Canada 2025, Part IX: Fat Sailors

 Friday, October 10th was the day we were to leave the area and drive east, back across the province, to the Dartmouth/Halifax area for the wedding the next day. As such, we got up early and made sure all of our stuff was packed, cleaned out the hotel room and checked out, and got our coffees from Tim's before heading up the hill to say goodbye to Daisy's grandmother.

Goodbyes in Canada are never easy. Grandma is 92, was not going to the wedding (neither were her aunt and uncle who lived next door, or any of Daisy's cousins from his side of the family) so this would be the last time we saw any of them for this trip. Leaving grandma is doubly hard because we are fully cognizant of the fact that it may be the last time we see her alive -- at her advanced age and with the health problems she has, it is very possible she could take a turn for the worse at any time, and the next time we'd be traveling to Canada would be for her funeral. We know this. We don't like knowing it, but we know it. We always say we'll be back next year (and we always are) but all of us knows that while that will likely be the case, we still have a very limited number of years we'll be able to say that and mean it in the spirit which it's intended.

Daisy asked her grandmother, before we left, if it hurt her feelings that we stayed in the hotel instead of with her when we were there. It had been weighing heavily on Daisy's mind for the entire trip. While we do like the freedom and independence of staying in the Cove Motel -- or, like we did last year, in the AirBnB down the street from grandma -- Daisy did not want to offend her by it.

"Well," grandma said, "that bed in the spare room is not big or comfortable." 

She's right, it absolutely is not; when we stayed there in 2023, half the nights I'd wake up to find that Daisy had gone downstairs to sleep in the basement because it was too uncomfortable or too hot with both of us in there when grandma keeps the house at 80 degrees all the time. 

"Yes, but would you rather we be here and stay with you?" Daisy asked. "We just don't want to impose."

"I don't mind if you stay here [Daisy]," said Grandma, which is the closest thing we'll ever get to a yes, I would much rather you stay here with me. 

So, moving forward, we'll be saving the money and will be staying with grandma in the house again for future trips, and we'll adjust for that. I find the house peaceful and the time there gives me a lot more reading time, downtime, and the ability to take naps basically whenever I want. This is, essentially, all I want out of a vacation.

I personally don't mind being in the house, but there is that factor of imposition. I never want to be a bother, especially not to a woman in her 90s who is very set in her ways -- but I also like the security of knowing that if she has any health issues or needs our help, we're right there ready to assist. And honestly, the woman is lonely -- she hides it well, and she'd never outright admit it because of her pride, but she does love having us there. 

So, we said our goodbyes, as bittersweet as they were, and got on the road.

Our plans for Friday were as follows:

1. Stop for coffee and maybe food at the cafe in Truro
2. Hit up the Giant Tiger in Truro -- the best one we'd visited in the province last year
3. Drive down to Peggy's Cove to finally see the Peggy's Cove lighthouse
4. From there, drive into Dartmouth, check into the hotel, and finally eat something

Auld's Cove to Truro is a nice little drive:

And from there to Peggy's Cove is also a nice little drive still:

And just for the hell of it, why not just plot the course from Peggy's Cove to Dartmouth too?

So yeah, it was...a lot of travel time for one day, and entailed us driving essentially the distance of one end of the province to the other -- maybe not fully distance-wise, but absolutely time-wise. 

We left town before noon, leaving Tim Hortons and the best poutines in the province behind us; I would not drink another double-double or eat another honey cruller for the rest of our trip, and the poutine I had the night after we arrived -- with Daisy's aunt and uncle -- was the only one I ate on the entire trip.

Onward we pushed to Truro, stopping at a gas station to use the bathroom and get some really questionable bubble gum that sort of tasted like cleaner, and we finally arrived around two at the cafe. My stomach was going nuts and I didn't really want anything. I don't remember if I actually got anything, honestly. I wasn't feeling great and I was very tired from having gotten up so early. Not to mention, after a full week of sleeping on the thin/hard hotel mattress, my back was screaming at me in a language of pain that ibuprofen couldn't touch. 

We hit the Giant Tiger in Truro to find this:

I found this so hilarious that I had to take a picture of it.

Guess what? They did. They did have chocolate chips.

I asked Mama this past weekend why they'd feel the need to advertise that on a sign. When we went inside, they did indeed have giant center-of-the-aisle bins of bags of chocolate chips, and people were filling their carts with them. 

Like...is there a run on chocolate chips in Atlantic Canada? A bunch of fat sailors coming in off their boats and needing their semi-sweet chocolate fix? I was actually rather awed at the sight. It wasn't people frantically buying them like it was $2 DVDs in a bin at Walmart on Black Friday, but...it was a steady stream of consumers approaching these bins of chocolate chips and putting 3, 4, 5 bags at a time into their carts, as casually as someone picking out loaves of bread or canned vegetables.

Of course, it was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. If there is some traditional Thanksgiving dessert in Canada that requires the use of an industrial amount of chocolate chips, that's not information I am privy to as a dirty American who is also not a fat sailor. Just fat.

Anyway.

This Giant Tiger was also mostly a bust this time around. We each got a few little things; I bought an orange shirt that supports the charities of Canada's First Peoples:

I'd wanted to get one at the Giant Tiger in Port Hawkesbury, but they didn't have it in my size. All profits from the sales of these shirts go to charity --

So it was important to me to support this. Plus, I really liked the design. Daisy would later point out that back home in Nebraska, it would look like I was staunchly pro-life, which she rolled her eyes and said I'd fit right in with the religious right nuts in this state. 

It's not about that, though, obviously. 

But yeah, aside from a few odds and ends like that, we left Giant Tiger this year mostly disappointed. It's hit or miss; you can't win 'em all. And to be fair, there was a lot in that store that I wanted, but unusually enough for Giant Tiger, almost none of it was in my size this time around. 

It is what it is, I suppose. 

After this began the long, long drive down to Peggy's Cove.

For those of you who don't know, and I wouldn't expect you to if you are not from or haven't been through Atlantic Canada and specifically Nova Scotia, Peggy's Cove is a beautiful, out of the way cove on the southeast tip of Nova Scotia, with long stretches of boulder-covered beaches. It is the most "Nova Scotia" place I've seen in Nova Scotia -- and by that I mean it definitely looks like Scotland. At Peggy's Cove is a lighthouse -- a decently tall lighthouse, the most famous and most-photographed lighthouse in Nova Scotia.

This is, perhaps, because it is in a very photogenic location -- it's the kind of area that when you see calendars of lighthouses, the photos you'd take there are the ones you'd see in said calendars. Or postcards, or paintings of seascapes. It is, for lack of better description, exactly what you would expect when you think of those things.

Anyway, I've never been to Peggy's Cove. It's been on the Canada list for years, but one thing or another prevented us from going there together before. Last year we had Mama with us, and travel is hard on her -- plus, by the end of our trip, we'd just gotten back from Prince Edward Island and Green Gables, so adding more to that would've been a burden and overwhelming to us all. Two years ago, when it was just Daisy and I up there in May, we wanted to take a day to explore the Halifax area (including Peggy's Cove) but wildfires in the area were causing evacuations and we were lucky that they didn't get close enough to the airport to cancel our flight home.

Daisy had not been to Peggy's Cove since she was there with the family as a young child, long before she and I were together. It holds special meaning to the family as it's where Daisy's parents had their first date. Between going there and making the drive around the entirety of the Cabot Trail, it was very symbolic to us -- tracing the steps that many others in the family had done before, together, for the first time. 

When we finally got to Peggy's Cove, it was late afternoon and the sun was already speeding downward, yet there were a lot of people there. Turns out that in the time since Daisy (and even her parents) were last there, the lighthouse area had built a very large visitor's center and two-story gift shop behind it, leading up to the lighthouse as a sort of staging area. Canada had done something similar with Green Gables in PEI as well; the last time the family was there before last year, it was basically just the house and a little gift shop -- there's an entire museum and visitor's center there now.

To a certain extent I think this commercializes these scenic locations too much, but to another extent I really like seeing Canada put money and planning into these locations' heritage and giving visitors things to see, learn, and buy. More power to you, Canada, for realizing that sometimes it's necessary to monetize things a bit. 

Anyway, we arrived just in time to get some of the best possible photos; the lighting was wonderful.

You can't actually go up into the lighthouse, sadly; it's locked shut, and I am not exactly sure how "functional" it is at this juncture. However, as you can see, you can definitely venture out on the rocks -- basically as far as you want, all the way down to the water if you want, along the coast. 

It looks very bright and pretty, but as we were there in mid-October, it was not exactly warm along the ocean, and there was some wild coastal wind that day. We decided not to press our luck on the rocks, lest I lose my balance (because let's not joke about this -- between the two of us, it would definitely be me whose fat ass slipped and rolled down the very hard rock face into the ocean). I did not want to become one of those statistics that they had very clearly posted warning signs about:

Upon showing that pic above to a friend once I returned home, his response was "how very Canada of them."

After getting a lot of photos -- and I mean a lot of photos -- we ventured back up to the visitor's center to look through this giant two-story gift shop. 

Truthfully, gift shops in Canada are a mixed bag for us and it's a toss-up of whether they'll have anything we want -- and if they do, if it's a clothing item, if they carry it in our size. Most of the time, the answer to that latter question is "hahah, no, fatty." The largest sizes a lot of shops will carry is a 2XL, and while that'll generally fit Daisy fine, I like to wear my stuff a little looser. Even though I've lost a lot of weight over the past few years, I like a hoodie to be big and baggy and I like my t-shirts to not make me look or feel like a sausage about to burst from its casing, so my bare minimum for zip-up hoodies and t-shirts is 3XL and pullover hoodies and polo-style shirts 4XL. If I can get a t-shirt or hoodie in 5X, I will, because it means I won't have to worry about it shrinking too much when it's washed and dried.

Unfortunately, the Peggy's Cove gift shop -- for all of the wonderful stuff it had -- was not a fat-friendly one. Most of their clothing only went up to XL, with some scattered 2X's here and there. We were really striking out on a lot of fat people clothing this year, it seemed.

Upstairs, I did come across what appeared to be a rugby shirt, navy and cream striped -- but also, it looked...well, like a typical "sailor shirt" or "pirate shirt." I don't know how to describe it other than that. Like a striped shirt a low-ranking pirate would wear on a pirate ship?

I dunno, use your imagination here, folks.

But it was long-sleeved and knit like a rugby shirt (without a collar, though), almost sweater-like, in a formal cut. It had a "Peggy's Cove, NS" embroidery on the front chest pocket area, and it was on deep clearance, something like the equivalent of about $20 American, if that. 

"I actually really like this," I told Daisy. "It's huge, thick, warm, and kind of makes me look like a pirate or sailor." I held it up against me. Daisy arched her eyebrows in doubt.

In the end, I did not get it. But I thought about it hard for the time we were in the gift shop.

"I'm glad you didn't get it," Daisy said later. "I thought it was hideous."

"It was hideous," I said, "but that's part of why I wanted it. I just...didn't need it, and I have so much clothing now as it is."

But really, folks, do you know why I didn't get it?

Because I'm not a fat sailor.

Canada 2025, Part VIII: Home to the North

 Thursday, October 9th was to be our last full day in Auld's Cove, around the family homestead, before we would pull up our proverbial tent and head to Dartmouth/Halifax the next day. And, to be fair, there was a lot we had done up to this point, but also a lot that we hadn't done that we do normally do when we're in Canada. 

I have long said that the Canada experience for me isn't just family and friends, but it's the full experience of being in my home to the north that I love more than anything else. That includes things most folks up there would take for granted, like getting Tim Hortons every morning or stopping by Giant Tiger or Dollarama for light shopping and some essentials. It also includes soaking in every single scenic view possible, whether it's looking down at the open ocean from the mountaintops on the Cabot Trail or, on a clear night seeing every star and the arc of the Milky Way above rural Canada not tainted by thousands of city lights.

It was in Bobcaygeon

I saw the constellations 

reveal themselves one star at a time...

Ahem. 

I soak it all in; every sunrise or sunset I see, every deep breath of Canadian coastal sea air, every drop of misting fall rain. Every eagle or raven I see soar over the mountain roads or the family backyard, every seagull hanging out in a parking lot, beautiful and patterned in its own way, every loonie or toonie I collect in change after a cup of coffee or bag of ketchup chips I purchase, every low-caffeine watered-down Monster I drink. Every bit of it is spiritual, magical in some way to me that I cannot fully describe. Canada puts me into a deep peace that I do not feel anywhere else on the planet.

I never want to leave it. Atlantic Canada calls to me; it tells me I belong there -- ancestrally, spiritually, and that I am welcomed with open arms and love. When I am there, I am home. I was born to live along the rocky coastline in a cottage, looking out on the open ocean from my back porch as I sip coffee in the sea air before, eventually, I go back inside to my desk and spend a few hours writing or revising my latest short story or poem. That is how I want to spend the rest of my life -- a life unfettered, unbothered by the news, weather, or who the president is -- just quiet peace with my lovely Canadian wife and cats by my side.

But, unfortunately, that is not the world I currently live in, and it is not the life we have, and I always eventually have to pull myself back to the reality that for the short time we're there, I'm living out of a backpack and a suitcase, and only with what we can carry and afford. We are nomads but for a short time only. 

So, back to the story. That Thursday, the last full day we were around town, we had a few small missions to accomplish -- namely, we were having dinner with friends of the family in the evening, and in the daytime hours beforehand we planned to go to Antigonish -- primarily to visit a store called 5¢ to $1.00.

I've written about Antigonish before; it is one of many smaller towns around the rural areas of Nova Scotia. Only about 5,000 people live there, but it feels much bigger than it is. Antigonish is also the home of St. Francis Xavier University, and there is a big community and passion for said school there in town, with a lot of merchandise and clothing branded with a big collegiate X, which makes me feel like I walked into an X-Men comic.

I mean, come on.

The downtown area is very quaint and reminds me so very much of places like Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls.  There are lots of little shops, a beautiful town square, some corner stores, etc. It would be a beautiful place to spend an entire day just exploring, except every time we have been there, it has been pouring rain. 

I mean, Atlantic Canada, but still. 

One of those corner stores, however, is a pilgrimage for us every time we're in Canada, and that store is 5¢ to $1.00. Yes, that's the name of it. I would imagine that originally, upon its inception, that was likely accurate for its prices, because apparently it has been there, in the same location, forever.

I don't really know how to describe 5¢ to $1.00 accurately; it is, all in one, a souvenir shop, department store, clothing store, convenience store, fabric and craft supply shop, hub for indigenous peoples' art and designs, high-end women's fashion store, bookstore, office supply store, hardware store, camera and watch repair hub, and snack bar. I have never seen another store like it outside of little independent general stores you see in movies from the 70s or 80s. This type of place is functionally extinct in the states, but apparently not in Atlantic Canada. And, it's a popular place -- it is almost always pretty busy when we're there. 

It also tends to be the place where Daisy and I pick up gifts for family and friends to bring back home, more than anywhere else. Daisy gravitates heavily to the art of the First Nations people; we have multiple prints, magnets, mugs, postcards, and now a fleece blanket with lots of art on it:

This is just an example; we don't own this one, but it's all art of this style. We love it, and it supports the First Nations people of Canada. Daisy has handmade wallets, multiple coffee mugs, and other items with a lot of art on them, all in this style. When we go to 5¢ to $1.00, we always get more, and new stuff. It's kind of Daisy's thing -- it's the one souvenir-like thing she looks forward to every year.

Well, this year was no exception. We can't go to 5¢ to $1.00 without spending...well, let's be frank here, a few hundred dollars on things. Despite the name, the store itself is not generally cheap. It's not really that expensive either, but it's not cheap nor is it a discount store of any sort. 

Despite this, aside from little kitschy souvenir things (which I have enough of at this point, to be completely honest with you), there is little in the store I want or need most of the time; the various souvenir t-shirts they don't carry larger than a 2XL, a lot of the coffee mugs are too small for the amount of coffee I drink in one sitting, and the rest of the clothing in the store is very blue-collar work-oriented -- rural Nova Scotia is going to run that way, honestly. I did find a green lightweight hoodie in 3XL on deep discount (it was something like $7 CAD, which is like $5 American) that fits me like a glove and is so incredibly comfortable. I also got a corduroy baseball cap, which -- if you're friends with me in real life and have me on Facebook, you can currently see me wearing in my profile picture.

I also finally picked up the trifold Montreal Canadiens leather wallet I wanted to get last year and kicked myself for not getting when I had the chance, in addition to some other little things like stickers, a patch, a deck of cards, etc. I don't really remember a lot of what the wife got; I know she got candy for Mom, at least 3-4 of the mugs, a big throw blanket for the couch, and some other odds and ends. 

After a quick run through the Superstore so she could get some cookies, we were back on the road to Auld's Cove for dinner with our family friends, who actually live on one of those little seaside cottages I was writing about above, right next to our hotel.

These family friends are longtime family friends -- Daisy's parents basically grew up with them and as it is a very close-knit community up there, those friendships span generations. All of the families, extended or otherwise, eventually intermarry or leave the area, so in some way, shape, or fashion everyone is tangentially related to someone else in the town either through cousins or distant marriages; there are only about thirty or forty family lines that run through the little town Mama's entire family is from, and some of those connections go back centuries. If you're not tangentially related via marriage or via fifth or sixth cousins or what have you, you are known because you're the son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, etc of someone known. It is very much a "everyone knows everyone else" community. In many respects, anywhere else, I would hate that (say, in a West Virginia context) but in that little town in Nova Scotia it is quite quaint and comforting. I will remind you that it seemed like the entire town showed up for the funeral of Daisy's grandfather in 2022, because he was a longtime pillar of the community and everyone knew him, or they knew one of his sons or daughters and their families, or all of the above. 

As an aside, last night at the parents', Mama made the comment that even though we didn't know most of the extended family folks at Daisy's cousin's wedding, she was absolutely sure that all of them -- all of them -- knew who we were. Same mentality, same energy.

Anyway -- these family friends adore Daisy and me. They adore Daisy's parents too of course, but they also adore us on our own merit. They are exceedingly kind and always open up their home to us when they know we're in town, and insist on cooking us a full meal (despite the fact that we have told them it's not necessary and that we just love seeing them and talking to them). Their house is simply beautiful, they are some of the kindest Canadians I have ever met, and they absolutely and completely sympathize with us being -- at this juncture -- "Americans, but unhappy about it" to phrase it gently.

But then again, they know all of us so well that they know we're not the typical American assholes.

"When we've been asked where we're from," I said, "I've been answering that question with 'unfortunately, we are from the states' because if I phrase it that way, whoever I say that to knows that we're not in league with the Trump-supporting fascists down there."

That is true, by the way. I wish I could tell you how many times I had to say that in mixed company in order to pre-emptively defend ourselves and let people know that we bleed maple syrup and poutine gravy, that we are, in fact, Canada-loving Americans. 

Well, I say it mainly in reference to myself. Daisy is actually a Canadian citizen and as such would theoretically have less to defend against.

Anyway --these are good people, people who love us and love the family, people who cook wonderful meals for us when we're in town even though they don't have to and will do it either for just us, or if one or more of the parents are with us, just because they want to and want to see us and spend time with us. We were there for hours, just enjoying food and quiet conversation, commiserating about just how bad it sucks now to be an American, about how much I love The Tragically Hip (this, ahem, came up frequently in conversation while I was in Canada, with many people) and about the life we have of raising six cats.

We are friends with these people on Facebook, of course -- it's not like they don't know about our lives in as much detail as we choose to share online. I have my Facebook locked down to the public and to non-friends, but to my friends, my life is basically an open book. I'm still a fairly private person, but aside from this site, Facebook is where I feel I can kind of at least somewhat be myself. I'm also one of those types of people who is very much "what you see is what you get, yo" in the sense that I am not a different person online than I am in real life. This is me.

So, after a delightful dinner and conversation, we did wander back to the hotel room and pass out, and so ended our vacation on the eastern side of the province. 

Canada 2025, Part VII: A Canadian Thanksgiving

Wednesday, October 8 was, roughly, the halfway point of our trip's timeframe. We were leaving for Halifax on Friday, the wedding was set for Saturday the 11th, and then we were wheels up on Sunday the 12th -- back to Omaha, back to reality, back to the prison that has become the United States. So, we really only had two free days to play around with, the Wednesday and Thursday in the middle of the week.

Well, we had plans for Thursday (this will be covered as well, later) so...Wednesday it was. Wednesday would be our big Thanksgiving dinner with Daisy's grandmother, aunt and uncle. 

I'd like to pause here and state that for a vacation, we were again suffering from the structure of "we have something to do every single day we're here" and by this time, the halfway point, it was beginning to wear on us a little. When we're tired, and when we can't sleep that well because of the hotel bed, and when we've been running almost nonstop for the better part of a full week...usually it wears on us. We will fight or squabble or snap at each other over the smallest, most trivial shit. Yet, this time around, both of us pointed out to one another multiple times what a great, fantastic trip it had been. 

And it was, really. In our many years of marriage, Daisy and I have made a lot of different trips to different places together. I'd put this one in the top three. 

Yes, we were running on adrenaline only, even by the midway point. Yes, we were achy and constantly exhausted, having random short-lived allergic reactions to things or, in Daisy's case, suffering from POTS attacks here and there. The vast majority of my meals were vegan turkey sandwiches and ketchup chips, with a low-caffeine Monster to wash it down. Daisy and I both also drank at least one Liquid I.V. per day, and still felt dehydrated even after each of us drinking a 1L bottle of water (or more) on that every day on top of that. Yes, we could get crabby with one another for brief periods -- it is not all wine and roses, as marriage and travel never is -- but through it all, I've never felt more bonded and present with my wife, and she mentioned the same about me. I wanted to mention all of this because it is easy to lose yourself in routine and stress when you're at home just trying to get through life, one work week after the next, and that can eat you alive before you even realize it. 

At the same time, I also realize that it's taken forever to get through this series of recap posts, but...we did a lot of things. And since we've returned home, normal life has taken back over -- Pete has been really sick, I threw my hip out for a couple of days, etc -- I will get to covering that when I get to it, but for now, let's continue.

Anyway.

That Wednesday morning we were on a mission -- go to all of the local grocery stores, again, and pick up everything needed for a Thanksgiving dinner. You think this would be simple, especially for only a small group of people and a full 40% of them who don't eat meat, but it's really not. Here's what we needed to acquire:

• Gluten-free stuffing ingredients (bread, spices, celery, onions, etc)
• Potatoes good for mashing
• Vegan butter
• Vegan gravy ingredients
• Vegetables as sides (carrots, corn, green beans, etc)
• A turkey alternative for Daisy and myself
• Cranberry sauce, or the ingredients for it
• Greens of some sort
• A dessert of some sort that everyone could enjoy
  
  

And various other odds and ends.

In the states, this is generally really easy -- we could pick up the vast majority of those things at Whole Foods; actually, we could probably get all of them at Whole Foods, and if not there, at Trader Joe's.

However, this was rural Atlantic Canada -- there are not Whole Foods or Trader Joe's there. Hell, even the closest Costco was in Halifax, a four-hour round trip of driving alone. 

Now, for me, there is a list of "absolute must-haves" for a Thanksgiving dinner, for the traditional American version of Thanksgiving. That list starts with a good vegan turkey (usually Field Roast), rolls with butter or vegan butter, gravy, green bean casserole, a mountain of mashed potatoes and gravy, a larger mountain of stuffing with more gravy, corn, carrots, and canned jellied cranberry sauce. Anything outside that is a bonus, and sometimes I can go without one or more of these things if necessary. At home in the states, I don't give a shit about desserts -- people get all up in arms about how there must be candied yams or pumpkin pie, and let me tell you, I absolutely don't care. My focus is on the meal and having enough leftover turkey, gravy, and stuffing for a week. 

In Canada though, it's different. Produce in Canada is harder to come by, more expensive, or both. Potatoes are fine and easy to find -- PEI produces some of the best potatoes on the planet, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are no slouches either when it comes to potato farming. Fresh green beans, even shortly before Canadian Thanksgiving? Sure, you can get them, but you'll pay for them.

We went through the local stores -- Atlantic Superstore and Sobey's -- both grocery chains that we like, actually, and tend to get most of our food at when we're in Canada -- to systematically get the ingredients for Thanksgiving one by one. As mentioned, potatoes were easy to get, as was the expensive fresh green beans. Frozen corn, gluten-free bread for the stuffing, a bag of carrots, onions, celery, gravy ingredients, etc were picked up one by one, from one store or the other. Fresh herbs and bouillon were ludicrously expensive, but we got them -- they were needed for the stuffing as well as the gravy. We figured grandma would make her own rolls (she always does, so we left that to her) and focused on the stuff we knew we had to bring -- so Daisy got fresh cranberries to boil down into a cranberry sauce, gluten-free Oreos (at $11 a bag, JFC) and cocowhip for a dessert of "mud," and we settled on Jack & Annie's jackfruit-based "chicken" tenders for us as our turkey replacement:

In the states or in Canada, we know these are good. We get them fairly frequently. And they're gluten-free, so Daisy doesn't have to worry about getting inflammation from the breading or what have you.

"The thought occurred to me," I told Daisy long after dinner was over and we were back in the hotel, "that I could have just taken a pack of the sandwich turkey up there and poured gravy on it, and that would've been fine too."

"You know, that thought crossed my mind too," Daisy replied.

So, we lugged our haul up to the family homestead to find that Daisy's grandmother had already made an apple pie for dessert, as well as the cranberry sauce, herself while we were gone, and had not made rolls. We did not say anything. Instead, Daisy got to work and I was given the job of "running blocker" as much as possible with grandma.

Let me explain that one -- Daisy's grandmother does not like anyone in her kitchen. She is a control freak with the kitchen stuff. She allows very few people to do anything in the kitchen alone, and that only sometimes includes Daisy. It absolutely does not include Daisy's mother, when she visits. Generally the in-laws also get a pass -- Daisy's aunts don't tend to get any shit about it, and one of them (the mother of the bride, Daisy's cousin, who we were there to see get married), explicitly puts that kitchen on lockdown when there's a big family event...and surprisingly, grandma listens to her. 

I will also add that generally I get a pass as well. I don't know why. But I do. Most of the time. 

So I was given the job of keeping Daisy's 92-year-old grandmother occupied so that she wasn't hovering over Daisy the entire time she was cooking the Thanksgiving dinner. This means I was to basically talk to her, see if I could get her to tell stories to occupy her mind, etc -- so that she wouldn't hover over Daisy and watch everything she was doing. Mind you, Daisy and I have both cooked numerous meals in the past for this woman, it's not like she doesn't know we know our way around the kitchen and, more importantly, it's not like she doesn't know we already know her quirks and how she likes things done, the places everything is supposed to be in, and so forth. Believe me, we do. 

I adore talking to grandma; she tells the most fascinating stories about growing up and living in rural Nova Scotia, about the town, the land, the family -- etc. But this day, she was reading the paper, and wasn't necessarily in an incredibly chatty mood. I tried, really I did, but it's not like I can tie the woman to her dining room chair or anything. Sometimes I also have to do things like, oh, go to the bathroom and pee. So, long story short, this 92-year-old woman did her best to hover over Daisy here and there anyway.

"It's okay, I'm not gonna hit her or anything," she would tell me. "You don't have to break us up."

I found this absolutely hilarious, because I find grandma hilarious anyway. She is absolutely one of the most interesting members of the family, and man am I gonna mourn this woman when she eventually goes. Her late husband was kind and soft-spoken with me, gentle in age and wisdom...but grandma is a firecracker when she is feeling it and spending time with her is an absolute joy. And surprisingly, she really likes me when she is not a huge fan of most people and doesn't tend to get close with most of the in-laws. However, she'll (usually) talk up a storm with me for hours.

Mama is stunned by this, by the way.

So, eventually, dinner was finished -- I helped where I could, and when Daisy would let me, but I was essentially banned from the kitchen as well; this is nothing new, as Daisy will tell me "get out of my kitchen" even at home. 

And then grandma brought out the pie.

Look, all -- I have gone on record stating that I am not a pie person, I am a cake person. It's a controversial stance within the family, much like me being a fan of the Montreal Canadiens instead of the Toronto Maple Leafs. But, grandma's apple pie -- as stereotypical as it may sound -- was amazing. I have gone on record multiple times since this day in saying it's the best apple pie I've ever had, and may be the best pie I've ever had in my life period. Yes, I know that is a bold statement. 

After dinner, everything wound down slowly. Dishes were done, the laundry I had been doing downstairs was dried, folded, and brought back up to be put in the back of the Bronco, and we had some quiet time with grandma watching the news before we eventually headed back down the hill to the hotel.

We had but two days left in and around the family homestead, and they were also to be filled with more, exciting things to do. 

Canada 2025, Part VI: Over the Hills and Far Away

 Because it was late in the year and the boats would be closing down soon for the season, Daisy had brought up the subject of wanting to go on another whale-watching tour from Pleasant Bay -- the same place we did it last year. Different times of the year have different whales, as they all have different migratory schedules. I told her that, of course, I would love to do that with her again -- especially as last year we saw like, half a whale. The boat trip itself was really fun, though, and way worth our time and money. So, on Sunday, she'd booked the trip for Tuesday at noon (it can all be done online, and she did it from her phone). We asked if her aunt and uncle wanted to join us, but they declined.

However, it is a very long drive up to Pleasant Bay from our hotel and family homestead -- it's a long drive straight up the western side of Cape Breton Island up to Cheticamp, which is the entry point of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park™ and the Cabot Trail. To get to Pleasant Bay, you take in (essentially) a third or so of the Cabot Trail as part of your drive, maybe just short of half. Because of this, we calculated that we'd need to leave around 8:30 or 9 at the latest, given the time it would take to drive up there. It is a very long drive up the island:

Mind you, that's the shortest route too. We take the seaside route up the west coast that takes us through Mabou and Inverness before getting on that main coastside drive allll the way up there. 

Well, we got our requisite morning Tim's and got a late start -- a late start that wasn't helped by getting stuck behind multiple super-slow drivers sightseeing in the Cape Breton Highlands and then, needing to stop and furiously pee in the rest stop at Cheticamp, where the entrance of the park was. We ended up getting to the 

I wrote about our trip through the national park and the Cabot Trail last year -- it is simply the most beautiful place I've ever been on the planet. I cannot accurately describe its beauty in words.

However. 

Last year we did it in June. This year we made the drive in October, at the height of fall foliage season.

Holy fuck.

I have visited a lot of beautiful places over the years. I have seen a lot of beautiful fall foliage in various places I've lived and traveled to or through over the course of my life. Never have I seen such beauty and gorgeous fall foliage combined until we drove through the Cape Breton Highlands in October. These pictures really don't do it justice. Daisy probably took 3-4x as many pictures as I did, too. 

So, anyway.

We sped into the parking lot of the Pleasant Bay Whale Watching place at like, 11:53 when our tour was scheduled to start at 12. Daisy ran up to use the bathroom again while I went to the box office to check in for the trip. I thought it was very odd that we were the only ones there, because as I was pulling in, there were several cars and an RV leaving. 

"Well, I have some bad news for ya," the head sailor said to me as both of us were dodging wasps that did not like us having a conversation within the little boathouse. "The winds are too strong to take the tours out, and are only going to get worse as the day moves into the evening, so we've canceled all the tours for the day. Next tour would probably not be until at least Saturday."

It was Tuesday. Saturday was the wedding that we'd come to Canada for -- currently approximately six hours away on the far end of the province from where we were at the present time. 

I had a pleasant conversation with the sailor guy; like I said, we were the only two there. He was a good seafaring man with a thick Nova Scotia accent, with what I also detected was a hint of Irish. When you're up there long enough, you tend to pick up on the regional accents a bit more than you would if you were there for, say, a day. I'm there for a couple of weeks every year, so I've become quite adept at the accent identification. If I'm up there for too long, I begin to pick it up myself subconsciously. 

Anyway, he processed the refund for us and said it would go right back into our account (I assume Daisy put it on the AAdvantage card, I never checked or asked) by end of day and would take a few business days to clear. If it didn't hit the account by like...well, now I'm guessing, as I am writing this on October 19, to let them know and they'd make it right. 

So, there we were -- at the top of Cape Breton Island, having nothing to do but go back home the way we came, back down the island and back to the family homestead. Maybe get another poutine for dinner. Etc. 

"Why don't we just...drive the rest of the trail?" Daisy asked.

Now, this was also a very long drive; her sister, our brother-in-law, and our five nieces and nephews had done that last year after we'd done the whale boat trip, and it took them until well into the late evening hours to get home. The Cabot Trail is a huge loop that takes up the vast majority of the northern half of Cape Breton Island, and it excises some of the towns in the area from it (as in, for example, the trail curves around Pleasant Bay -- to enter the town of Pleasant Bay proper, you exit the park/trail and when you leave town in the opposite direction, you re-enter it). Anyway, it circles the top half of the island and gives you various exit points in a few places, like Ingonish (which I believe is the eastern end of the trail). From there you can either drive the scenic route along the east and southeast coast of the island or you can take a more inner route and see more forest, the Bras d'Or Lake, etc. 

I was apprehensive about driving the rest of the trail, but I was also pretty tired and somewhat burnt out -- I'd barely slept or had any real downtime on the trip to this point, the bed in the hotel was hard as a stone, and I was living off Tim Hortons and Monsters -- which are legally regulated in Canada to only have half the caffeine they have in the states because of health concerns -- so I would have to double-fist them to get the same effect. I also didn't want us to get lost in an area where we'd have zero cell signal for the GPS, because it is very sparse up there, and there are zero gas stations or landmarks -- or even any real communities on most of the northern part of the island -- it is wilderness. Wilderness and coves, and rocky beaches. 

We decided to make the drive anyway, to do the entire trail and then figure out which route to take to get back home, but not before stopping at the quaint biker-oriented gift shop in Pleasant Bay where we stopped last year with the whole family. 

I should note that on this trip, we really didn't get much of anything in the way of souvenir stuff. Daisy wanted specifically to get a second black Canadiana hoodie from Walmart, I wanted the mottled heather gray one, and Mama asked us if we'd pick up a red one for her. We got all of those, which took up a significant amount of suitcase space, but...we hadn't really gotten anything else and hadn't stopped at any other souvenir shops while traveling. Normally by the time we've hit up Walmart, Giant Tiger, and Dollarama, I have a suitcase full of new Canada t-shirts and coffee mugs, keychains, stickers, patches, etc.

But, I've collected a lot of that stuff already over past trips. This time I just wanted the gray hoodie so that I would have the entire set, one in every color the Canadiana company made (black, red, yellow, and gray). I have enough Canada-centric clothing and decor to last a lifetime; I really don't need any more at this juncture.

But that is also a nice little gift shop up there in Pleasant Bay, and we did get a few little things -- Daisy got a "Sounds of Nova Scotia" CD, and we both got a few patches and pins for our clothing and backpacks. I'm one of those guys who is going to start collecting iron-on patches and just covering my travel backpack and military jacket with them, I think. It's fun. It's kitschy. 

By the way, the music on these Canadian radio stations...oh my, y'all. Radio is alive and well in Canada. Good radio, radio that plays songs you actually want to hear. 

These guys cover Chuck Berry's "C'est la vie" in French and do a hell of a job of it -- to the point where I came home and immediately looked it up to listen to it again.

I have also learned that Canada has a rather strange obsession with R.E.M. and Queen -- neither band I would think would have a strong following in Canada, but Canadian radio loves them both. I heard no fewer than five different R.E.M. songs on the radio up there over multiple stations, over multiple days of driving around in the Bronco. The same goes for Queen too; we heard multiple Queen songs. Could it be coincidence? Sure, I guess, but it seemed pretty odd to me at the time. 

And, of course, because we were in Canada...

This is how I truly know I'm in Canada when I'm there -- they play The Hip on the radio. And not just their big hits, either. "Fifty-Mission Cap" isn't necessarily a deep cut, but it is off a 30+ year old record (Fully Completely) and I wouldn't necessarily call it one of their top five, even top ten, big hits for them. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong, maybe it was wildly popular in Canada and I'm just unaware because I'm a stupid American. 

Still, hearing The Hip on the radio is amazing, it is a surreal experience for me. I'm sure I'm one of a very small group of people who appreciates that in the way that I do; to Canadians I'm sure hearing The Hip on the radio is a pretty normal thing. To an American who knew nothing of them aside from their name for years, then rapidly became a fan after hearing some of their stuff a few months ago...it's akin to a religious experience. 

Anyway. There's more coming about The Hip later as I continue my story, so let's move on. 

After we hit the souvenir shop in Pleasant Bay, we took our time traveling the rest of the Cabot Trail through the forest, up and down mountains, through every bit of foliage possible -- interspersed with clear open views of the open ocean and rocky cliffs, little seaside towns with fishing/lobster boats and private yachts side by side. We stopped at multiple overlooks and took many pictures. We even stopped at a little beach tucked into the highlands with a short path through the woods leading down to it:

I don't know if I've ever seen more idyllic nature in my life. 

We circled the vast majority of the very large island, before cutting inland and driving along the Bras d'Or lake shore after we exited the trail. The entire drive took almost a full tank of gas and was something like, oh, 300km total, and by the time we were back "home," our original plans of getting me more poutine for dinner fizzled out since we were both tired. Instead we went to the family homestead to see Daisy's grandmother.

"Would you like us to do a Thanksgiving dinner with you?" Daisy asked her.

Now, for those of you who don't know -- and I wouldn't expect you to if you're not Canadian -- Thanksgiving in Canada is not when we do it here in the states. Thanksgiving in Canada is always the second Monday in October. In the states, this is Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples' Day. I mentioned before that Thanksgiving in Canada doesn't seem to be a huge deal like it is down here in the states, but it's still a significant holiday for them. Canadian tradition is, generally, to do their Thanksgiving dinner on the weekend prior to the actual holiday and focus on downtime and family afterwards. I mean, I guess -- that is the sense I got from most of the Canadian friends and family we spoke to while up there.

However, we were leaving town on Friday to head to Halifax, the wedding was Saturday, and we were flying out on Sunday -- meaning, we would completely miss Canadian Thanksgiving. It couldn't be avoided, it's just how the travel schedules fell. We travel for maximized time with minimized cost, and our in-and-out dates were what worked.

Daisy's grandmother agreed to a Thanksgiving dinner, and I went downstairs and pulled out a frozen turkey roast for her out of the freezer. Daisy's aunt and uncle enthusiastically said they'd join us too, so there would be a dinner for five -- me, Daisy, her grandmother, and the aunt and uncle. Daisy made it clear that either grandma herself or the aunt and uncle would need to deal with the turkey (Daisy, the lifelong vegan, will not touch or handle meat, and I don't blame her), but everything else she/we would go pick up and make/cook.

So, early the next morning, we had a new mission....

Canada 2025, Part V: The American Tax

 Monday, the 5th, was our first weekday in Canada. As such, it was the first day I could attempt to get my cash exchanged at the credit union up on the island.

This was a point of contention between the wife and myself; she doesn't understand my cash mentality when I'm traveling, as she'd much rather just use a card for everything. I don't like that because I have to track it to know how much I'm using versus limits/balances, etc, and it puts us further into debt. With cash, the money is already spent and accounted for. She was also embarrassed that I would point-blank ask places (like Walmarts or grocery stores, etc) if they would exchange the cash at their customer service counters. 

Like, I don't care, these people in quiet conversations at service counters can know I'm a "stupid American" and tell me no, whatever; it doesn't matter to me. If they don't do the exchange I don't care, it doesn't matter to me, I'll move on to the next place. I don't find it embarrassing at all. I am a customer looking for a service.

We needed the cash; it wasn't optional. Daisy had scheduled a hair appointment with the salon in Nova Scotia days before we even left Nebraska. That appointment was for Monday evening. The salon (really just two guys who operate out of a storefront in an old house on the Port Hawkesbury waterfront) is cash only and always has been. It's also really expensive. They told her it would be $59 for a basic cut, which I've always found to be steep.

Remember this price, it'll become important later. 

Anyway, bright and early Monday morning, we went to the credit union on the island to see if I could get the cash exchanged. They said they'd gladly do it but could only do up to $200. 

"I'm cool with that," I said. They happily and kindly took $200 of my American money, converted it to CAD, and gave it back to me. That day, the exchange rate meant my $200 turned into $276 CAD. They (I'm sure) took a photo of me with their bank cameras, got my phone number, and used my passport (which I took with me that day in case anyone decided to grief me) as my ID for the transaction. The girls there were pleasant and I thanked them profusely, since they'd been the only folks who was able to do it.

Once back in the Bronco, I gave Daisy the amount of cash she needed for the haircut and tip, and we moved on with our day. 

Note: I likely could have gone to another branch of that same credit union and converted the rest of my cash to CAD either that day, or later in the week -- but I don't know what their limitations are and I didn't want to be red-flagged in their systems for doing it at multiple locations. Again, American here, let's not try to draw any more attention to us than necessary, etc. So, for the remainder of my time in Canada, I operated with the $200 or so in Canadian cash I had left after giving Daisy the necessary money for her haircut. Turns out I'd need it a lot less than I thought, but we'll get to that.

Anyway. We ran a few more errands, checked out the new Dollarama (in the same plaza as the grocery stores and grandma's drugstore) and picked up a few things here and there, and spent some time with the grandmother before picking back up and driving back up to the island a second time for Daisy's haircut in the evening. 

Look, I don't pretend to know what little Canadian cities and towns are really like, even though I've been through a number of them at all hours of the day and night all throughout Atlantic Canada, but I can tell you that on this particular Monday evening, Port Hawkesbury was basically shut down. There was almost nobody out on the roads moving around, nobody really on the residential streets, and aside from the sloshing of the water against the boats and the shore, it was unnervingly quiet. I wouldn't have given this a second thought if it hadn't been early evening (in the 5pm hour) and I still would have expected there to be a good bit of hustle and bustle around the town. Yes, it was a school night, but...people still get off work in the 5pm hour in Canada, don't they?

I mean, I guess I wouldn't really know. 

Anyway, we pulled into the parking lot of the hair salon and went inside. The hairdresser was finishing up the guy right before us, and he would finish quite quickly, leaving us the only ones in the salon (presumably, Daisy was the last appointment of the night). 

Now, mind you, this guy has cut Daisy's hair, as well as her mother's, numerous times. However, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to remember either of them; I'm sure he does a thousand haircuts a year, some people multiple times. No way I'd expect him to remember Daisy or her mother. So he greets her like a stranger -- pleasantly and sweetly, because it's his business, etc. And Daisy was her wonderful self as always. 

I wasn't exactly paying close attention to their conversation; I was reading something on my phone and in the lobby about 30 feet away, but I heard snippets of the small talk they were having. There was the usual talk about the weather differences between here and Nebraska as it pertained to gardening, etc. He found it interesting we were visiting from the states, Daisy made sure he knew we were not Trump supporters (i.e. we were safe, as he was a gay man running a hair salon after dark) and somehow the conversation got onto the topic that we were there in Canada for Daisy's cousin's wedding, and it had been specified that it would be a "child free" wedding -- meaning leave the kids at home, get a babysitter, or don't come, etc. She mentioned that our own wedding was a child free wedding -- and it was, aside from the family kids who were actually in the wedding. The hairdresser thought this was rude, and said so. He also said that he just wouldn't go to a wedding with that stipulation, because kids are fun.

I rolled my eyes because even though it may be slightly judgy or prejudiced, what gay male hairdresser in his mid-60s gives a flying fuck about kids at a wedding he's not even attending? 

Anyway, they moved off that topic and onto something else and I stopped paying any attention whatsoever, focusing on my phone once again. When the haircut was done, I saw that he'd washed and conditioned Daisy's hair twice, then straightened it, then put product in it, and then blew it back. She looked like one of the Shirelles, except with, y'know, green/blue/purple hair. Or kinda like a punk rock Bride of Frankenstein. Either way, I dug it. I thought she looked really good, and I also knew what it would look like once all the product and styling would be washed out of it.

"$75," he told Daisy at the register.

Daisy immediately looked back at me, and in one smooth motion I pulled out my wallet and gave her another twenty to cover the difference and the tip. Daisy said nothing. We paid him, tipped him, thanked him, and then left.

"So is that the American Tax?" Daisy asked me once we were back to the Bronco. "Because you were there in the room when I asked him on the phone, the haircut was $59."

"Yes," I said. And I did remember. "But he did condition your hair twice and he did put the product in it and blow it out..."

It was still $16 more than we'd been quoted, and that was before tip.

The question of the "American Tax" -- and whether it was instituted because of the "rude" wedding stuff or not, or whether it was a tax at all or whether pricing was different with the double-conditioning and blowout -- absolutely plagued Daisy throughout the rest of the trip.

"Do you really care though?" I asked. "Your hair looks great -- nobody can cut and style it better than he does, and even if it is an 'American Tax,' I don't really give a shit, it is what it is, etc."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm going to go back to him again," Daisy would later tell her mother on the phone. 

I thought her hair looked great, and it is what it is.

Canada 2025, Part IV: This Canadian Life

 Our second day there, Sunday (our first full day there) was filled with miniature adventures and little errands. We'd established ourselves with the rental car, the hotel room, and the family homestead -- and now it was time to get some stuff done around the area. 

This included doing an actual grocery trip to get some actual foods, hitting up the Walmart and Giant Tiger, and then -- in the evening -- getting a poutine for dinner at the truckstop with Daisy's aunt and uncle (who conveniently live next door to the grandmother at the family homestead). 

And, of course, Tim's.

Tim Hortons is not just a perk of travel, it is a necessity and it is a daily pilgrimage when we are in Canada. Brandon needs his double-double to function when running on very little sleep on an incredibly hard and thin hotel mattress. Daisy, not to be outdone, usually got a large coffee with oat milk and vanilla syrup, which would fuck up her stomach almost every day -- but the coffee there is good and worth it. 

Each day I would also get one or more different donuts, and we would get a donut or pastry to take to Daisy's grandmother too, as she so loves them. 

Anyway.

We were able to get some good groceries -- my favorite Canadian bread and swiss cheese, and a bunch of the vegan turkey I love, as well as a good amount of stuff for Daisy and a ton of ketchup chips for both of us, but everything else we sort of struck out on compared to the usual. Giant Tiger was very disappointing this time around; I got a pair of shorts for $4 or so, some candy bars, and two shirts. I also picked up a David Sedaris book I hadn't gotten the chance to read yet, but really not much else. I think Daisy found about the same amount of small things, but nothing really striking as something we absolutely needed.

We fared better at Walmart -- consistently the best Walmart I've been to in the entire province -- where we both got new hoodies and I found 5-6 pairs of shorts for $3 each on clearance (it's fall in Canada now, after all -- who's wearing shorts?) and I was able to find a pack of the Monster Ultra Gold (pineapple) that I haven't been able to find in the states in literal years; I think they stopped making it here. It's still alive and running strong in Canada, though.

I must take an aside at this point to mention a variation of the same thing I say every year -- in rural Atlantic Canada, it often feels like time stands still. A few little things change here and there from year to year, but by and large it really continues to feel like the 90s in Canada, from product availability in stores to the design and decor of homes and public places. Everything is simpler and more nostalgic, and I wonder if in the actual 90s it felt like it was still the 80s or 70s. 

For example, the Walmarts in Canada...most of them remain unchanged from their 90s appearances; the one in Port Hawkesbury that we went to above is legit like stepping back into 1995 or so. The store hasn't been updated or redesigned, and while it carries all the new stuff any other Walmart would, the layout of the store is almost identical to the Walmarts of 30 years ago, with the only real difference being that there's now a larger grocery section in the middle of it. However, if you walked in there and I told you it was 1995, you'd likely believe it if you just glanced around. This would be reinforced even more when you looked around and found stuff like Fruitopia, which hasn't been available in the states in over 20 years but is still everywhere in Canada. 

The cars are all new (it's rare that you see anything older than the mid-90s, and if you do, it's usually someone caravanning/traveling across the country, or a classic car that's been very well-kept) but everyone is dressed plainclothes; very few people have visible tattoos or oddly-colored hair, and almost all males wear baseball caps -- either plain ones or with various unobtrusive logos on them. Nobody seems to want to stand out or look/be unique in these port towns or rural areas; they are all very working-class, modest folk. Either that or they're Asian/Indian/Sikh -- Nova Scotia (and a large chunk of Canada) has a large and thriving immigrant population that seems to have integrated so much better into Canadian society than a lot of those groups have here in the states. 

Everything just seems...slower, more peaceful, up there than it does down here. Now, mind you, the states is a garbage fire right now, and the places we go when we're there are very rural and not comparable at all to the noise, traffic and hustle-bustle of Omaha, but still, I notice a very definite difference in attitudes, politeness, and general flow of life when I'm in Canada. I do not have stress when I'm in Canada. It does not appear that most people do. They're... just living their lives every day without feeling crushed, oppressed, and burdened by bills and responsibilities? They have free healthcare and a system that (mostly) works really well for it? I can only imagine what it's like to live that way as the standard, and not the exception.

Plus, they have Rush and The Tragically Hip. And poutine whenever they want it. And Tim Hortons. And hockey that outside of a select few, everyone cares about, instead of the opposite. It's like a dream world for me. It's really like visiting another planet, or a parallel universe where everything's just better.

Something I did notice this time around was that if I thought Canada was pro-Canada before, they are wildly so now after all the political stuff with Trump, the tariff debacles, and the "51st state" stuff. Almost every product is marked multiple times with "made in Canada" labels -- and those labels are especially prevalent on items where the parent companies are based in the states (Heinz ketchup, Lays chips, Pepsi products especially -- Pepsi stuff is marked "proudly bottled in Nova Scotia") but also on everything else possible -- everything on a shelf up there is very clearly marked if it's 100% Canadian made/grown/manufactured/etc. And don't worry, if you missed the labeling on the packaging, it's marked on the shelf itself too. 

The stuff that's not marked as Canadian? Like stuff that is very clearly from the states and wasn't made in Canada? It is not marked, and it very literally gathers dust on the shelves while all of the Canadian products around it sell like crazy. I wouldn't necessarily say this is anti-American, but I would absolutely say it's wildly patriotic of Canadians. I noticed all of this last year when we were up there, but this year it's been ramped up so hard. Watching local TV and seeing commercials for local restaurants and the like, they are always very clear to mention in the commercials that they use "100% Canadian ingredients" and/or are "100% Canadian owned."

For those of you who unfortunately live in the United States, like myself -- when was the last time you saw a commercial, or a label on a product or on a shelf that said "100% American ingredients" or "100% American owned"? Because I'm not sure I've ever seen a label like that, and if I did, it would feel wildly jingoistic. Why? Because US Capitalism™ sources its owners, workers, ingredients, parts, pieces, and overall grunt labor from whoever and wherever will do it the cheapest. Take a look at a bottle of juice off the shelf in a Walmart the next time you're there, or a bag of frozen fruit from the freezer section and read the fine print about where all the fruits come from. Chances are that you'll see they come from 3-4 different countries and are blended and packaged in yet another country before being sold in the US. It feels somewhat exploitative. It is also a wild and stark contrast to what I see in Canada, because yes, I pay attention to that stuff.

Canada does have the snack market on lockdown, though -- and I mentioned this before. Here's a few pictures I snapped this year:

Notice the shelf/packaging labels?

Note, I did not try any of these while I was up there; I've had a couple of them before on previous trips. The chicken chips are disgusting to me (though we do have family up there who love them) and the "bacon" flavor in any potato chip up there is just basically liquid smoke and MSG. Ruffles also makes a "Poutine" flavored chip in Canada that I found disappointing when I tried it a few years back.

Meh, it is what it is. 

Upon returning to the family homestead on Sunday night, we met up with Daisy's aunt and uncle for a dinner of poutine at the truckstop at the bottom of the hill.

I will mention -- and have said it here before multiple times -- that I have had many poutines in Canada over the years from many different places. This truckstop, the Irving Big Stop & Restaurant in Auld's Cove, Nova Scotia (if you ever wanted to look it up) makes, consistently, the best poutine I've ever had. It is perfect every time, and it never changes. It's the perfect amount of food; it is wonderfully seasoned, the gravy and cheese curds are always great, and the fries are always perfectly crisp.

"So they've changed the poutine here," Daisy's aunt said, when I was already halfway through my meal. "Did you notice the gravy is much saltier now, and the fries are no longer crinkle cut but straight cut?"

Last year when I was up there they must have been in the process of the change -- the first poutine I had still had the normal crinkle cut fries. After that I absolutely noticed the next one had straight cut fries. It didn't bother me in the least, but I did find it interesting.

"I noticed the fries last year," I said. "But now that you mention it, yeah, this gravy does seem saltier."

And it did. It didn't taste different, per se -- like, it's really hard to fuck up a basic poutine gravy -- but it did seem saltier than it did before. Did it change my enjoyment of the poutine? Absolutely not.

I did, however, notice that the prices on a lot of their menu items shot through the roof over the course of the past few years -- every time we visit, a poutine costs more than it did the last time. It's not prohibitively expensive, but when it used to be $11.99 and it's now $17.99 that is absolutely a big jump.

Still, that's like $12 American, so I'm fine with it.

After dinner we had a nice quiet evening watching the news with Daisy's grandmother before returning to the hotel and winding down for the night.