When we moved to Saskatoon, we consoled ourselves that we could always overcome the occasional bout of homesickness with an overpriced airline ticket and be back east the next day. Now looking back on that thinking almost two years into a global pandemic, I long for the ability to plan trips and visits without concern for testing, isolation rules or carrying a virus to people I love. While all of that will be the reality for some time to come, the summer of 2021 will be a time I’ll look back on as a joyful return to our old stomping grounds to spend time with family around the Maritimes.

This was a trip in three parts. Part one, with my folks in northern New Brunswick. Part two, with my wife’s brother and kids in our old hometown of Halifax. And part three, with my wife’s folks and extended family in west/central New Brunswick. Feeling like a complete travel newbie from the longest separation from air travel in my life, we excitedly, and with some trepidation, hopped on our flights back east with our masks hiding ear to ear smiles.

After a day of uneventful travel, save for the spookiness of a half-open eerily quiet Pearson airport in Toronto, we landed in Fredericton, spend the night with my wife’s folks, then drove across the province the next morning to Bathurst. Smiles, laughter, longer and tighter than usual hugs, some tears and a whole lot of story telling and catching up was the order of our first day there. Just sitting around with my parents in their living room chatting is something I took far too much for granted in the before pandemic times. It felt so good to have this back again.

While my wife is a New Brunswicker, she hadn’t spent a lot of time on this side of the province so we planned to do some exploring. With my dad acting as tour guide, we did a road trip along the Baie des Chaleurs. First stop to get out of the car was just outside Charlo.

As a landlocked Saskatchewaner, this was the largest body of water I had been beside for two years. I walked along the beach, down to the water, and dipped my toes in the refreshing water. Back up on the shore, my tradition of scrawling my dogs’ names in the sand continued.

We drove onward on to Dalhousie, my dad’s hometown, and we ventured past where he grew up, where we used to visit my grandmother, and places he and my mom lived in the area before moving away. Somehow along that tour our car found the eastern most point of land in Dalhousie. We stretched our legs for a spell and ventured out to see Dalhousie’s lighthouse and to stare off over the water.

We continued the road trip past my mom’s hometown of Campbellton and out to Tide Head for this impressive view back to Sugarloaf Mountain and of the Restigouche River. On the way back we stopped in Campbellton for a bit of sightseeing of old haunts of my mom and dad.

And the perfect way to conclude a road trip – on arriving back in Bathurst we nursed a beer on the patio of 13 Barrels brewery. This patio beckoned me a few times for its view of the harbour. I had forgotten how much fun it is to just stare off over the water.

Another night during our visit, we took dad our for a belated birthday dinner at the Cast & Crew, a delightful pub just across from the rink in Bathurst. Usually, this is a place dad and I hit up before heading across the street to watch a hockey game. Tonight it was for a joyous family dinner, a wonderful feed of local clams and a tasty pint from Four Rivers Brewing.

We did another road trip during our visit, this one along the Acadian Peninsula from Bathurst to Shippagan. On the return loop, we stopped in Caraquet for a late lunch. Our patio had this view that overjoyed my maritime heart.

Something else that brought a lot of joy to my heart was the first lobster roll on this trip. This was a great example of how a proper roll should look – overflowing, all lobster, no filler.

It is hard to express how the smell of salt water, the taste of lobster and being back on New Brunswick soil made me feel. It was at once comforting to be home, but it was also scratching the itch of a trip, a journey and exploration that had not been part of my life in almost two years.

I’ll write more later on my craft beer explorations in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, but I can’t write about a visit to Bathurst without a quick word about one of my favourite craft breweries I’ve experienced in all my travels. On a smoking hot afternoon, dad and I headed to the patio at Four Rivers, ordered a pizza from next door, and enjoyed a lot of laughs and a couple of pints. I’ve been ordering dad beer from here as gifts during the pandemic, and the owner popped out for a chat bringing along a few new beers they were working on. I love how places far away from your true home can feel like home all the same.

The almost week we spent with my parents was something I had been needing for quite a while. While there were some tears shed when we packed the car to continue our trip, this picture about an hour before we left is something I look at frequently and is now tacked to my fridge for this great memory.

I cannot wait to get back.