The Inverness Oran

• Conflict, trade war and rising costs put pressure on Glenora Distillery
• Local film debuts at weekend festival
• 46th annual Terry Fox Run in Margaree Forks
• Fundraising for the Orangedale water system
• Margaree Salmon Museum asks council for assistance
• Biosphere needs to do its important work
• MADA looking for some ''beautiful'' help from council
• Warden declares National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
• Temporary closure of Inverness Shean Trail Crossing- September 21st
• Recreation Volunteer Program, innovative program from municipality
• Government of Canada invests in safety on Canadian Farms
• Central Avenue Rebuild Project-Saturdays added
• Bourgeois only candidate to meet election spending deadline
• Kent Building Supplies joins Nova Scotia Loyal
• September Feedback Loop survey on food access
• Cabot Trail Writers' Festival ready for another weekend of stories and connection
• Boat opens at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts
• Tradition continues with 6th CBU Capers men’s b-ball clinic
• Chéticamp Martial Arts hosts first Cabot Trail Classic jiu jitsu tourney
• U18 Major Islanders sweep South Shore 5-1 and 2-1
• Captain Tate takes the helm back with 1:57.1 feature win

-by Beverley Phillips

Elamin Abdelmahmoud will be at the Cabot Trail Writer’s Festival to host conversations and share some of his own work. He is the host of the CBC Radio’s Commotion, and his work has appeared in Rolling Stone and the Globe and Mail. His memoir, Son of Elsewhere, was a national bestseller. (Photo credit: Kyla Zanard)

The Cabot Trail Writer’s Festival celebrates its 18^th year with another weekend of readings, workshops, and conversations at the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s from October 2^nd to 4^th.

                Like how so many things in Cape Breton begin, the idea came up around a kitchen table. A book club in North River invited George Elliott Clark, the author of the book they were reading, to come and read for them. This poetry reading received an overwhelming response, and it was clear there was an appetite for such events.

                The first Cabot Trail Writer’s Festival was in North River Hall in 2009, and it, too, proved to be a success. “Many who are not from here might not expect this from a very rural corner of the country,” said Rebecca Silver Slayter, executive director of the festival, “but it just kept growing, and it outgrew that hall, and that’s why they moved it to the Gaelic College.”

                The setting of the forest and the water and the mountains is part of what makes it special. “We try to plan opportunities to encounter the land,” said Silver Slayter, “and the vital part that the land plays in all of our stories and our lives, and the joy of being gathered together in this beautiful place at such a beautiful time of year.”

                One of this year’s outdoor events will be the closing, and it takes place along the Skye River Trail in We’koqma’q with Ann Joe, Rita Joe’s daughter, sharing some of her mother’s work, along with other Mi’kmaw storytellers.

                The setting also entices artist and attendees to make the long trek to the out-of-the-way location. “They always talk about how special it is,” said Silver Slayter, “and of all the festivals they go to, how rare and unique this experience is.”

                The writer’s festival comes on the heels of the inaugural film festival in Inverness, and the weekend before the nine-day music festival which is Celtic colours, which is in its 30^th year. Silver Slayter said, “It’s lovely to see these long-standing festivals continue, but also to see that new ones are being born. I think the nature of a festival is that it is celebrating and fostering culture, but it's also creating and connecting community. And I think in the case of all those festivals, and many more, it's an indicator of how vital not just the cultural and artistic life of Cape Breton is, but also the communities that make it what it is.”

                This year those coming to the community in St. Ann’s include writers from near and far. “Some of them are people you may be very familiar with already, like Elamin Abdelmahmoud, who everybody hears on CBC Radio,” said Silver Slayter, “and Catherine Hernandez, who's books, especially Scarborough, were so widely read and celebrated. And alongside them are amazing homegrown talents like Kate Beaton and Daniel MacIvor, and other Cape Breton writers.”

                Every year the weekend opens with their Friday night reading series, and this year is no different. Silver Slayter said, “It always feels so special to me the ways that somehow, nearly magically, they end up giving you a sense that you are experiencing all of life across that tapestry of readings. There are ones that move you to tears, ones that make you howl with laughter. They're always very different, and yet there's often somehow little themes that emerge and connect them together.”

                On Saturday, there are more in-depth looks at the lives and lived experience of some of the writers. Alexander MacLeod is hosting a brunch with Whit Fraser, retired broadcast journalist and the husband of former Governor General Mary Simon. “He's been a huge advocate and ally to reconciliation work across the country,” said Silver Slayter, “and he has a new book out sharing some of the stories from his life and experiences that he didn't get to share as a journalist or couldn't go as deeply into.”

                There will be a panel conversation on graphic novels and two opportunities to explore mental health. On Saturday afternoon there will be a discussion hosted by Abdelmahmoud, talking about anxiety with David A. Robertson, author of All the Little Monsters, and Dr. Arundhati Dhara. This is a free event open to everyone, offered in partnership with Dalhousie University's Medical Humanities Program. In the evening, there will be a panel with Kate Beaton and Daniel MacIvor discussing grief with host by Alexander MacLeod.

                On Sunday, there are some very writer-specific programming, including workshops and a writers' salon, where several writers come in conversation with Abdelmahmoud to discuss their writing process and their publishing experiences.

                But just because it’s called a writers festival, it’s not just for writers. “It’s a festival for readers,” said Silver Slater. “We provide the writers, and you don't even have to be a reader to enjoy hearing writers talk about the things that move and inspire them. If people haven't been to it before, they should know that it's a really warm, welcoming, unintimidating, and fun place to be. I've had so many say, ‘I never would have thought this would be something I would enjoy or feel comfortable at, but I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I loved it, and I’m going to come every year.’”

                “It really does give you the sense as that the world gets a little bigger and you're able to experience and connect with something bigger than your own life and experience and really feel the power of that and experience how rich and big and bright the world is. And that's a good thing, something that we really need in this day and age. Being able to talk to people different from ourselves, being able to hear different points of view and really connect with different experiences, I think, helps us at a time when our digital lives want to funnel us into one camp or one perspective or another.”

                Earlier this year, the society didn’t know what this year’s festival would look like. As with all arts and culture organizations, the writer’s festival faced significant funding cuts in the March provincial budget, but the community pulled them through. “We’re so grateful that despite the cuts we're able to continue what has been built over years by the love and labour of so many people, volunteers, and community members,” said Silver Slayter. “It's the support of our community, the donors and sponsors who helped us get through this. It's always been the community that carried it and created it and sustained it. It is not an obvious place to have a literary festival, and I think all the things that make it a little bit more complicated or expensive to do it there are offset by the fact that it's also a place where people really come together and care together and work together to make it possible. As with all arts organizations, you're never running with any surplus; you're always stretching the most you can of every dollar. The unexpected news of the cuts came when we were already part way through planning our festival. So we had to just halt and wait to get our funding back and figure out what we could afford to do and, and fundraise.”

                To learn more or buy tickets, go to their website cabottrailwritersfestival.com. You can also book tickets by calling 902-224-5231. There are free events, and the writer’s festival committee doesn’t want anyone to feel they can’t take part in other activities due to finances and will offer complimentary tickets to remove that barrier.

-by Beverley Phillips

The impact of war, both literal and trade, is creating challenges for local industry.

                It’s been a challenging few years for the Glenora Distillery, the producer of Glen Breton, a premium single malt whisky. It began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Up until then, Russia was the distillery’s number one customer by volume. Ukraine was second or third. The war ended exports to both those countries. “So we started concentrating on the US,” said Lauchie MacLean, president of the Glenora Distillery. “It’s a difficult system in the US, but we decided to give it another go, and we were starting to see results.”

                Until recently, those results were about one third of their revenue. The Donald Trump administration has made doing business in the United States increasingly difficult. “There were new restrictions and new paperwork,” said MacLean. “There was a time we had a shipment turned away on a day there were 120 semi trucks turned away because no one had this new paperwork.”

                The ever-changing rules meant that, briefly, things seemed to settle down, and the distillery was preparing a shipment to head south before the total ban on Canadian alcohol comes into effect on September 29^th. The ever-changing rules also mean it is hard to keep up with the latest. “We're getting [an order] ready,” said MacLean, “and then our importer said, ‘There’s a 50 per cent tariff.’ I did not know that the 50 per cent tariff that Trump put in place three weeks ago was in place for alcohol. I thought it was for other things. The pricing and the structure we had with all our retailers and distributors down there just wasn't going to work, so we have given up for a little while on sending bottled product into the United States.”

                MacLean isn’t hopeful for a change anytime soon. “I don’t get the feeling there’s going to be any kind of solution in the near term,” he said, “so we just have to wait until January 2029.”

                That’s when President Trump will have to leave office.

                “In the meantime,” continued MacLean, “we’re hoping to expand into the Asian market, and revisit Western European countries.”

                But it’s not just the trade war that is impacting the business. The price of fuel is another factor. “It’s a process where we distill this year, planning for 10, 15, 20 years out,” said MacLean. “The biggest issue we have this month would be the price of diesel. We run a diesel-steam boiler, and the price of diesel right now is double what it was last year. And we use a lot of diesel. When we're operational, it ends up on a cost basis on our alcohol. We have to plan out. If we're going to distill this week, ten years from now, our cost basis on our alcohol is increased 30 or 40 per cent.”

                And it’s not just impacting Canadian distilleries. Diageo, the world’s largest producer of spirits, has 18 distilleries in Scotland. “Diageo has stopped production at three distilleries they own in Scotland,” said MacLean. “They're looking at other layoffs at their bottling plants, and its not just because of diesel. It’s the Iran war. It’s the Ukraine war. It’s the general economy of rising inflation and people having to choose – do they buy food and heat, or do they look at discretionary spending on the premium bottle of whisky? There's a whole rationalization going on in the whisky world, and we're one very small spoke in this huge wheel that's out there. Our team at Glenora is working diligently, and we plan to monitor week by week. We don’t expect layoffs immediately, but certainly no new hirings, and whether we distill as much as we had planned for this season – that’s up in the air.”

                At the moment, it doesn’t look like there are any particular provincial programs they can access to get through the tough times. Rather, they are hoping the federal government can make a difference by lowering their excise tax. “Of the G7 countries, Canada is the only country that does not give a break to craft alcohol producers,” said MacLean.

                He explained the current situation in the United States, where the excise tax was reduced from $52 to $2 for a case of spirits by craft producers. As producers in the United States are direct competitors of Canadian producers, this puts Canada at a competitive disadvantage in the global spirits market. “In Canada,” said MacLean, “there's been zero assistance, federal government-wise. We've been asking them and saying all we want is to be treated on a more fair basis because it allows all of these distilleries in the United States, and around the world, to compete in a much more aggressive fashion in regards to how they look at sales locally, but also exporting, because they can save money production-wise, and get new markets.”

                While MacLean isn’t happy with how the federal government is handling this aspect of the issue, he supports their handling of the trade talks with the US. “We’re 100 per cent behind our government in regards to saying ‘no’ to a trade deal that is wrong for Canada in the long run,” said MacLean, “but there are segments they're missing, and we believe this is one of them.”

                In the meantime, MacLean encourages the “elbows up” attitude. “Buy Canadian. Buy Nova Scotia,” he said.

                And if you can afford it, consider buying that whisky lover on your Christmas list a premium bottle from your local distillery.

Chéticamp Martial Arts youth competitors who took part in the first Cabot Trail Classic jiu jitsu tournament included: Riley Forsyth, Ash MacDonald, Noah Doherty, Landyn Fortune, Riley Forsyth, Gunnar Roache, Jack MacKinnon, Grayson Doherty, Ivy MacDonald. Missing from the photo: Connor Larade and Henry Halley.

-by Bill Dunphy

Sixty-five jiu jitsu competitors from across Nova Scotia descended on the Cabot Trail Arena in Chéticamp this past Saturday to take part in the first Cabot Trail Classic.

                Hosted by Chéticamp Martial Arts, organizers Crystal and Joe Doherty said the event went off without a hitch and they will do it again next year.

                “It went really well and our students did great,” said Joe on Monday. “It’s a family-friendly event and we had 12 kids and 6-8 adults from our club competing.”

                The event drew competitors from Halifax, Sydney, Truro and Port Hawkesbury, with more than 200 people attending the event.

                Along with the various weight classes and belt colours, the participants competed in both ‘gi’ (loose-fitting uniforms) and ‘no-gi’ (tighter fightwear).

                Joe said Brazilian jiu jitsu is one of the more effective forms of martial arts. It is based on grappling, ground fighting, and submission holds. It is primarily a ground-based fighting style and involves taking one’s opponent down to the ground, gaining a dominant position, and then using a number of techniques to force them into submission such as joint locks, chokeholds, or compression locks.

                Judges will also assign points to determine a winner.

                “Unlike muay thai (which is also taught at Chéticamp Martial Arts) which is primarily kicking and striking, once you are on the ground you eliminate those attacks.”

                Crystal is from Chéticamp, and Joe arrived in the community two years ago from Ottawa.

                Rather than travel with their two sons to Sydney to train, they decided to form their own club. That first year they had 40 people sign up from Chéticamp and area, the Margarees, as well as Inverness, Lake Ainslie, and Mabou.

                Because of its growth, the club had to move from its original space in Chéticamp to the former credit union building in Lemoine.

                “We have members who range from age three to 70,” said Joe. “Training is based on the age and skill level of the athlete.”

                You can arrange a free trial by going to the website and filling out the application form. The website is at: cheticampmartialarts.com.

                The following are the results of Saturday’s tournament:

                Kids Gi/Boys/U8/-53 lbs.:1. Jack Gilbert, Halifax; 2. Connor Larade, Chéticamp Martial Arts (CMA).

                Kids Gi/Boys/U10/-60 lbs.: 1. Grayson Doherty, CMA; 2. Laughlin Bourgeois-Best, Integrity Martial Arts (IMA).

                Kids Gi/Boys/U10/-80 lbs.: 1. Rhett Blaauwendraat, Marmac Athletics; 2. Noah Doherty, CMA.

                Kids Gi/Boys/U14/+93 lbs.: 1. Clark White (IMA); 2. Landyn Fortune, CMA; 3. Henry Halley.

                Kids Gi/Boys/U16/-144 lbs.: 1. Liam Hiltz, Marmac; 2. Ash MacDonald, CMA.

                Kids Gi/U8/+78 lbs.: 1. Ivy MacDonald, CMA; 2. Gunnar Roache, CMA; 3. Jack MacKinnon, CMA.

                Kids Gi/U10/-67 lbs.: 1. Presley Myers, Marmac; 2. Mia King, Marmac; 3. Quinn Forsyth, CMA.

                Kids Gi/Girls/U12/-96 lbs.: 1. Riley Forsyth, CMA; 2. Peyton Burton, Marmac.

                Kids Gi/Girls/U16/-144 lbs.: 1. Maci Rodler, Marmac; 2. Isla MacNeil, Grant’s Martial Arts Academy (GMAA); 3. Kyla Hiltz, Marmac.

                Kids No-Gi/ Boys/ U10/ +93 lbs.: 1. Simon Bennett, (WHMA); 2. Henry Halley.

                Kids No-Gi/ Boys/ U10/ -80 lbs.: 1. Rhett Blaauwendraat, Marmac; 2. Noah Doherty, CMA.

                Kids No-Gi/ Boys/ U12/ -113 lbs.: 1. Landyn Fortune, CMA; 2. Shepherd Bennett, WHMA.

                Kids No-Gi/ Boys/ U14/ -97 lbs.: 1. Clark White, IMA; 2. Landyn Fortune, CMA.

                Kids No-Gi/ Boys/ U16/ -144 lbs.: 1. Liam Hiltz, Marmac; 2. Ash MacDonald, CMA.

                Kids No-Gi U8/-93 lbs. 1. Ivy MacDonald, CMA; 2. Gunnar Roache, CMA; 3. Jack MacKinnon, CMA.

                Kids No-Gi/U10/ -67 lbs.: 1. Grayson Doherty, CMA; 2. Mia King, Marmac; 3. Presley Myers, Marmac .

                Kids No-Gi/ Girls/ U12/ -96 lbs. : 1. Riley Forsyth, CMA; 2. Peyton Burton, Marmac.

                Kids No-Gi/ Girls/ U16/ -144 lbs.: 1. Isla MacNeil, GMAA; 2. Maci Rodler, Marmac; 3. Kyla Hiltz, Marmac.

                Male NoGi/ Beginner/ Adult/ -149 lbs: 1. Carlin MacVicar, WHMA; 2. Jeremy Pentecost, IMA.

                Male NoGi/ Beginner/ Adult/ -176 lbs.: 1. Isaiah Cole, Halifax.

                Male NoGi/ Beginner/ Adult/ -202 lbs.: 1. John MacDougall, CMA; 2. Joseph Dixon, CMA; 3. Gordon Jewers, WHMA.

                Male NoGi/ Intermediate (2-4 years)/ Adult/ -176 lbs.: 1. Morey King, Halifax; 2. Adam MacDonald, CMA.

                Female NoGi/ Beginner/ Master (30+)/ -147 lbs.: 1. Robyn Estabrooks, WHMA; 2. Emery Ferraro, CMA.

                Male Gi/ Adult/ -176 lbs.: 1. Morey King, Halifax; 2. Adam MacDonald, CMA.