Visits back to see my parents in northern New Brunswick follow a familiar and comfortable script now. A long three hop flight journey across the country. Lots of laughter and catching up. Visiting some favourite craft beer bars with dad. Eating some delicious food. Then some tearful goodbyes followed by the reverse of that long three hop flight journey. Even for a short vacation the travel hassles are worth it to see my folks and to get a greeting like this from their dog, Tia.
I have very fond memories of the opening of the new central library in Halifax, and many, many hours spent within it until I moved to Saskatoon in 2016. Six years here, and I’m eagerly anticipating the construction and opening of a new signature library, viscerally aware of the importance of libraries to the communities they serve. While I have a fondness for my small neighbourhood library just a couple of blocks away from my house, I’m looking forward to the day that Saskatoon has its own shiny new central library.
On my recent trip to Calgary, I took advantage of some very limited down time on a work-related trip and spent a couple of hours touring and experiencing that city’s new central library. Opened in 2018, it is an architectural gem and I was excited for the chance to explore.
My three week summer vacation last year in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia meant there would be ample opportunity to sample liberally from some of the finest craft beers those two provinces have. As the pandemic was still swirling and my comfort with eating or drinking indoors was still at a low point, this craft beer exploration became something of a patio hopping experience. That’s usually difficult to pull off in rainy Atlantic Canada, but we got almost a completely perfect three weeks of weather. I wasted no time visiting an old favourite in Nackawic, my wife’s hometown. This is a taproom that just feels comfortable to me. Big Axe Brewery is located in a beautiful log constructed building just down the street from the world’s largest axe (hence, the brewery’s name).
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.
I know that for most people Nova Scotia is not top of mind for wine producing regions in Canada. But for those of us in the know, there is a surprisingly high quality wine region tucked into the Annapolis Valley, about an hour outside of Halifax. Take a look at a map and dig a little deeper and you’ll notice that this area of Nova Scotia is in a similar latitude range, has a similar climate, and in many areas, similar soil conditions to areas in Champagne, France. Luckily for us who were/are fortunate to live relatively close nearby, there is a true gem of a winery that started with an audacious goal. The purpose of Benjamin Bridge winery was to show that world-class sparkling wines could be made in Nova Scotia. Starting with their early vintages, in blind testings their wines scored similar to Champagnes. They have expanded their range of wines over the years, and due to the occassional free shipping special offered, we’ve accumulated a small inventory of their wines at our home in Saskatoon.
Much like we did back in the days we lived in Halifax, when we were visiting this past summer, we made a day trip to the Annapolis Valley. Our first stop was Benjamin Bridge to try a couple of tasting flights of their wines.
After a wonderful visit with my mom and dad in northern New Brunswick, we pointed our car south, marvelled at the fact there was a pandemic-related random selection border checkpoint on the way into Nova Scotia, and a few hours later arrived in a city that means a great deal to both of us.
Halifax. Home sweet home.
This part of our Atlantic Canadian tour was about visiting family and also taking a couple of days to reconnect with some of our favourite things.
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.
While my hopes might have been higher for more travel in 2021, I finally made it back out east to visit family I hadn’t seen in close to two years. That three week summer trip, the first time in my career I have ever taken three consecutive weeks off, was a revelation. Part reunion tour with lots of hugs and stories to share with family and part vacation with a suddenly fresh set of eyes for places that now feel less like home after so long living, and hunkering down in Saskatoon.
Most of my favourite travel memories this past year are from that three week trip back to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but I will be liberal with the term “travel” as a few of my favourite memories in 2021 were about other forms of escape or diversion during the third and fourth waves of a pandemic that hit Saskatchewan very hard. So here they are in no particular order, my favourite travel memories and moments of 2021.
(1) Beers with Dad – It had been far too long since Dad and I had just had a good hang at my favourite craft brewery in Bathurst. On a steaming hot August day, we enjoyed a couple of our favourite beers (mine, Four Rivers Brewery’s amazing Havre St. Pierre, a medal winning amber ale that I wish I could have a stash of back home in Saskatoon) and chatted an afternoon away.
While waiting for the opportunity to reengage with travel over the past year, I have been looking through pictures of past trips to take some of the sting out of losing the ability to explore freely like during the pre-pandemic days. In all of those pictures are great memories. Some are grand experiences like seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time… some are more subtle memories of the smell or sense of a place from sitting on a park bench somewhere far away from home. While I was looking back through photos from a trip in 2008 to San Francisco and Northern California, there were lots of memories in both camps, including what I still to this day think is one of the best travel days I have ever had.
We tried to do this trip on a relative shoestring budget using points for hotels and our flights (that resulted in a very restless night trying to sleep in Pearson airport before the onward flight to San Francisco… booking with Aeroplan almost always guarantees you something like this) but we were torn as to which of two more extravagant experiences we wanted to include… a hot air balloon ride over the Sonoma valley or dinner at the French Laundry. We settled on the hot air balloon ride, and turned it into an amazing day trip from Sonoma that we still talk about to this day.
We got a confirmation phone call that the weather looked good at the crisp hour of 3:30am, loaded into our car for the drive to Santa Rosa, and as the sun came up, we waited for our balloon to inflate.
Bluenose Traveler 