Passing of Backlands Advocate Alan Ruffman 28Dec2022

Alan Ruffman, a marine geologist well known to the environmental community in the Halifax area and a regular participant in public hearings related to the Backlands, passed away on Dec 28, 2022. Some extracts from A legacy of community activism: Alan Ruffman dies at 82 by Vernon Ramesar · CBC News Dec 31, 2022:

Ruffman was a marine geologist by training and president of the Halifax consulting firm Geomarine Associates, but he had a broad range of interests…Ruffman helped bring a growing national movement for sensible planning to Halifax, [Howard] Epstein said…Epstein said Ruffman was around 50 years ago at the start of the Ecology Action Centre and he and others identified sustainable energy issues as being critical in municipal decision-making.

The passion around development and planning was still evident in Ruffman until quite recently, Epstein said.

…It was [his]  love of knowledge that brought Ruffman into the public eye in 2002 when he worked with DNA expert Ryan Parr to discover the identity of a child buried in Halifax who died in the sinking of the Titanic. In 2013, Ruffman wrote the book Titanic Remembered: The Unsinkable Ship.

Ruffman, originally from Ontario, died in his sleep at his Halifax home on Dec. 28, according to his wife, Linda Christiansen-Ruffman. The pair met while attending the University in Toronto in 1967. They celebrated 55 years of marriage in 2022.

A  life well spent, AR. 

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