Melanie Jackson - Creative Works

By Melanie Jackson msjacksonpei@gmail.com There’s a piece of artwork that stands out in Nora MacLeod’s memory. “One time I painted a picture of a rooster. You know with the big tail - all colourful,” said the 92-year-old resident of Colville Manor. “I was proud of that one.” As a child growing up on the Line of Lot Road in Fortune, Mrs MacLeod had very few supplies for expressing her creative side. She owned just a few small bottles of paint and had only one brush to paint with. And anytime she wanted to switch colours she had to wash the brush out. “We didn’t have the things to work with that they’ve got today,” Mrs MacLeod said. Although Mrs MacLeod’s creativity later turned to more practical crafts, such as knitting mittens and afghans, she had the opportunity to renew her interest in painting this past January when she was introduced to the LEAP program. The Learning Elders Arts Program gives seniors the chance to learn various arts and crafts under the guidance of...

By Melanie Jackson msjacksonpei@gmail.com There’s an experience many people from PEI share simply because they live in Canada’s smallest province, cradled between the Gulf of St Lawrence and Northumberland Strait. At some time in their lives, most Islanders have taken the ferry to travel to the mainland. Whether by way of the ferry, or some other less convenient mode of transport, crossing the Strait has played an important role in the lives of Islanders and northern Nova Scotians. The legacy of that journey will be commemorated next year as part of PEI’s 2014 celebrations with the release of a book entitled ‘Crossing the Strait.’ The story will be told through a series of vintage photographs, archival sources, personal views and anecdotes from people on both sides of the Strait. “It’s a history of the ferry, but not the corporate history,” Marian Bruce, the book’s author, said. Ms Bruce was commissioned by the Wood Islands Area Development Corporation, which received th...