Halls Harbour is just 15 minutes from my parents’ place; we usually go there after church on Sundays. It’s this wonderfully transformative but consistently dramatic place in the Annapolis Valley region on the Bay of Fundy, which has the
highest tides in the world.
I remember when my parents first moved to Nova Scotia — I thought it would be a whole new world, that it would seem so far from the ocean. But the reality is that the valley is right near the coast. And it has its own type of beauty: you can see its expanse, the red mud, the red sand and strange clay-scapes. It’s a unique landscape.
You get a lot of wind in Halls Harbour. It’s part of the drama. I can feel the wind; I can smell the seaweed and the salt. For me, that’s the call of the Maritimes. When you get off a plane coming from larger centres, it hits you. It’s that clean ocean air.
To see it through my son’s eyes is so fascinating. He’s not quite two, and he goes along the planks of the dock, laughing at the seagulls and wanting to pick up rocks on the beach. When the wind comes in and gets in his eyes, he finds it hilarious. It’s great. It teaches me how much is there. When I see my son and what catches his attention, it hones my own attention and helps me recapture the whole area.