nova scotia, a visitor's guide

We had a globe growing up that would ask geography questions. The voice was a woman with a British accent and I loved the way she said Nova Scotia, the sound of it. Also, the Canada questions were always the hardest because the provinces didn’t have clearly delineated marks like the States did. The rest of the world only got country-specific questions, so Canada, outside of a couple of skiing trips in Montreal, was kind of a mystery to me, I just imagined that it was beautiful and it snowed a lot.

The manuscript of my book is due in a couple of weeks and I realized recently that I needed to go away somewhere quiet, lovely, and not distracting if I had any chance at all of finishing it on time. My husband and I would go together, we’d leave our daughter with the grandparents. We wound up planning this trip last minute so in Maine, where I first wanted to go, we couldn’t find the combination of firepit (my requirement) and ocean view (his requirement) and wifi. So we decided to go to Nova Scotia. Most people probably would fly to Halifax and rent a car to avoid the 14 hour drive from New York (16 the way we went), but I love the romance of a road trip. We stopped in Boston to have lunch with a good friend, then slept in Maine for the first leg of the drive.

The first thing I did upon boarding the giant ferry from Bar Harbor Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia (a 3.5 hour boat ride) was go to the gift shop where I immediately noticed charming, painted post cards. I bought four. They were by the artist Maud Lewis, who I had never heard of before. I loved these paintings and the cards said that she was a Nova Scotia native so I decided to find a book of her work on this trip.

There are advantages to being someone who likes to minimally plan trips - you wind up on a ferry that you weren’t planning to get on and find an artist that you love - and disadvantages - the reason we were on said ferry was because we didn’t think to book the one on the more direct route on time, and also we had a night that we somehow didn’t account for so needed to find a last minute place to sleep.

I found a bed and breakfast in Argyle. What I like about it here is that you can go as long as you want without having to talk to or encounter any people, and when you do, they invariably mention how much they love living on this island. Beatrice, the owner of the house (the B&B was … just their house) told us about how she’s run the place for over 20 years and never served a guest store-bought eggs or store-bought bread. We learned about the drama with her chickens, the activities of the ducks across the way, and also that there was a giant wildwire in the direction we were going.

I called a hotel I had been eyeing, the only luxury hotel in Nova Scotia (Trout Point), it looked so beautiful and the main activity listed was star gazing, which is a big part of what we came to Nova Scotia for. It was in the forest and they had room for us.

But long story short, the owners of the Airbnb in Berwick convinced us to come, that the fire wasn’t actually affecting them. Ev and I had both lived in places with wildfires before (Oregon and Wyoming) and the whole reason we were here was so that I could finish my book, and not have to do activities at a hotel, or to talk to anyone, so we decided to trust them, and drove up the coast of the Bay of Fundy.

I stopped in every little store in every little town we passed looking for a Maud Lewis art book. I found books about Maud Lewis, photographs of her, essays about her and her disability, calendars, but I just wanted a book of her paintings, not a book about her paintings. Upon realizing that the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia has a permanent collection of her work, including the actual house she lived in and had painted over, we took a day trip there. The tiny house had a giant kettle and a beautiful, painted tea canister.

I got matching tee-shirts at the gift shop for myself and my daughter and the guy working there must have noticed how excited I was because we got to talking about Maud, and he told me about a movie about her life (Ethan Hawke plays her husband.) “They took some artistic liberties,” he said, “but not too many.” I watched it as soon as we got back to our place. I loved that one of the main characters was a New Yorker with great shoes who fell in love with Maud’s work and started commissioning it, and also that her husband Everett, she called Ev, which is what I call my husband. I’ve never heard anybody else be called Ev aloud before.

Below are some things we’ve done in Nova Scotia, outside of stargazing, picking wildflowers, and eating lobster and scallops if you too want to get away.

Hall’s Harbour - The Bay of Fundy had the largest tidal changes in the world, so at low tide, the docked boats just sit on top of rocks, and at high tide, they float in the water. It’s pretty amazing and we visited Hall’s Harbour at both times of the tide to see this (and to get lobster, scallops, etc at Hall’s Harbour Lobster Pound.)

Harbourville - This fishing village is a ten minute walk from where we’re staying. It has a fish market and a little grocery. You can eat icecream and watch the ocean. The nature moves so fast over here. Clouds fly in and then pass, even the sunset and the coming in of stars moves quickly.

Bountywood Farm - This is a TINY farm stand, and I’m sure there are others, but I loved the girl working there. She had a red bonnet to match her red shirt and long blue skirt. We got organic meat and eggs there. They had aronia berries, which I told her I had never tried before. She kind of laughed at me and said that they are for people who do know what they are, and that they go in smoothies and you can’t really just eat them. I love that kind of this isn’t for you attitude. We left the berries behind. A farmstand with a box to put money in nearby had wood-fired maple syrup (tastes smoky!), cantaloupe, peaches, and enormous zucchini, all grown on the island.

Halifax - The North End neighborhood where we spent most of the day reminded me of Portland, Oregon, where I used to live. Spent a couple hours working on my book at Espresso 46 which I would 100% return to because of the perfect no-notes market next door (giant strawberries, local mushrooms, fresh flowers, etc). We had lunch at The Narrows, a restaurant inside a large wooden house. Had pickled herring and tomato soup. Then we went to the gallery, and on the way back found this kind of random store that had hand-knit wool. My entire family is now well prepared for New York winter and I actually am writing this in -as Ev said - “a third of a sweater.” (One of those turtleneck things.) Also got a balaclava and leg warmers.

There’s obviously more to say about Nova Scotia - blueberry ice cream, whales, acadia, but I am not here for much longer and do need to get back to finishing the book.

I love New York City more than anywhere in the world, but it still feels so good to feel far away from it in every way. Even not having a language barrier makes it feel further away, because I’m not on my phone trying to figure out how to translate things, just on airplane mode, listening to wind, looking for signs of Maud.

I think I will actually finish my book in time!

”Beatrice took such great care of us on this trip! What a warm, welcoming way to come to Nova Scotia for the first time. Homemade bread and fresh eggs were the icing on the cake. Thank you, Maria and Evan”

I found my lavender hat!

(View from our backyard)