365 days of capturing Nova Scotia's beauty on film

For the past 365 days, Halifax filmmaker Dave Culligan has been showing off Nova Scotia, one 60-second video at a time.

He started out last June by documenting his own life. But once his videos — which have a distinct, East Coast pride vibe — developed a fan following, Culligan decided to give Nova Scotia the starring role in his films.

Since then, he's flown in a Cessna airplane for a bird's-eye view of the province, visited the 100 Wild Islands on the Eastern Shore, kayaked the Northwest Arm at sunrise and more.

For his swan song, we asked Culligan to pick his five favourite videos shot over the past 365 days and tell us why those captured moments and memories on film stand out for him.

Here are his top picks and, in his own words, why he choose them:

Day 104

This is a longer video where myself and some other folks from the creative community (who are all now great friends of mine) were invited to visit and learn about the 100 Wild Islands with the Nova Scotia Nature Trust.

This day was not only awesome because the islands are beautiful, but also because we got to learn about the ecological diversity on the islands and the importance of protecting wild areas like these.

Day 136

This video is of the Paint The Park event that happened in Mulgrave Park and was organized by my old friend, Jeremy. I love this video because it was a true display of community and I think it was important for people to see how we can come together to make our communities stronger and more beautiful.

Day 147

This video takes place all around the province. All the way from the South Shore in Bridgewater to the Valley and Cape Breton. It also contains several clips of the city and it really highlighted, for me, how much I was able to see in just under half a year.

It was shared by thousands of people and between different platforms had hundreds of thousands of views and plenty of positive comments about Nova Scotia. This made me really proud because that's exactly what I wanted to do with this project, excite and engage people to either play on or build their love for this beautiful place we call home.

Day 214

This video is all around Halifax and has a few clips from Aspotogan. I just sort of took some of my favourite clips from winter from several different days and threw them together to make this one. I feel like it's really easy to give up on having fun in the winter in [Nova Scotia], but when you give it a shot there is plenty of fun to be had, and I like this video because I think it proves that!

Day 303

This video was a morning kayak with my friends Louis and Jessica on the Northwest Arm for sunrise. I love this video because it shows how you can sneak in a breathtaking experience, 10 minutes from downtown before work (even if there is a bit of ice to chop through).

I also chose not to use music because I wanted to try to capture the authentic sounds to bring the audience along for the ride, and I think it was really well-received because I had a lot of friends asking if they could come next time.

And that's a wrap ... Day 365

The 365th day of Dave Culligan's video project fell on June 12 of this year.

On that day he wrote, "I'm extremely proud to have seen this project through, and it feels amazing to be finished, but the old saying is so cheesy and so true when people say that it's the journey and not the destination.

It's not about today. It's about the hundreds of new experiences and friends that I've been so lucky to have as a result of this project."

Here is the video he posted on that day: