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"The stench of stagnant beer and third world party atmosphere," is the line with which Moncton's Olivier Jarda leads off his first solo album, Diagrams, as drums kick in over an elegant guitar. The strangely poetic image is the match that ignites the torch carried by Jarda through the rest of the album as he paints a landscape that sprawls from the beaches of his parents' native Haiti to the shores of New Brunswick's nuclear energy plant at Point Lepreau.

Dramatic growth in Saint John, and indeed the entire province, is no longer just a prediction. It's real, and it's happening now. Thousands are bracing for the impacts of the energy boom, while policy makers, government officials and private companies try to anticipate the growing pains. Members of Benefits Blueprint, a broad-based community initiative, say that boom will create 33,000 jobs and inject more than $44 billion into the provincial economy.

Rob Hennigar got his birthday gift late this year. The fourth year UNB hockey player turned 25 April 4 and four days later celebrated another milestone: his first NHL contract. The New York Islanders beat out a reported eight other teams for the services of UNB's all-time scoring leader and then flew him to New York for his medical exam. "It was pretty surreal. Here I was in New York sitting in the GM's office of an NHL rink," Hennigar said.