This will be a discourse regarding two Canadian cities. It is subjective. i will post the second part some other day… only got this much finished for now.
i want to start with MY favourite (thus far) Canadian city: Halifax. If you live in Canada and have not visited this city, then you truly do not know what you are missing. This old (in terms of architectural heritage and history) city is happily situated right next to the Atlantic Ocean. When i think of Nova Scotia, one of the first things that comes to my mind is the Atlantic ocean, and the two bridges spanning the Halifax Harbour. On the weekends i would catch the bus going to downtown Dartmouth and sit on the rocks by the waterfront (by the library) and watch ships sailing into - and passenger ferries drifting across - Halifax Harbour.
One of my favourite spots in all of Nova Scotia is Lawrencetown Beach - described on the Nova Scotia Parks website as a “popular sand and cobble beach on the Atlantic coast”. Went there recently with some friends during some very rainy weather. Lawrencetown Beach is nestled in Dartmouth away from the city. You approach it by driving approximately 25 minutes through a very, very narrow, undivided two-lane highway, with farmhouses, stables, and firestations constructed entirely of wood (from the 19th century) that are still functioning; as you are driving through this serene and tranquil area, where the old cliche that ‘everyone knows each other’ infact actually does apply, you will begin to steal glimpses of lakes, marshes and streams on either side. This does nothing to prepare you for the ultimate view.
Past the family-run ice-cream store, (the Caucasian family whom you come to know on a first-name basis, they have three daughters who take turns minding the store after school, so their parents can mind the gift-store down the road), your ears will claim to experience the ocean’s roar even before your eyes will have laid sight of it first. The white-and-red lighthouse perched precariously atop the cliff is the first visual glimpse one catches from the road, then the Atlantic Ocean itself. Your eyes hover passionately over the dark, brooding rocks on the right-hand side where the elders of your family will always admonish you ‘wahan mat jaana; bahaut khatarnaak hai’. But before the car has come to a slow stop beside the wooden boardwalks for those who want to walk beside the ocean, your hand is itching to open the car door. You have made up your mind that those black, beckoning rocks next to the ocean, atop the high hill, will be your first destination. In order to command the best view of the area around you and in order to leave the cheerful, camera-clicking, chatty tourists from Rhode Island on the sand below and gain some inner and external peace, it is to those black, slippery rocks atop the hill that one must head.
Unfortunately (or in my case fortunately!), you cannot hear your friends talk because the roar of the ocean waves drowns out all noise. It is even difficult to hear yourself think. If you have not tied your hair firmly, the wind will make it dance carelessly in every direction. During the summer, you will inevitably see surfers at the beach, alongwith geological groups from Halifax’s Dalhousie or St. Mary’s University - long-bearded, white-haired elderly (invariably male) professors walking in ragged t-shirts and shorts followed by a group of young hippy-style university geology or biology students, collecting animal and plant specimens.
When it is approaching closer towards the time for departure, i keep promising my friends ‘acha, aakhri baar’ in order to take that one last walk on the dusty-coloured sand of the beach. One wishes you could live there forever or at least take a picture of this moment in your mind forever before you wistfully turn your back on this lovely bit of God’s Creations, and head back towards the organized chaos of the civilized concrete jungle. Sandals in hand, shells stuffed in your pockets, you walk barefoot to the car…i always know quite well i look like a fright, my hair is dishevelled, feel grains of sand all over my body, and my feet - thanks to climbing atop the hill - are covered with sand, bits of slimy seaweed, and grass. It will be a very uncomfortable drive home but in a million years, for the little figurative reflection of heaven that God has given a momentary snatch of, these complaints signify absolutely nothing.
Those who are fortunate to live by the ocean, i fear, sometimes tend to take it for granted - as i definitely did. If any Canadian guppies have not visited Nova Scotia, do try to pencil it in as a possible destination the next time you think of organizing a within-Canada vacation. Nova Scotia is definitely quite worth it and one of Canada’s most scenic, and perhaps relatively less-celebrated, destination.
:k: