Compass

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/01/2003 (8548 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Snakes of Narcisse focus of MSOS tour

The snakes of Narcisse are a popular Manitoba attraction. Each spring tens of thousands of red-side garter snakes emerge from their dens and gather in large numbers near the Interlake community and begin their annual mating ritual.

The Manitoba Society of Seniors Inc. is planning an excursion to Narcisse on May 7 to witness the spectacle. Lunch will be served at The Tea Room in Teulon. The cost is $40 for MSOS members, $45 for non-members, and includes motor coach transportation from Winnipeg and the lunch.

The MSOS is also planning a three-day excursion to Casino Regina and the Manitou Springs Mineral Spa at Watrous, Sask. April 7 to 10. The cost is $410 per person, double occupancy, and includes three nights accommodation and motor coach transportation from Winnipeg. There is a $50 discount for MSOS members.

For information and reservations, call the MSOS at 942-3147 or toll-free outside Winnipeg at 1-800-561-6767.

See www.msos.mb.ca

Italian mosaics

on display at the ROM

An exhibition of 40 contemporary Italian mosaics is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto until March 16.

The mosaics come from the Friuli School of Mosaic Art in Spilimbergo, in northeast Italy. The exhibit also includes 12 historic pieces from the ROM’s permanent collections. And elsewhere in the museum, visitors can see early examples of mosaic art in the Imperial Rome gallery and the Byzantine gallery.

Mosaicists from the Friuli School will create two mosaics in the exhibition space over a period of three months starting in January.

See www.rom.on.ca

Vancouver celebrates

lunar New Year

The Sunbrite Lunar New Year Festival in Vancouver, billed as the largest such event outside China, will include Chinese opera, traditional lion dances, kung-fu performances and fashion and pop music shows.

The four-day annual event Jan. 30 to Feb. 2 at Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver drew 132,000 visitors last year.

Admission to the festival is $4 for adults, and $2 for children and seniors.

See www.sunbritefestival.com

Exhibits mark architect’s birth

The 250th anniversary of the birth of architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837) will be marked in London this year with a variety of exhibitions and celebrations.

The celebrations coincide with improvements at the museum that houses his art collection of Hogarths, Canalettos and Turners. Sir John Soane’s Museum, at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, also contains an array of antiquities such as the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti I, one of the finest pieces of its kind outside Egypt.

Projects include the restoration of 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, designed by Soane in 1824 and set to open in 2004, and the restoration of three museum courtyards.

The museum is open from Tuesday to Saturday; admission is free.

See www.soane.org

Titanic exhibit heading to Detroit

One of the world’s most famous sunken ships is expected to bring a record number of visitors to the Detroit Science Center. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit will be on display Feb. 8 to Sept. 7.

Officials hope it will attract more than 350,000 visitors, slightly more than the centre’s projected attendance for all of 2002, the Detroit Free Press reports.

“This provides a big ‘wow’ factor that gives people around the region a reason to look at what’s going on here,” said science centre president Shawn Kahle. “The crossover appeal reaches people who might not be interested in science, but are captivated by the Titanic story.”

If attendance reaches expected levels, the centre could make $1.5 million, which is about 25 per cent of its annual budget.

The Titanic exhibit features 250 pieces salvaged from the ship along with personal belongings of passengers on the doomed April 1912 voyage.

The touring exhibit has drawn more than nine million people to shows around the world since opening in Toronto in 1998.

See www.detroitscience.org

Campaign to save Dutch hex signs

A group in Berks County in Pennsylvania is working to restore hex signs, the decorative stars commonly seen on Pennsylvania Dutch barns that preservationists say are rapidly vanishing.

“These old barns are getting torn down, or the owners can’t afford to get the hex signs repainted, so they are slowly vanishing,” says David Fooks, executive director of the Kutztown Pennsylvania German Festival in Reading, Pa., and director of the Pennsylvania German Heritage Centre at Kutztown University.

The signs were first used on barns in the 19th century. There has been debate over whether they carried a superstitious meaning to protect barns and farm animals from disease or evil spirits.

Fooks has joined with master hex-sign painter Eric A. Claypoole and others to locate and repaint Berks County’s fading signs.

“I consider Eric somewhat of a local treasure because I think he is the only artist left who will go up on a barn and paint,” Fooks says.

Fooks says Claypoole has begun restoring the hex signs using funds contributed by the festival, the heritage centre, the Berks County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Dutch Hex Tour Association.

“It’s the No. 1 attraction in Berks County,” Fooks said. “We can’t just let it fade away.”

Macon tries to end same-name streets

Ask for directions to First Avenue in Macon and you might get four different answers.

The maps of the Georgia city show four separate First Avenues, and they’re not the only duplicated street names. There are three Wilson Streets and a couple of Cordele Avenues.

In all, 95 streets in Macon share 42 names — meaning the city map is littered with same-name streets that can confuse out-of-towners and slow down emergency workers.

To eliminate the confusion, Councilman James Timley is drafting a plan to change some street names.

“What’s happening is that the emergency responders are having some trouble because of the same street names,” Timley says. “We just don’t need that to happen because it could be a life-or-death situation.”

Under Timley’s plan, the city would simply add direction designations to most of the same-name streets.

For example, the two Cordele Avenues are about six kilometres apart. One would keep its name, but the other would change to Cordele Avenue East.

But at least four streets will need to be completely renamed. C Street, Jackson Street, Second Avenue and Third Avenue, all near the airport, will be renamed so travellers are not confused.

— Compass is compiled by Paul Pihichyn from press releases, wire service reports and personal contacts. Fax 204-697-7412; e-mail paul.pihichyn@freepress.mb.ca

PHOTO