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.
When I moved away from the east coast more than four years ago, there was comfort in knowing that family back east were just a day and an overpriced airline ticket away. Now in pandemic times and with the borders to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia remaining effectively closed, I haven’t been back to visit family since late fall last year. I’m sitting on a host of Air Canada flight credits for trips that were cancelled with no prognosis on when I’ll be able to use them. Even worse, the small airport in my parents’ home town of Bathurst was taken off of Air Canada’s roster of places they fly, meaning this view I had on landing there last November is something I may never see again.
Since getting married six years ago, my wife and I have kept up a tradition of taking a “honeymoon” each year. Some have been a bit more exotic like our first trip to Boston or our actual honeymoon to Puerto Rico, and a few have been to make sure the tradition stayed alive. “Honeymoon in Regina”, even for a Riders game, just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
We decided to celebrate our sixth anniversary by heading back east to New Brunswick to spend a week with our family. With my wife’s family mostly in the southwest part of the province, and my mom and dad up in the northeast, we had to split up for a few days (not sounding too honeymoon-ish, is it?). Upon getting a good night’s sleep in Nackawic after landing in Fredericton on the first evening, I drove across the province to Beresford to meet up with my parents and their dog, Tia.
People in Saskatchewan, at least around Saskatoon, have no idea what a lot of snow looks like. Snowbank size is relative, but when I visited my mom and dad in northern New Brunswick in March after an epic winter, there was no question who should have had a licence to say something negative about their winter.
Landing in Bathurst, I was immediately taken by the amount of snow on the ground. Driving on the highway from the airport into town was like driving down tunnels of snow. Even after about a week of melting, here’s what the snowbanks in my parents’ driveway looked like.
Beresford, New Brunswick is a long, long way from Saskatoon. Three flights across the country gave me a lot of time to think about the fact that I’d be visiting the new home of my parents for the first time a few months after they moved away from what was our family home just outside of Halifax. While this was first and foremost a visit to catch up, it was also a visit to check in and see how they were doing in New Brunswick and to visit an area I hadn’t seen in close to twenty years.
Shortly after getting off the plane and reuniting with Mom and Dad, I got to catch up with the other family member that had made the move… Tia. Good dog!
Bluenose Traveler 