This Saturday through Monday, Haligonians can experience 1904 Dublin and 2025 Halifax in an app-based self-guided tour of the novel Ulysses. Billed as part literary excursion, part scavenger hunt, and part pub crawl, the app is the work of Andrew Burke, a partner in Halifax-based BeanCountertech.

Joyce's Ulysses is said to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century although many find it unreadable. The events of the novel take place on a single day, June 16th, in 1904 in Dublin, Ireland, and the book follows characters, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, as they wander around Dublin, meeting people both real and imaginary.

Every episode in the book parallels an incident from Homer's Odyssey. For example, a funeral is linked to Odysseus' trip to Hades. Because many of the locations still exist, literature enthusiasts retrace the steps of the main characters across Dublin every year, organizers said on the website for the Halifax event.

Bloomsday is also marked around the world. Often there are readings, screenings, reenactments, and musical performances. Halifax, with its ocean-side location, similar architectural traditions, and large academic and artistic population, seems like a natural place to celebrate Bloomsday, but nobody has done it before, Burke told Entrevestor.

People can participate at various locations and times around the Halifax Peninsula. The app will guide people to the locations and provide activities to do on arrival. Each location will have extra features, app interactions, collectible real or virtual objects, or other surprises. Users will learn about this part of Halifax, its matching location in Dublin, and what happens in this chapter of the book. .

Burke said it is not necessary to have read the novel to enjoy Bloomsday.

He explained his motivations for creating the app last year in a blog:

“Before I was a computer nerd I was a literature nerd, and I had always wanted to do a Bloomsday thing in Halifax, since we share so much architecture and history with Dublin (starting with Martello Towers!), and even street names, not to mention lots of Irish pubs.”

Find out more and sign up for free here.