Dispatches From Canada

July 22, 2025

(Amherst Shore, Nova Scotia) Time is already slowing down. Way down. Our days are getting filled with walks and talks. Poking around here and there. A few necessary errands. Buy a few groceries. A rainy day spent in the laundry.

The provincial government where we’re staying used to have WiFi throughout the entire campground. Starlink. But then with the advent of the trade war incited by the Trump regime, the Canadian government cancelled the contract. Can’t say that I blame them. It’s an inconvenience, sure. But I like a decision that for once is based on principle and not the bottom line. It’s a refreshing feeling. Not like in the United States where everything from health care to education is based on the almighty dollar.

Figure out the kind of person you want to be. Know your values and principles. And then make all of your decisions based on those values and principles. You won’t go off track.

Now we’re living a very simple life. Life the way it was back in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Dial up. Funny how I immediately jump to the internet, isn’t it? Funny how I seem to blame how life has gone off the rails in the United States with the internet.

And you know something? It’s not that bad. It’s part of what slows you way down.

We’ve been experiencing some weather. Sue and I had to wait out an eighteen-hour rainstorm in the tent. Torrential rain. You know you’re with your best friend when you can sit in a tent for eighteen hours and come out laughing.

We thought about getting in the truck and driving to Pugwash, the nearest town, to look for an open restaurant. But eh…now we have this great story about the time we waited out a rainstorm in a tent. Me reading the one trashy novel I allowed myself to bring along. (Who is the murderer?!) Sue dozing in and out.

We seem to have an unwritten pact.

The only time the other person can’t talk is when the other person is writing in their journal. Or when one of us is writing his newsletter. (He gets kind of cranky when he’s interrupted doing either one.) Precious time.

But I would recommend if you’re thinking about traveling for an extended period of time kind of off the beaten path, along backroads, invest in some good waterproof hiking shoes. It’s just a suggestion, but I’ve been wearing Oboz Sawtooth X with REI Coolmax light socks. I love them. I broke the shoes in on that twenty-mile hike I did in June (the last five miles were in a deluge.)

Lots of just walking and hiking. Being in nature. In the woods. On the beach.

The beach and laundry day.

The people we’ve met so far have been so wonderful and friendly. A lot of chatter around the dishwashing station.

Last night we struck up a conversation with a man and his girlfriend. She was taking a shower while he was doing the laundry in a canvas bucket working a toilet plunger as an agitator.

They were in the middle of a five-hundred kilometer road trip. Where are you from? I inquired. Quebec (he pronounced it Quee-beck, not Ke-beck, like I would) and looked at me in a way that said, Are you stupid? Where else would I be from?

I should have known, with that accent. Quebecois can be like that. Some people call it arrogance. I see it as just pride in who they are. And I love the accent. Pas Parisian, non? She laughed when I said that, shaking her head in an emphatic, non.

They travel around in a truck that has the body of a 1952 truck that he filled with modern machinery putting a camper on the back. Where else are you going to meet someone like that except in a Canadian provincial state park?

Another man (sometimes the only way to describe a Canadian is sweet and friendly) had strong feelings about the current situation between the United States and Canada, yet could express them without turning red in the face. Again, a nice change from the United States.

No one we’ve met thinks any of it makes sense. This man has a daughter who competes in cheerleading, and the big competition takes place in Orlando, where they’ve gone before. He was conflicted about giving his daughter this opportunity this time, and traveling the United States. Just regular people whose lives are upended by the policies of the current regime in the United States.