Running for Your Life: Nova Scotia Mood, Part Three

Just folks live with majestic Fundy Bay views above ferryside Saint John, New Brunswick, where towheads learn to skip stones from their pops; one father throws a sinker, then recovers, skims a seven

I try to rest on the ferry but no dice. I’ve parked the car on an incline and have visions of the deck floor being covered with slick oil from the diagnosed terminal leak and elder Yanks, South Asian families and lifetime fishermen slipping and falling on the treacherous floor surface as they try to go to their cars at the end of the trip

But no. When we go to the car as we enter the darling port of Digby, Nova Scotia, I again check the oil. The level, mysteriously and unbelievably, is still holding firm

We’re directed off the highway to the historic Acadia way where we make two memorable stops

1/ At a pier walk farmers’ market, the stalls are plank-empty and there’s nothing to buy, a toilet with paper and places to sit along the shore wall, sights of crabs scuttling in the low tide mud, rivulets pulling back to the sea, the power of nature in a thimble of water, and sandpipers, not by the dozens but enough, and KILLDEER! I forget the name but then it comes to me, like a shot to the heart

 2/ Behind a lighthouse along the coast where on a clear day you can see the spit of land where the whales come, K and I walk down to a ledge, the wind with shards of ice in late July, mind you, and covering the shore rocks like a wench’s hair is massive tresses of kelp with not a seal or a sea lion or an otter in sight

Landmark churches of Acadia, French Canada, doilies on the sofas, tea for breakfast, poutine for lunch. Even the gas bars shout stay away

The English rule in Barrington, though, where we arrive as late as is deemed prudent, 7 p.m., credential closing time for the 44th edition of the Nova Scotia Marathon, a manila folder with our orange-hued public warning to be aware of morning drivers, a T-shirt that’s shriek-loud orange, and a raffle. We put in our names, and not even a loonie is demanded, and I wonder out loud if the medium-dog-sized rosy-red toy lobster, the marathon mascot, is the prize, and the bored teen who is alone manning the desk at the Barrington Recreation Center doesn’t miss a beat. “Just take it. Please. No questions asked

In Shelburne, Nova Scotia, we put our things in the motel room. And go to the one place where you can still get dinner at 9 p.m. on a summer Saturday night. The Sea Dog Saloon. With a red ale they call Boxing Rock

For dinner we sit by the harbor, one of the oldest on the eastern seaboard. There’s a skiff anchored with a Jolly Roger flying, and in the distance a lone mansion in the woods. K smiles under the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen outside of the Rockies and says, D, that’ll be my summer house, indicating the skiff bobbing on the gentle waves, and beyond, the house in the bush, my winter one.


Next: Running for Your Life: Nova Scotia Mood, Part Four