries that harm the environment. They need to offset that damage by doing something helpful somewhere else.

                “The gold mines are coming. Even if we don’t want them, they’re coming,” he said. “They’re going to need massive offsets. This is an opportunity.”

                The notes on this in the ATIP were scant, but fisheries biologist Colleen Smith said, “This was the offset project of the century. Mike Womble agrees – offset project and so much money, no proponent would be able to pay for it.”

                Martin acknowledges the challenges in solving the problem of the causeway to sea turtles. But in her mind, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The emotion in her voice was palpable as she spoke. “It doesn't make sense, and it just needs to change,” she said, “and I think it's something that we can change. It's really upsetting information. But it means that citizens and politicians today can get to be the people that make a change that makes a difference. People are always looking for meaning in life, especially now. We're desperate for stories where we matter. There's this world that seems so out of control in so many ways, and we could do this thing that would be a good thing and a big thing and something where communities and governments and everyone comes together to do something. That's what is life-giving for people, right?

                “I work with a lot of young people. It's a hard world out there right now. And when you think about the capacity of the Nova Scotia and federal governments to come in and say, ‘You know what we're going to do right now? We're going to show you that there is light in this world, and that when something's wrong, we fix it. When we know better, we do better.’”

                “The Canso Causeway is a perfect example of that. What an amazing thing to do for wildlife. These are federally protected species, so there's a mandate to do it. But beyond that, I also think it’s ethical and moral.”

                “So often as adults, we keep saying, “Aren't you excited about the youth of today and that they're going to change the world and lead the world?” I think that's a cop out. And it's a terrible thing to put the weight of the world on a child. It's irresponsible of adults to say, “Hey, the future is yours, and we can't wait to see you fix our mess.” We've left them with the mess, and they're going to clean it up. Oh my goodness, we need to clean up our own mess. We are the people the world has been waiting for – this generation, these adults, these seniors. And as adults, it's our job to take care of what's going on here. It's not up to them. We're constantly passing the buck. We're shirking our responsibility and pretending that they can do it instead of us, and isn't that sweet?”

                “The strain on kids is real. I see it in kids when I'm talking to them in groups and classrooms. Kids who are six years old are saying, ‘What can I do? I want to fix it. How can I help?’ And they make these really beautiful letters and pictures and signs and put their whole hearts into it. And actually, what they need to know is that there are adults in the room who will take care of them and who are willing to do the work right now. We've forgotten how, at one point in our lives, everyone looked at us and thought, ‘Aren't they going to do all the amazing things?’ And now that we get to be the adults, we're saying, “Oh, that wasn't us. It’s the next generation.” Actually no, it's us right here. We're supposed to be the people that the world needs. We're the people meant to meet this moment. And that's incredible. This is an amazing thing that we have as an opportunity, as a community, as a province, and as adults to say, ‘Hey, this is wrong. We're going to fix it.’”

                “Let's do this thing. Let’s remember our potential and act on it. That's the line that you want in your obituary, right? That you helped conserve a critically endangered species. You want to be on the team that helped the turtle, not on the team that said, ‘I don't really know if we want to make sure that that causeway changes.’ You want to be on team, ‘I did everything I could do.’ The beauty of it is in making the change; the beauty of it is the hard work. And it's the coming together, and it's the hard conversations. That's where life exists, and love exists, and we remind ourselves of the potential that we all have. It's that space where we live up to being the people we're meant to be.”

                It was planned that Martin would have the last word in this story. But as writing was wrapping up on Monday, Brittany Wentzell on Information Morning Sydney was speaking to Fred Tilley, the provincial Minister for Public Works. While he was on for another issue, she asked him about the causeway at the end of the interview. He said, “We are operating based on the current regulations. At some point there will probably be a replacement required of equipment. At that time, we would look at whatever the regulations are and make sure we follow those, but we wouldn't be doing anything specific right now for migration.”

                He said the province would be open to talking about it if the federal government was moving forward with change and were funding it. But, he concluded, “There are alternate routes for turtles and other sea life around that area. I don't see us doing anything to change the Causeway at this point.”

                The Canso Causeway itself is provincial jurisdiction. Minister Tilley can be contacted by emailing him at [email protected] or calling 902-736-0546. The address for his constituency office is: 2 Elliott Street Sydney Mines, NS B1V 3G1.

Other contacts:

– MLA Kyle MacQuarrie: [email protected], 902-258-2216;

– MLA Claude Bourgeois: [email protected], 902-705-5727;

– The Canso Canal, the Fisheries Act, and the Species at Risk Act are federal jurisdiction. To contact MP Jaime Battiste: [email protected], 1-866-707-9800, Main constituency office: 729 Highway 105 Boularderie East, Nova Scotia B1X 0A2;

– Minister of Fisheries and Oceans: The Honourable Joanne Thompson, minister’s office: 200 Kent St, Station 15N100, Ottawa ON K1A 0E6, email: [email protected].