It was code-named Operation Fish, an audacious, top-secret World War II scheme to spirit Britain’s entire gold reserves across the U-boat-infested North Atlantic to Canada to keep them from falling into the hands of the Nazis. It would become the largest transfer of physical wealth in history, worth more than $200 billion today. If it […]
Bill Mont, who died on October 28, 2025, at the age of 96, was one of Halifax’s legendary characters. He would become best known as Nova Scotia’s “Flea Market King” during the 1970s and 1980s. But he was also one of the “characters” who helped me bring to life everyday life in Halifax during World […]
In the 1990s, I wrote a weekly series for the Halifax Daily News, profiling interesting individuals in the community. In May 1995, I wrote this profile of Donald Oliver. Senator Oliver died last week—September 17, 2025—at the age of 86. Later this morning, Senator Donald H. Oliver, Q.C., will deliver the annual Barton Lecture […]
I first met Harry Bruce one morning in 1971 in the offices of The 4th Estate newspaper. Harry had recently moved to Halifax from Toronto and stopped in to say hello to its editor, Nick Fillmore. I was a young freelancer who’d just dropped off an article I hoped Nick would buy. Nick introduced us. […]
- 08/19/2024
- StephenKimber
- 10 Comments
The Phelan Feud: The Bitter Struggle for Control of a Great Canadian Food Empire by Stephen Kimber will be released on June 6, 2024, by Barlow Books. It is now available for pre-order. Award-winning journalist Stephen Kimber takes readers behind the scenes of an epic family feud inside the Phelan clan—one of Canada’s wealthiest families—who […]
Stephen Kimber was among five Nova Scotians named to the Order of Nova Scotia, the province’s highest honour, during a ceremony at Government House on November 9, 2023. The citation: As the author of two novels and eleven non-fiction works, Stephen Kimber is a distinguished writer, journalist and educator. In the academic realm, he served […]
- 05/13/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
For more than 40 years, I’ve been writing about the Halifax Chronicle Herald, its predecessors and successors—including its oddly-named and ill-fated recent owner, Saltwire. In 1981, in the aftermath of a failed attempt to unionize the newsroom, I wrote this feature about the paper and its role in Nova Scotia life and politics. That story’s […]
- 03/13/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
In 1978, when I was a young freelance magazine writer, Financial Post Magazine assigned me to profile Brian Mulroney. Two years earlier, Mulroney had lost his bid to lead Canada’s Progressive Conservative Party to Joe Clark and had then taken a very different job as president of Iron Ore Canada. Financial Post editors wanted me […]
- 03/01/2024
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
Our columnist says he’s had a great run, and some days he wants to continue doing this forever. But it’s time. For more years than I care to count, I have been professionally — and often personally — “shocked and appalled” on a regular basis about the goings on going on in our world. Luckily, […]
- 02/18/2024
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
An internal working group of bureaucrats who benefit from “a culture of disregard for access and privacy laws” are reviewing Nova Scotia’s freedom of information system. What can go wrong? Tricia Ralph is Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, the person best positioned to know what’s wrong with our failed and flailing freedom of information system […]
- 02/10/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
THE LATEST COMMENTS