Time to start the B.C., Nova Scotia exchange
The season opener for the group I play golf with once a week (the Monday Morning Moaners) was rained out (talk about something to moan about), so we were sitting upstairs, drinking coffee, and the conversation turned to travel in our country.
Most guys I hang with know I found my way to the Valley from the Maritimes. Most of my friends haven’t been to the East Coast, so I’m always suggesting they should go. If you’ve been, you know it’s a fair amount different from here. In a good way.
In fact, I think there should be a travel program (government funded), that awards all Westerners a two- week trip to the Atlantic Coast and all Bluenosers a two-week trip to British Columbia.
Think of the great relationships that would foster. Going to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland will charm the socks off British Columbians and coming to British Columbia (especially the Okanagan), will afford Easterners time spent in the most beautiful province in Canada.
I have been back home four out of the last six years. I love spending time in my hometown. I still have a brother and sister living there and I retain a strong relationship with several of my school chums who never moved away. If I were your guide, this would be our itinerary: Quebec City: Old Quebec is really something. We would visit a church, built in 1603 by Samuel de Champlain, that is still in use to day, and have lunch or dinner in a building which has housed a restaurant of one kind or another, continuously, since 1775. We would shop along some of the oldest streets in North America and walk the Plains of Abraham, where Wolfe defeated Montcalm in that historic battle that lasted less than half an hour and cost both of them their lives.
Quebec Townships: A beautiful, ambling drive along the St. Lawrence River (where little English is spoken or understood), through the Gaspe Peninsula, into New Brunswick. Three highlights in NB are the Reversing Falls, Magnetic Hill and Newcastle and Chatham, now known as Miramichi.
Nova Scotia: The South Shore (maybe stop in and see my sister. She makes a killer mac and cheese). My hometown of Liverpool was a privateer port. Privateers were licenced pirates. Arrrgh! We’d see the Annapolis Valley, particularly Annapolis Royal and Grand Pre and Halifax, a gorgeous little city, especially near the Citadel and the Historic Properties. If time allowed, we’d head to Cape Breton on the Cabot Trail.
Prince Edward Island: Cavendish Beach, Charlottetown, all the nightly rental cottages around Rustico, everything Anne of Green Gables and lots of golf courses.
Newfoundland: This one is really a trip in itself so you might want to save that for another time. While there is lots to see, the highlights are Gros Morne Park in the West, any of the small oceanfront settlements in the interior and St. John’s, on the Avalon Peninsula. You would want to spend at least three days in the Capital. It’s worth seeing, for sure. Very colourful. Very different.
Fred Trainor is a retired broadcaster living in OK Falls.