From homestead to seashore: an update

by Aimee

Five months ago we drove north from Montreal and took a right at Rivière-du-Loup. Highway 2 took us deep into the Maritimes, through Moncton, and then on south toward Halifax.

It was a long trek for a holiday weekend, but the trip was not merely for pleasure – we don’t love road tripping quite that much; twelve hours is a heck of a drive just to see the ocean. And even though the crocuses were bursting through the ground along the banks of Sullivan’s Pond, we did not drive to Dartmouth in search of spring, either.

Our travels had brought us to Canada’s ocean playground on a different sort of Easter hunt: a real estate search. We were acting on a dream. Taking the first step – actual physical steps – to turn hopes and plans into reality.

Our car followed the coast down from Halifax, through Herring Cove and then up again past St. Margaret’s Bay, stopping here and there along the way to walk a beach, tour a home or catch the view from the end of a dock. The South Shore was showing off that day, beckoning us with distant lighthouses, glittering surf and dancing boats in harbour.

I distinctly remember coming around one curve where the road sloped down towards the shoreline. Two elderly men stood on the end of a dock, beers in hand and hats pushed back. They wore rubber boots up to their knees, faded blue jeans and checked flannel shirts, exactly as one would imagine a local fisherman to dress. In the instant we swished pass them in the car, they raised their beer bottles and clinked them together in a slow, deliberate ‘Cheers’. It was too much. The gesture, the moment in time, the sea behind them: it undoubtedly proclaimed: “Life here is some good”.

It’s heady stuff, dreams. And that moment you realize that there is nothing, not really, preventing a dream from coming true? That is purely intoxicating.

It’s no secret that we’ve been captivated by the Maritimes for a few years now. Our first road trip through Nova Scotia covered the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island and the wine country of Annapolis Valley. We learned history in Louisbourg and were charmed with the colours and markets of Lunenburg. We visited Prince Edward Island twice, casually looking up real estate on the Green Isle after each trip.

We packed up our presents one December and drove to Halifax for a white Christmas with my sister. There, we curled up in the award-winning library during snowstorms and drove to find a deserted beach on clear days. We cracked lobsters on Christmas Eve and toasted in the New Year with Benjamin Bridge bubbly.

On other trips we’ve stayed with friends in beautiful New Brunswick and traced Danny’s roots back to his Nanny’s childhood home on a charming Moncton street. Our last excursion was all the way out to Newfoundland, an experience my children still reference on a weekly basis – as in “When can we go back?”. If we were crushing on Canada’s Eastern provinces after previous trips, our Newfoundland travels fanned that flame into full blown love.

On these travels, we paid careful attention to how we felt while in the Maritimes and to how the children responded to the change of pace. It’s important to notice the little signs and signals that life sends your way.

“Man, people are really friendly in Halifax.” observed my son during our trip last April, as he skipped down the hill toward the waterfront. Later, back at our AirBnB, the kid from next door popped over to invite us to church on Easter Sunday.

I’ve seen a lot of Canada. I’ve traveled to every province and territory save two (NWT and Nunavut). I’ve lived in four distinct pockets of this vast country. No place has the warmth, the heart or half the charm as the Maritimes.

So, yeah. We’re taking small, but steady steps to move from our beloved Quebec homestead to a waterfront property just outside of Halifax. And we’re pretty excited!

This move is about so much more than the allure of a seaside city, of course. We wouldn’t transplant our family on a whim. The charms are the easiest to explain out loud; it is all the other, more personal reasons that are much harder to put into words. How do you explain a drawing? A gut-feeling? Somewhere, deep down, is a desire for a lifestyle change, a slower pace of life – and no one does slow like the Maritimes.

And the decision hasn’t been a snap one. Every time we’ve traveled to the Maritimes in the past five years we’ve had a conversation about relocating our family to Nova Scotia. Taking an extended trip offers the chance to examine your life from a distance. For a time, you are free from the day-to-day activities that are so encompassing, and there is opportunity to ask yourself – am I truly happy?

On our London trip last May, Danny and I actually had the time, as parents and partners, to finish that conversation. We concluded that there’s never a perfect time to make a move as big as this, but there are good times, and given our children’s ages (12 and under), this feels like a good time.

Quebec will always be where I found love, and an enormous extended family. It has been where I have made dear friends who are as close as family. It will always be where my journey as a food creative was birthed. It will always feel like home, in a way. For two decades this place has been the fabric of my story, and my life will always be the more colourful because of it.

However, despite its rich culture, joie de vivre and fantastic bread, life in Quebec requires….a certain stamina, at least for this English-speaking transplant. And I think that unless you’ve lived or traveled outside of Quebec for an extended period of time, you might not even notice that there are more gentle corners of Canada, like Halifax, which was recently voted as one of the friendliest cities in the world.

Danny has lived his whole life in Quebec (with a brief school year in B.C.) and I am coming up on 20 years in La Belle Province. We’re ready for a change. And ocean. And a gentler, smaller city, where traffic is scarce, family culture is upheld, and community spirit is tangible.

Once the idea to move took hold, it grew like a spring seedling during the April rains… I read Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path, followed by Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. These two fantastic books confirmed what I was feeling in my soul: a deliberate change for a simpler, slower lifestyle could only be good for our family.

I started decluttering our home, donating baby clothes, used books and oodles of kitchen gear. Danny pared down the contents of our garden shed that was stuffed with tools, camping gear and everything else under the sun. In June we threw a huge garage sale and emptied the house even more.

In July, we power-washed everything that was nailed down on the homestead and shot photos of the exterior of our home in its lush summer glory. In August, we painted the interior for days and completed the pesky repair jobs that always get shelved. And in September, we listed our homestead on the market.

So this is where we are now… I feel like the pen is poised over a blank page, waiting to write the next chapter in our story.

I do not know how long this transition will take; fortunately, we are in a fairly unhurried position. There’s currently no job being held for Danny nor is there a particular property we are attached to yet. Everything hinges on the sale of our home, and if it takes a year, so be it.

We’re holding this dream with open hands, anticipating when it will transform from a hope to reality. Dreams are not meant to be tightly clutched, smothered in overachieving attempts to will them into coming true. Like most of the dreams in my life, such as world travel, finding love, becoming a mother, and writing books, it will happen when it happens.

I hope you will follow along on our journey from homestead to ocean.

Side note: If you are interested in our real estate listing, email me: aimee@simplebites.net and I will send it your way. Who knows, maybe one or two of you readers are looking for an urban homestead on the outskirts of Montreal. 

Side note Part II: Maritime readers, please pipe up and say hello! Perhaps you will all be part of my new food community out in Nova Scotia. I look forward to connecting.

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