It's an Uphill Race
The site banner is a photo from the wonderful local book Bikers of Halifax by Don Cunningham. It's a photo from the 30's of motorcycle hill climbing races on Citadel Hill. The photo strikes me as very unusual and unlikely. It's just so hard to imagine such a thing being allowed today. Imagine the permits, insurance, rules, and politics involved. And yet the craziest things get green lights.
The idea of using muscle and modern machinery to overcome steep hills is also deeply symbolic.
The crowds are fantastic. There's a sense of adventure here somewhere between picnic in the park and demolition derby. By the standards of the time it wasn't that strange. Just down the road there was a wonderful quarter mile race track where the Almon Street postal station now stands.
It all shows how narrowly bounded, how compressed, our thinking and current ideas really are. One of the things I'll be looking for in the coming weeks is the biggest, most different ideas we hear in this election cycle. I doubt anyone will be calling to bring back hill climbing competitions. But if you hear a really new idea from a candidate please share it with me. jwc@halifaxpolitics.com