🗞️ The cold truth

Happy Friday Halifax,

When I was 8 years old, all of the neighbourhood kids and I dedicated our entire summer to digging a massive hole in one of our backyards. We would pack lunches and start bright and early every day, with our eyes on the prize: digging to China. Obvi. 

The reason I tell you this is twofold. One, to show what we did for fun before social media and two, because the backyard in question now belongs to Coast editor and co-founder Kyle Shaw, which feels very full circle.

Experts and psychologists have joined forces with a clear message for parents: smartphones are not good for kids. An advocacy group called Unplugged Canada—inspired by similar movements around the world, like Wait Until 8th in the United States and Smartphone Free Childhood in the United Kingdom—is urging parents across the country to pledge to delay giving their children a smartphone until high school. 

Advocates and experts argue that smartphones are particularly problematic because of their accessibility—it's right there in your pocket, often spurring compulsive and addictive behaviours driven largely by social media and, ultimately, negatively impacting a kid’s mental health.

Interestingly, there’s a physical toll to pay too. Extended screen time can cause bad habits, like slouching and leaning forward, which can increase the chance of problems like scoliosis. 

I’m not sure whether digging a hole is better for one’s spine than staring at a phone, but surely there’s a happy medium in there somewhere.

Look up from your phone and have a safe and restful weekend,

– Julie

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌤️ -2°

Tomorrow: ☁️ 1°

Next Day: 🌧️ -7°

7-day forecast

🚗 Driving, biking or busing today? Check out the current traffic conditions and ongoing road closures.

ENVIRONMENT

 The cold truth about warmer Halifax winters

If you’ve ever thought to yourself that Halifax’s winters aren’t what they used to be, now there’s data to prove your suspicions correct.

According to a recent report from Climate Central, a US-based nonprofit group of climate scientists and researchers, Halifax has lost eight winter days of freezing temperatures annually due to climate change since 2014. (That amount of warming is the third-most of any provincial capital, after Toronto and Victoria.)

And those warmer winters—while easier on the heating bill—come with a raft of knock-on effects, from a greater risk of tick-borne diseases, to toxic blooms in Nova Scotia’s watershed, to increasing threats of spring and summer forest fires. Which raises the questions, as The Coast’s Martin Bauman reports: What’s next? And is it too late to change?

🤔 Need To Know

🚔 Amid a tragic stretch of violence against women in Nova Scotia, a top officer with the provincial RCMP says they are focused on finding solutions.

🇨🇦 The premier says the country needs to stand united in the face of tariff threats from the incoming US administration—Tim Houston was in Ottawa on Wednesday alongside his premier peers and the prime minister to discuss a nationwide response to the 25% tariffs floated by president-elect Donald Trump.

🎨 Support4Culture is dedicated to supporting important cultural events in Nova Scotia. Visit Facebook and Instagram for more.*

🍫 A chocolate bar sold by the Swiss company Milka has been recalled across Canada for containing undeclared hazelnuts, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

🤓 The Pint, Argyle Street has the best trivia night in Halifax! Tuesdays from 8pm, food and drink specials all night. Book your winning team in now.*

🌡️ Last year was the warmest year on record for planet Earth—six climate agencies around the world have confirmed that the planet experienced temperatures near 1.55°C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) average in 2024, breaking the previous record held by 2023.

*Sponsored Post

VISUAL ARTS

50 years of Dawn MacNutt in MSVU show

“In those trancelike moments, I wondered at the personal nature of perception,” writes Nova Scotian artist Dawn MacNutt, about being transfixed by light through her grandmother’s stained glass window, in a new memoir and exhibition catalogue, Timeless Forms.

Her book coincides with the artist's sprawling retrospective show by the same name at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, which opens Saturday, Jan 18 and runs until Apr 12. The show follows MacNutt’s experimental dialogue with materials and dimensions since 1975, from traditional, flat loom work to sculptural weaving of fine silver and copper, to upright off-loom weaving of locally sourced willow in the grass outside her house, and sculptures cast into bronze. Sketches for this latest work, “Muse,” from 2023, are the most recent pieces in the show.

MacNutt’s woven sculptures stretch, twist, pull, bind and release recognizable human forms and postures—many inspired by witnessed or personal experiences of joy, suffering and loss—into movements of tension and yearning that invite you in.

“My pieces, or really, the passion is generated by feeling more than materials,” MacNutt tells The Coast. “But then materials dictate, and they help, because I don't want them to be reminiscent of just one thing or one person, but rather a feeling about that experience or that person that other people can adapt—or not.”

The Coast’s Lauren Phillips has more on MacNutt’s first retrospective before it opens tomorrow.

🗞️ In Other News

🌿 New research suggests that students who participate in two mental health workshops in their first year of high school develop fewer substance abuse disorders by the time they graduate, compared to students who didn’t attend the sessions.

🥀 Community members are rallying in support of a Halifax-area family after a devastating house fire claimed the lives of three children.

🛬 The Transportation Safety Board has provided more information about what went wrong with an Air Canada flight upon arrival in Halifax from St. John's on Dec. 28.

🚨 A 32-year-old man is facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of a fellow patient at the East Coast Forensic Hospital in May. Mohamed Issak was initially charged with aggravated assault and remanded back to the facility; the attack victim later died of his injuries.

🏢 Thirty-two residents of a long-term care home in New Glasgow were evacuated earlier this week after a water main break in the basement of the facility caused significant flooding in one of the units.

🗓️ Things To Do

Looking for something to do this week? Check out these Coast picks:

🗓Controlled Damage Presented by Neptune Theatre: Controlled Damage explores the life of Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond. Her courageous act in a Nova Scotia movie theatre in 1946 sparked a ripple effect that still resonates today. Viola Desmond was an ordinary woman thrust into extraordinary circumstances by an unyielding and racist world. Despite the personal cost to herself and her loved ones, she never gave up. | Jan 14-Feb 12 | From $33

🗓Exhibition—Dinosaur Explorer at Discovery Centre: Step back in time and explore the incredible world of dinosaurs like never before. Come to this weekend’s opening for a roaring-good time of discovery, learning and, of course, play! PLUS on Sunday there’s a Dinosaur March throughout the centre! Wear your favourite dinosaur attire and join in on the prehistoric walk. | Opening Jan 18 and 19 | $14.50

🗓Halifax Cocktail Festival: Hosted at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel, the Halifax Cocktail Festival is a two-session event where you’ll get to enjoy delicious cocktails made by many of Nova Scotia’s top mixologists. | Jan 18

🗓Halifax Thunderbirds Lacrosse: Come cheer on the home team as they take on the Rochester Knighthawks at the Scotiabank Centre. | Jan 18 | 7pm | From $26.25

Have an event to share? Let us know at [email protected].

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

🚢 The Zim Asia container ship arrives in Halifax from New York at 5:20am.

➡️ The Orinoco container ship leaves Halifax for Mariel at 8am.

🚢 The Gotland general cargo ship arrives in Halifax from Villagarcia at 3:30pm.

➡️ The Nolhan Ava container ship leaves Halifax for Argentia at 4:30pm.

➡️ The Oceanex Sanderling container ship leaves Halifax for St. John’s at 6pm.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🤌 There’s another delicious feature coming your way at Dilly Dally on Quinpool: Duck confit farfalle with cream sauce and parmesan.

🐟 Crunch into perfection with the Fish Croquettes at Agrocola Street Brasserie: crispy salt cod, tangy caper remoulade, chili oil, fresh parsley.

👀 In Case You Missed It

🏛️ Asphalt insolvency, bright ideas for parks, unsatisfied citizens and so much more. Matt Stickland brings you everything you need to know about Halifax council’s January 14 meeting.

💜 On January 9, the provincial government announced a new public awareness advertising campaign to combat gender-based violence. It does a good job of trying to dispel the myth that not all abuse includes physical violence or leaves marks that people can see. The problem though, according to advocates—and as The Coast’s Julie Lawrence dives into—is that the campaign doesn’t target the audience that it should: men who are engaging in abusive behaviour.

That’s it!

Thanks for reading The Coast Daily today.

If you found something useful, consider forwarding this newsletter to another Haligonian.

And before you go, let us know: