I’m not going to reveal who has been picked, but the public in Nova Scotia will begin to find out early in 2017. In fact, they will be urged to vote.

For the past few months, I have been happily working on two projects, one of which I allude to in this note. That task was for the Nova Scotia Museum, with my role being to research and write short biographies on a wide range of people who did something significant to change or inspire Nova Scotia in the period from Confederation to today. We ended up with sixteen decades from the 1860s to the 2010s. The challenge was to select three individuals from each decade (hence 48 in total). There was an advisory committee who weighed in, and we all agreed the target should be to have approximately 50% women and 50% men. We also agreed that we would stay away from politicians (with two exceptions) and major celebrities. Instead, our focus was on individuals with fascinating stories who overcame barriers or handicaps and went on to achieve and inspire.

The NS Museum will begin the reveal sometime in January, one decade at a time. People will be asked to vote online for one of two choices per decade. The third will already have been slotted into the exhibit to come by Museum staff. Then before summer, there will be an exhibit presenting the final 32 individuals, plus two theme banners on the First and Second World Wars.