New Brunswick - The Drafting Table

NB Budget 2021: Damage Report

When I wrote last year's version of this post, the Coronavirus pandemic was just becoming apparent in North America. Since then, most of us have obviously had our expectations for 2020 disrupted, and public finances were no exception. In this post, I want to

NB Budget 2020: Is Demographics Destiny?

At the time of writing, this budget may or may not pass, due to it being a minority government. Budget approvals are always considered confidence votes, so if it is not approved, expect an election. In any case, I decided to write my annual

Sam Orr's Pond

This past weekend, I went on my first camping trip of 2019. I started off the weekend in the town of St. Andrew's, walking around and looking in a few shops. Just outside the town is the Caughey-Taylor nature preserve. I've previously mentioned wanting

NB Budget 2019 - We've got the power?

I've written an analysis of the New Brunswick provincial budget for the past four years now. As always, my goal is to focus on the facts more than on political commentary. Following the regular look at the budget, this year's post features a deeper

Frostival

Frostival is an annual winter festival in Fredericton. I've gone to some events in it the past several years, but I don't think I've written about it before. One of the events that I was looking forward to (and even got a ticket for)

Outdoor Adventures

A Day Off of Deer Island

The weekend that just passed was the New Brunswick Day long weekend here. As in previous years I wanted to get out and enjoy some of the natural beauty in the province. Deer Island is one of the inhabited islands in the Bay of

A New Twist On Familiar Vistas

Last weekend I visited the Beaverbrook Art Gallery to check out a couple of exhibits. It had just re-opened after being closed due to flooding. First of all, here is what the art gallery looked like at the end of April 2018. The flood

NB Budget 2018 - Getting Educated

As in previous years, I've written the post below to provide a summary of New Brunswick's latest provincial budget, which was released today. I've also chosen to take a closer look at the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development this time. Where Things

Outdoor Adventures

National and Local Parks, 2017

We're approaching the end of another year so it is time to start looking back at 2017. One of my goals for this year (since it is Canada's sesquicentennial anniversary) was to visit a few National Parks. I also had the privilege of spending

Fresh Canvas

This weekend I went to a couple of art exhibits and I decided to share a bit about them below. On Saturday, I went to Saint John for the day. I got lunch at the City Market, wandered around Uptown for a while, visited

Outdoor Adventures

Mushrooms and Messier Objects

This weekend I went camping in Kouchibouguac National Park with a friend from the West Coast. This was my 2nd time tenting this summer (well, it was technically the beginning of fall). It was a really fantastic weekend—the warm, clear weather certainly didn't

Outdoor Adventures

Chignecto

My apologies for not having any posts for a couple of weeks. Summer is winding down here and I've been trying to make the most of it. This weekend and last weekend, I was at a couple of different spots along the Bay of

Cost of Housing in New Brunswick

In recent times, it has been hard to escape noticing the very expensive cost of housing in Toronto and Vancouver (though it seems to be stabilizing for now). I decided to do a little investigation on the cost of housing in New Brunswick for

Looking for Whales in Charlotte County

I was on vacation for a few days last week and went on a couple of fun day trips with my girlfriend. The (free!) Irving Nature Park in Saint John offers some interesting short hikes through diverse ecosystems. I've mentioned it before, but haven't

Wabanaki

On Saturday, I visited a new exhibit that had opened up at a local museum. I also had to travel to Truro, NS for my job and visited a museum there on Sunday. Note that I have a busy couple of weeks coming up,

Outdoor Adventures

Mactaquac to Morell

On the weekend, I took a kayaking trip down a 20-km stretch of the Saint John River, from near the Mactaquac Fish Hatchery to Morell Park in Fredericton. I stopped at a few islands along the way. This post is mainly photos of the

Henry Ketchum

A week ago, I was privileged to attend a formal dinner; it seemed like a fitting topic to write a post about. When I graduated from UNB, in 2008, I won the Ketchum medal (awarded to the top graduating student in Civil Engineering). Every

Watermark Sculpture

This post is about flooding, along with some thoughts on public art installations. I made a timelapse .gif of a sculpture along the Saint John River in Fredericton that was designed to show the water level. Watermark by Gerald Beaulieu is a public art

Flooded Forests

This weekend, I got my kayak out from winter storage and paddled around the mouth of the Nashwaak River. Around a month and a half ago, I was snowshoeing, but now the weather has warmed up enough to get out on the water. Because

NB Budget 2017 - Looking Local

As I did the past two years, I went through the New Brunswick provincial budget document that was released today and have some context and analysis to share. In order to keep this tradition useful, I decided to focus a bit closer on one

A Day in the Bay

For this week's post I made a .gif showing how the water level in the Bay of Fundy changes with the tides over the course of a day. The data came from the Fisheries and Oceans Canada tide predictions; zones 30, 31, and 32

The Last Long Weekend of Summer 2016

Long weekends are a good time to get out and explore. This past weekend, I managed to get out biking, hiking, and kayaking (a different activity each day!) in places I hadn't been before. I went biking on Saturday along a section of trail

The Red Rocks of St. Martin's

This weekend, I went on a short sea kayaking tour in the Bay of Fundy. Red Rock Adventure in St. Martin's, New Brunswick, offers sea kayaking tours and other outdoor adventures. It's a great spot to get out on the water as it has

Portobello Creek

Quite a bit closer to home than what I've been writing about recently, this post is about some kayaking I did last weekend. I went out to French Lake and Portobello Creek. The launch point I used was by the bridge over the throughfare