After a wonderful week in northern New Brunswick with my mom and dad, and a week rediscovering our hometown of Halifax with my wife’s brother, wife and kids, our summer reunion tour of 2021 returned back to New Brunswick for some time with my wife’s parents. A brief pause here for a couple of quirks about our respective experiences living most of our lives in Atlantic Canada. I have never been around the Cabot Trail (that will have to be rectified on a trip back to Nova Scotia at some point) and my wife had never visited the Hopewell Rocks. We decided to tick that one off her list by visiting on a short detour on the way from Halifax to her old hometown of Nackawic.

We checked the tide tables to ensure we planned our visit to coincide with when we could walk out on the floor of the Bay of Funday. We arrived right on schedule for low tide and got a good dose of weather luck with a stunning late summer afternoon to do some exploring.

You cannot watch a New Brunswick tourism commercial without seeing this scenic provincial park multiple times. There is good reason for that… while I think New Brunswick is very beautiful and has many underrated sights, this is the shining star attraction in the province. From the stairs on the way down to the bay’s floor at low tide, you get to see these 40-70 foot tall eroded rock formations in all their beauty.

This was my second trip to Hopewell Rocks. As a family, my parents took my sister and I here in the late 1980s or early 1990s. On both that trip and this visit, getting to walk out among the formations was a highlight. It also let me continue my tradition of writing my dogs’ names in the sand (mud) – remembering the amazing Chewy and missing Chloe back home in Saskatoon.

We spent the rest of our Atlantic Canadian visit with my in-laws in Nackawic. It is a picturesque small town on a bend in the Saint John River. It is a place I like on account of it being so important to my wife’s childhood, having a lovely craft beer bar (more on that sometime later), and because it is home to the world’s largest Axe! Oversized roadside attractions are always a good time!

While all of that makes Nackawic a nice place to visit, it was hanging out with family we hadn’t seen in more than two years that made this part of the trip special. Another spectacular summer day meant a family visit and sharing stories could happen on a back deck in Canterbury. Many laughs were had as you can see by this picture of an uncle, two aunts, my wife and her mom and dad.

I think my mother-in-law was trying to sweeten me on the idea of Fredericton as a place to live. She was very quick to agree to a visit to New Brunswick’s capital and for a couple of stops at craft breweries (she clearly knows the way to my heart!). My wife took the keys so I could imbibe liberally at three different breweries. Here we are at the gorgeous outdoor beer garden of Picaroons right alongside the river.

On our last day in New Brunswick, we made a quick visit to a place that is very special to my wife and has become very special to me too. This is the view over the lake in front of her family’s cabin where she spent most of her summers growing up. It is a peaceful place where snacking throughout the day is encouraged and there is a beer fridge on the screened in porch so I don’t even have to move from a comfortable chair to get a fresh cold one while I read a book or just stare out over the water.

This visit back to this part of New Brunswick was all about reconnecting with family. There were lots of games of Yahtzee, every meal was delicious, and the time flew by far too quickly as it always does when you are around people you love. I think it’s time to start looking at flights back…