Muhammad Ali and Doctor Dopamine: Parkinson’s Laughter Champions
The first nudge came from Harry Robertson’s wife Liz Townsend when she and Dorothy realized that they were both Master of Adult Education (MAdEd) graduates at St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) in the 1980s and that Dr. Teresa MacNeil was their faculty advisor. But the adult education connection did not register until June 2026 when […]
Food and Genocide
by Dorothy Lander One hundred and seventy civilians, mostly schoolchildren, in southern Iran will never eat another morsel of food. The deadly bombing of a primary school in Minab in southern Iran by the United States Military Tomahawk missiles—twice so no accident— on February 28, 2026, swept me back to our Antigonish-based book launch this […]
Death Cafés
NOTE: This piece was researched and written by a very alive human (John Graham-Pole), not by ai robot. A year ago, we launched our local Death Café here in Antigonish, and we’ve been meeting every month ever since. Up to twenty of us come together, and recently we’ve been talking about capping our numbers because […]
Healing Words
by John Graham-Pole I’ve been reflecting on words I rarely heard during my fifty-plus years of medical practice. Words I was especially drawn to in later years, when making rounds, when writing chart notes, especially when listening and responding to my patients and their families. These are some of the words I’m thinking of: purpose, […]
Imagination and Health
Artmaking always uses imagination, that magical quality which seems to single us humans out as unique from every other living being.
Surviving and Thriving with Polio: Sally’s Story
Sally MacKay’s heartfelt, courageous, and often humorous book traces her life as a young girl stricken with poliomyelitis in the late 1940s, before the availability of immunization. Sally speaks of her almost lifelong affliction with polio as being both an adversary and a companion, which defined her life path and molded her character. A life […]
The Idea of a University BRAND

Universities across the country are buzzing with the return to campus of professors, varsity teams and residence life staff preparing for the start of another academic year and welcoming first year students. Every university has a unique brand but this marketing language is relatively new. Branding the university coincides with the devastating underfunding of universities […]
Creating a Bee and Butterfly Garden

Another world is not only possible. She is on her way. On aquiet day I can hear her breathing. – Arundhati Roy There’s a good reason why “Think global, act local” is a popular idea: it’s the only possible way for us as individuals to counter our climate crisis. And for us as a human […]
Indigenous Cultural Practices: Learning to Live with Fire

Cultural Burns by Koren Smoke, Michi Saagiig Anishinaabe Kwe, Alderville First Nation, Illustrator for ReReading Catharine Parr Traill: Stranging the Familiar (2022) by Dorothy Lander https://tryhealingarts.ca/product/book-rereading-cpt/ Posted by Dorothy Lander, co-publisher HARP the People’s Press: H-ealing A-rts R-econciling P-eoples I listened to Sunday Magazine on CBC radio with host Piya Chattopadhyay in conversation with environmental […]
Two Photos Mark a Century of Health Innovation, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

What a difference a century makes! Meet the two men at the centre of the two photos illustrating support for innovation in health: William S. Archibald, the official photographer for the 1924 Antigonish Highland Games fundraiser for St. Martha’s Hospital, which raised $8000 – alumnus of St. Francis Xavier University, engineer, star figure skater, yachtsman […]