Nova Scotia

After a 25-hour auto journey from Halifax with few pit stops, a team of 11 amateur boxers from Nova Scotia will battle Baltimore-area boxers at Teamsters Hall tonight.Trained by former Canadian Olympic coach Taylor Jordan, the Nova Scotia team features fighters from 85-pounder Andy Askri to super-heavyweight David Defiagbon."Most of the kids here are being groomed for the 2000 Olympics," said Jordan. "We've got some promising fighters who just need to betested."Defiagbon, 24, has the most experience and best chance to win an Olympic berth.

Peter Bondra , who scored 503 NHL goals, will participate in a question-and-answer session and sign autographs at a free Washington Capitals pre-playoff party at ESPN Zone in Baltimore on Wednesday at at 8 p.m. Capitals broadcaster Steve Kolbe will be the emcee, and the team's mascot, Slapshot, will be on hand. Pro basketball: Maryland GreenHawks center Michael Anderson and guard Scooter Sherrill were voted to the Premier Basketball League West All-Star team for the game May 2 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Basketball fans at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia have never seen anyone quite like Brian Parker.A former Atholton High and Howard Community College star, Parker is the shortest player on the team at 5 feet 10. Yet he is showing Atlantic Canadians a style of basketball no one else in the region can duplicate.A point guard, Parker is dazzling opponents as well as fans with his up-tempo, change-of-pace, run-right-by-you style.Dalhousie's leading scorer (18.4 ppg), Parker has hit 20 points in each of the past five games, including 30 against Acadia.

Oilers goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin will have surgery Thursday to repair a herniated disc in his back and is expected to be out 12 weeks. The Oilers didn't provide a timeline for his return, saying Wednesday that he's "out indefinitely," but Khabibulin's agent, Jay Grossman , said the goalie will need 12 weeks to recover. Khabibulin, who signed a $15 million, four-year contract over the summer, hasn't played since Nov. 16. He's 7-9-2 with a 3.03 goals-against average.

Crew members from the Upper Marlboro office of Oceaneering Technologies Inc. arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, yesterday to help in the recovery of wreckage from Swissair Flight 111.The company, based in Houston with a 150-person staff in Maryland, is under contract with the U.S. Navy to operate military-owned equipment that investigators use to gather evidence from the crash site.Chris Klentzman, manager of government operations, said the company shipped its Deep Drone remotely operated vehicle to the site, which, unlike human divers, can spend days underwater.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - Baltimore's touring Liberty ship, the S.S. John W. Brown, has completed more than 90 percent of its 108-day voyage to the Great Lakes and back and is due home next week. The 58-year-old steamship, sailing with 14,000 new rivets below the waterline, tied up here at 7:30 a.m. yesterday for a three-day open house, its last stop before its homecoming, scheduled for about midday Wednesday. "The cruise has been very successful. The crew is performing beyond expectations," said Capt.

Most mayors only polish the keys to the city for high rollers, movie stars and other celebrities.Not Moira Ducharne. The Mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mrs. Ducharne spends an hour on summer weekday afternoons greeting everyday visitors in her lavish Victorian city hall. She offers tea and cookies and a warm handshake. It's a bit of old-fashioned hospitality from this town of 115,000, whose front door greets the Atlantic and whose back door swings out on North America.It's one of the first places sunlight falls on Canada.

I don't know who Peggy is, but they sure named a pretty spit of land after her.Picture a lighthouse sitting atop rocks smoothed by centuries of crashing waves. Peggy's Cove raises that scene to a splendid level. Call it a 10 on a rating for picturesque postcards, maybe an 11.That kind of beauty draws thousands of visitors to this wondrous pile of stone just 45 minutes from Halifax, making it Nova Scotia's top tourist attraction.Somehow, though, the presence of so many people doesn't seem to detract from the superb scenic quality of the place.

In Nova Scotia, even the best-oriented travelers will encounter moments where they completely lose their bearings. After all, where else on the Eastern Seaboard does one find oneself marching along a coastline overlooking what appears to be the ocean -- and facing west? In some cases, the sense of dislocation is more than just geographic. The visitor to Nova Scotia happens upon places of such isolated splendor that it is difficult to believe that one is still tethered to the land mass of North America, a mere 90-minute flight from Boston, and has not, in fact, passed over into some Nordic fantasy land.

Sometimes the planets just align. We had been wanting an out-of-the-way trip. A wedding invitation came from a dear friend asking us to come to the small town of Baddeck on Cape Breton Island, about four hours' drive north of the already northerly Halifax, Nova Scotia. We mentioned the town to good friends in Washington; they were going up the same week and asked us to stay with them in a cottage just off the tranquil Bras d'Or lake. And old friends from Boston called to say they'd be camping nearby, not far from Ingonish on the Cabot Trail, the same week.

I live in Sunderland, Maryland and traveled to Canada and New England this summer with my family aboard Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas out of Baltimore. Our itinerary included stops in Boston, Portland, Bar Harbor, St. John New Brunswick, and Halifax Nova Scotia. We enjoyed nine nights on the ship and loved seeing all of the different cities. This was our third cruise with Royal Caribbean. This picture was taken in Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia, Canada. Peggy's Cove was a wild, beautiful place.

There are some items that even small families or couples might consider buying in bulk, provided they have some storage space. It always makes sense to buy the stuff that takes up a lot of real estate in the grocery cart: toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, napkins. If you are a young parent, add diapers and juice boxes to this list. If you are older, add oatmeal. It's the only thing you're allowed to eat in large quantities. Something that I don't recommend buying in bulk is Nova Scotia lox. I don't really know what possessed me to pick up the package at Costco.

The Rev. Donald Macleod, former professor of preaching and worship at Princeton Theological Seminary who later became minister-in-residence at the Charlestown Retirement Community, died of heart failure Sunday at Oak Crest Village retirement community. He was 94. Dr. Macleod was born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He received his bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Dalhousie University. He received a bachelor's in divinity from Pine Hill Divinity Hall in Halifax and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1938.

All of Canada is a delight in summer and each province of Atlantic Canada -- New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador -- offers something special. Here is a sampling: St. Andrews by-the-Sea, New Brunswick, is one of the most charming towns in Canada. The people are friendly, the shops are unique, and whale watching is a popular activity. The landmark Fairmont Algonquin hotel offers the Bay of Fundy Sea Kayaking Package, which includes a night's accommodation and a three-hour sea kayaking excursion on the bay. The package, valid through Sept.

John M.T. Finney III, a retired Blue Cross and Blue Shield executive who had been active in Boy Scouts, died Sunday of pneumonia at the College Manor nursing home in Lutherville. The former longtime Roland Park resident was 85. Mr. Finney was born in Baltimore and raised on Circle Road in Ruxton. He was the son of Dr. John M.T. Finney Jr., a noted Baltimore surgeon who was a founder of Union Memorial Hospital. He was a 1942 graduate of McDonogh School and attended Princeton University.

It's a workout for dogs and humans alike. In an event called flyball, four-dog relay teams compete in a circuit in which each dog jumps four hurdles, triggers a box that releases a tennis ball, catches the ball and returns over the hurdles. There was plenty of energy in evidence over the weekend at the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, as 41 canine relay teams and their human handlers took part in a two-day flyball tournament sponsored by the No Speed Limit flyball team. There are a couple of flyball teams in Maryland and several more in Virginia and Pennsylvania, said Deborah Besche, an organizer of the No Speed Limit team, which is based out of the Oriole Dog Training Club near Security Mall.

Just in time to ring in the year 2000, a huge bell cast in Baltimore more than 70 years ago finds renewed life Sunday at a historic Anglican Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia.Sadie A. Muir ordered the 1,500-pound bell from the McShane Bell Foundry in 1922 and donated it to Zion Presbyterian Church in the small town of Eureka, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, as a memorial to her family.Still going strong in Glen Burnie, the 143-year-old McShane company is the last large bell foundry in the United States and only one of a half-dozen in the world.

Think of Canada, and vast mountain, valley and ocean vistas flash to mind, punctuated with images of grazing moose, lumbering bear and breaching whales. Often, though, the relationship between travelers and all that great nature is not entirely natural. Glaciers and sea life frequently are viewed from the crowded decks of cruise ships plying the Far West's Inside Passage. The seascapes of Nova Scotia are glimpsed from behind the thick glass of motorcoaches. The majestic Rockies whiz by in a blur outside tourist trains.

An educator for nearly four decades, R. Lorraine Fulton sees her decision to accept a job as an assistant superintendent in Carroll County public schools as a chance to keep learning new things. "If you believe in being a lifelong learner, you want to have new challenges," said Fulton, 59, who has been deputy superintendent for the past nine years in the St. Mary's County public school system. "At this stage in my career, many people would be ready to slow down. But I relish opportunities to face new challenges and achieve the goals I have set for myself."

When it comes to getting an education, high school graduates with the means traditionally think college. But some recent Anne Arundel County graduates are taking very different paths in preparing for their futures. Seventeen-year-old Cal Westergard, a 2005 Annapolis High School graduate, will be packing his bags next month, but he's not heading straight to college. He'll be on his way to Nova Scotia to learn to build boats. Katherine McEvoy, a 2005 Severna Park High School graduate, reports Sept.