Moving to Tropical Canada
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By Mary Colburn-Green. Expat
mary@marketingsolutions-us.com
506-529-8199
You read it right … “Tropical Canada”.
We learned about this bizarre
phenomenon in the early ‘90s while on vacation in
Montreal. It happened innocently enough while my
husband Ken and I were riding a public bus back to
our downtown hotel after a frenzied shopping spree.
During this 20-minute interlude, upon learning that
we were visiting “Yanks” from West Virginia, a
cordially loquacious elderly gent shared his
fondness for all things Atlantic Maritime.
His enthusiasm centered upon
the mild weather and shellfish wonders of this
undiscovered region to the East. During his eloquent
oratory, he “imprinted” upon us the absolute
necessity of visiting “the tropical part of Canada,”
where amidst swaying palms the lobsters virtually
jump ashore and the seafood delicacies exceed a
gastronome’s wildest dreams. On and on with
contagious gusto, he extolled the virtues of
little-known Maritime Canada comprised of the
provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and
Nova Scotia, a landscape of windswept rocky strewn
shores and remote Celtic villages. The encounter
with him was unforgettable.
A year later when the grind of our professional
lives required time off to reboot by exploring new
territory, I suggested a jaunt up the Maine Coast,
an area of the States I hadn’t visited, and also a
visit to that “tropical part of Canada.” Now Dr.
Ken, a rural sociologist who grew up in Washington
State showing animals at Canadian fairs and mixing
with Canadian in-laws, said emphatically, “There’s
no such thing as Tropical Canada! Still, he promised
to search the net to see what he could learn about
the Maritimes and said he’d “report back.”
A few days later he shared his
due diligence: “The only thing I can come up with is
that the
Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick has waters as warm
as Virginia Beach … so perhaps the water tempers the
coastal climate…”
He
also reported that this region has the highest tides
in the world and the richest marine life, including
lobster, mussels, scallops, oysters, all sorts of
whales and sea vegetation. Moreover, he noted that
New Brunswick is the sunniest Canadian province
in winter and the only official dual language
province. So much for facts; seeing is believing.
So mid-July came and we set off in the car waving
goodbye to our five Jack Russells and their
babysitter to explore this
coastal territory. We were armed with a loose
itinerary and warnings from owners of Maine cottages
about avoiding that State’s summer gridlock along
tourist trap towns. We were directed to visit New
Harbor, a lovely remote destination with an
authentic sea captain’s inn, rustic cottages, and
popular outdoor fresh lobster and seafood restaurant
perched on a picturesque pier.
Departing our home the afternoon of July 4th
we were regaled with a fireworks display in
Pennsylvania and the next day were captivated by
Maine’s rocky seascapes and New England architecture
not to mention the quaint antique shops on every
gentleman’s farm.
So far … so good: our coastal
expectations were meeting anticipation. However, an
sudden onslaught of ragweed rhinitis attacked the
second day, rendering me an oozing, sneezing zombie.
Always
when the ragweed pollen hit West Virginia in late
August, we left for Europe to save me from this
pestilence. But here in mid-July on Maine’s breezy
coast, ragweed pollen was ruining my vacation fun.
We continued to plod north to the ”tropics” with me
nodding out in the passenger seat on OTC allergy
meds knee-deep in wet tissues and my husband
doped-up on internet info on tourist sites. We
thought we’d head up to
St. Andrews by-the-Sea, described as a artsy
resort favorite, and then drive through the St. John
Valley, along the
Fundy Coast, and if time allowed, we’d venture
up to Shediac for some French ambiance and lobster.
When we hit Calais, Maine, the
international border town that crosses into
St. Stephen New Brunswick 2-1/2 hours from
Bangor, we missed the
border crossing turn and ended up entering Canada
further north at McAdam. Driving for miles and miles
in heavy forest; it was hot and humid with the only
diversion black flies pelting our windshield. I
almost forgot the occasional trailer enclave replete
with a rust bucket on blocks, a few clear-cut areas,
and the ominous Georgia Pacific signs. This eerie
almost Appalachian scene reminded us of the “West
By-God-Virginia hollers” we’d left behind.
By this
time we realized we were way off track and that this
dumb detour had cost us valuable time, so at the
first intersection we headed south on Rt. 127 toward
St. Andrews. We raced the sunset south. Our
frustration was palpable in the silence.
(I always feel anxious when we arrive at a new
destination at night without a place to stay.)
As
dusk closed in we found ourselves driving along the
St. Croix River where the cool evening sea
breeze and ephemeral glimpses of the St. Croix River
signaled a very different terrain, buoying our
anticipation. In the middle of the river, we spied
the tiny
St. Croix Island, where 400 years ago Explorer
Pierre Dugua Sieur de Mons and Cartographer Samuel
Champlain arrived with a ship full of French
settlers and supplies to establish the first
European settlement in Canada, only to be decimated
by scurvy; ironically the few survivors were saved
by the very Indians they feared.
Entering
St. Andrews was like entering a fairyland; a
pristine 18th-century
New England fishing village moored in time with sea
glass colored buildings on quaint Water Street with
its nautical street lights and colorful hanging
baskets and window boxes. King Street’s
imagination-perfect church steeples and perfectly
preserved clapboard homes continued down to the bay
where bright fishing boats and sloops bobbed
expectantly.. After our Twilight Zone afternoon, we
felt our optimism lift and even my allergy symptoms
disappeared into the enchanting evening.
With our luck running
we secured the last room at the renowned
Fairmont Algonquin Hotel, a huge castle-like
Tudor resort property on a hill overlooking the town
with immense Victorian gardens that in itself was
worth the trip.
After checking in we were
“some hungry” in the Canadian idiom. Being tried and
true “Euro-philes” we searched out a small gourmet
restaurant. We trotted briskly through town noting
the historic architecture to the
L’Europa, reputedly one of the best Continental
restaurants around. It was an unusually slow night,
so
in addition to superb continental cuisine (Las Moras
organic Argentinian wine, silky lobster bisque, duck
a’ L’orange, venison in red currant sauce, and
checkered chocolate mouse cake for desert), we
enjoyed the gracious hospitality of
Simone and Markus Ritter, the young German
proprietors. The vivaciously attractive
Simone, an artist,
and
the astute Chef Markus told us how much they loved
living in St. Andrews and how they had been lured
here by a German guide advising that the Maritimes
offered the most opportunity in Canada for
restaurant start-ups. After thoroughly
researching the region, they told us they had
decided on
St. Andrews for its tourism potential and
quality of life.
Talking
to them fondly reminded us of a former German
partner in my marketing firm, so toward the end of
our conversation and quite out of the blue, I said,
“We should look at
property tomorrow”. My adventuresome accomplice
for 30+ years agreed spontaneously, his compliance
lubricated by the good wine and conversation and
knowing it wouldn’t matter what he said.
I still don’t know where the
idea came from … and now in retrospect I can only
characterize it as “a true calling” of Biblical
proportions.
Immediately Simone produced the business card of a
highly recommended
Realtor, an oddball Maritime character whose
quirky charm defies description. And as they say,
the rest is history.
The next day after seeing only three
properties, one of which wasn’t even listed, we
placed an offer on a stunning 2-1/2 acre
parcel of land in an older subdivision just
north of town, called The Glebe as it was formerly
church-owned land. This verdant parcel formerly and
apple orchard overlooking an azure bay was
absolutely perfect with its perimeter birches,
Tamarack, spruce and alders, ferns, rock outcrops
and even a stream.
Waterfront property with an island in view, but
nothing manmade in sight. The idea of a
shoreline property right on the
Passamaquoddy Bay overlooking
Minister’s Island -- at about a quarter the
price of anything we had seen in the real estate
guides in Maine -- thrilled us. Considering the
favorable exchange rate, the property price was the
equivalent of US$60,000 and the property taxes were
negligible ($800/year).
Over the next few days, we explored every nook and
cranny of St. Andrews, wandering through the
spectacular 50-acre
Kingsbrae Gardens, attending an exhibit at
Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre, shopping
at the Thursday Farmers Market, and ogling the art
galleries and clothing boutiques. We talked to
helpful residents and were waited on by polite,
articulate teenagers, an oxymoron we had thought.
We devoured
tourist
books and local novels to understand the historical
and cultural facets of this special place. We
learned that during the Revolutionary War when trade
between Britain and the Colonies was curtailed,
St. Andrews port was littered with scores of
transatlantic sailing ships making a well worn
triangular circuit
that involved transporting New Brunswick hardwood to
Britain, delivering tea, spices and fabrics to the
Caribbean, and sailing home with a full hold full of
rum. Wealthy sea captains and merchants built
stately homes high on the hill above the more modest
timber homes shipped intact to
St. Andrews by the anti-Revolutionary Loyalists,
escaping to Canada from Maine. When the War ended,
St. Andrews trade with Britain had to compete once
again with the American colonies, but the town
retained its wealth and prominence into the 19th
century as a popular
seaside resort for affluent industrialists from
Boston and Montreal who arrived by train.
The elite came to enjoy the
cool summers and famous “lack
of hay fever” along with the stylized social
life centered around outdoor and indoor
entertainment, including theatre performances, tea
dances, art classes, casino play,
golf, tennis and
boating. They came for the seafood and whale
watching, the picnics overlooking the gorgeous
seaside vistas, the garden tours, and I imagine a
bit of social climbing centering around, where else,
but the
Algonquin Hotel.
We observed through leisurely
walks and museum visits that whether through great
city planning or a magical time warp,
this
lovely village of 1,700 had maintained its
historical aura and had thwarted overtures from
corporate chain stores and high-rise condo
developers. In a clamshell, St. Andrews still
possessed the quaintness, charm and cultural
leanings that had made it so popular with the upper
crust in the past and now with tourists in the
present. And yes, we discovered in those days of
old,
they
used lobsters in the fields as fertilizer,
so our Montreal friend wasn’t
fabricating a lot.
We spent our evenings at a
dinner theatre performance (a hilarious modern take
on a Shakespearian comedy written and performed by
locals), took in a maritime musical group fiddling
the night away at a downtown pub – and a free Town
Square concert by the popular band “Hot
Toddy.”
We
ate at the now famous
Rossmount Inn where Chris Aerni, a Swiss Chef,
has won accolades for his inventive gourmet cuisine
using local produce and ingredients like Dulse
(seaweed), fiddle heads, oysters, balletto mushrooms
and maple syrup. We ate crepes in town, bought
prints and books by local artists and authors, and
stuffed our suitcase with sea glass jewelry and
metallic fish. We checked out the
Sir James Dunn Academy, a high school with top
honors in the Province, and the
community college whose hospitality program
draws students from Mexico, China and South America.
While drinking lattes and eating scones al fresco at
the Sweet Harvest
natural foods bakery
and restaurant on Water Street,
we wrote colorful
picture post cards featuring humpback whales,
round-eyed puffins, meandering moose and
languishing
lighthouses to friends and family. We exalted the
town and eluded to our new property, which we really
hadn’t a clue yet how we would use.
We explored the old fashioned
grocery and hardware stores for lifestyle clues and
met all sorts of well-traveled people from
Switzerland, Australia, Toronto, Europe, Montreal
and the States, some who return every summer and
others who had moved here year-round. At the
internet café by the
Laundromat, Ken discovered that St. Andrews’s
latitude is the same as Portland, Oregon … not quite
tropical.
Residents regaled us with tales of the vibrant
winter social scene and cold weather fun when the
tourists evaporated and the town was reclaimed by
the locals. Activities from curling teams and ice
skating to community theatre and
dine-arounds. They mentioned the 3 weeks holiday
activities involving the entire town leading up to
Christmas and Boxing Day. We were graciously invited
to a new million dollar villa built by a Toronto
business couple to see their builder’s craftsmanship
and get advice on the building process over a nice
bottle of Cab.
At our neighbor’s home we
sampled their home made wine and beer on their
massive deck, basking in the perfect summer sun –
the light reminding us of Provence --and witnessed
an incredible spectacle: an osprey and eagle
overhead maneuvering like fighter jets over the
Osprey’s freshly caught salmon still dripping from
the sea. OMG!
We
toured our new neighbors’ incredible organic
vegetable garden popping vine-ripe hardy kiwi in our
mouths like grapes (not
quite tropical, but getting closer).
It turned out that our well-read neighbors, a French
NBer and Anglo-Ontario blended couple, were
world-renowned lobster and haddock scientists with
well spoken teens. And like us they loved to cook
and party. On their kitchen counter we noticed the
papaya and baguette – the latter a trapping of their
exchange student from Montreal – and left with a
generous portion of delectable homemade gravelox,
made from locally farmed salmon. We also sampled a
tin of the famous New Brunswick brand sardines from
nearby
St. George,
a
delicacy that in former days was exported to France
for a King’s ransom. Unfortunately we didn’t have
time to join them on a fishing trip on their 40-ft
boat. We discussed the
DaVinci Code
that
we all had recently read and talked of our
children’s career aspirations. But where was the TV?
In our short but revealing
visit to
St. Andrews, it was impossible to ignore the
many lifestyle clues that that this place was pretty
sophisticated under its casual trappings of
Birkenstocks, toques, and fleece. We smugly
concluded after extending our St. Andrews time to
almost a week (so we could go whale watching on a
catamaran
try
kayaking, and try fly fishing on the Chamcook Lake)
that this must be the
most charming and unspoiled coastal community in
North America …a safe haven full of interesting,
international people with a vibrant arts and culture
bent, where people were eco-activists and education
and families were top priorities.
A
place where even the teenagers were polite!
Returning home via the Quoddy
Loop Route
we took the
Deer Island Ferry and then landing later in
Campobello Island where Roosevelt had his
picturesque summer home – truly a page out of a L.L.
Bean catalog—and now an international park.
Back in West Virginia, when we
told our friends of our property purchase (and
impending move to Canada), they were shocked. Our
friends and family knew that we were thinking of
relocating abroad when we retired in a decade
probably to Provence or Tuscany since we returned
there every year on vacation. But moving north,
becoming “expats” in Canada -- especially in
“tropical”
Maritime Canada -- was off all of our radar
screens until the infamous exploratory trip north.
And like us most of our
friends had no clue where this tropical area in
Canada was located. So we started carrying a map of
the Northeast to point out that St. Andrews was just
20 minutes from Calais, Maine.
In the
next year, the fates moved rapidly in our favor --
our house and 20 acres in the WV hollar sold in
record time and within the next year we found plans
and started building a lovely one-storey home on our
New Brunswick property. After living in a
cramped townhouse with the five Jack Russells for a
year in WV, we purchased a 5th
wheel so we could be present on our property during
the last month of the construction. In spite of
references, contracts and trips up to review
programs, plans went awry with the builder declaring
bankruptcy and for the next six months we finished
the house ourselves. This stressful period tested
our marriage and our commitment to St. Andrews, but
both survived and flourished as a result.
With the help of the
NB Provincial Nominee Program, we were granted
“landed immigrant” status (in record time—less than
six months), affording us most of the rights and
privileges of
Canadian Citizenship.
I started a
Canadian marketing company; working from home,
similar to my U.S. firm and within a year had
developed challenging New Brunswick and Maine
clientele. Because of our financial hit on the
house, Ken went back to work and continues to enjoy
his position as
Dean
of Academics for a newly established graduate school
of business, based in nearby Fredericton, the
provincial capitol, commuting only one day a week.
Fast-forward 5 years later and
we are dual citizens developing an eco-friendly
25-acre
subdivision
called Estate St. Croix (www.estatestcroix.ca)
in
St. Andrews, and loving every minute of our life in
Tropical Canada. We both still work, but also find
time to golf, kayak and tend an acre garden full of
perennials, roses and organic produce and socialize
regularly with six terrific couples. We organize a
Chamcook community picnic in the summer.
Active in the community, we
enjoy many cultural offerings like the tango lessons
offered by the
St. Andrews Arts Council (one of 25 summer
courses from opera singing to fiddle playing) and
attending painting classes and learning stone
masonry at
Sunbury Shores. We frequent community theatre,
chorale performances, art films and Maritime music,
often with the scores and plays penned by local
people.
The town is truly a magnet for
artistic expats.
The business community embraced me and I’ve enjoyed
serving on the boards of the Rotary, the Chamber,
and a youth organization. I also participate in a
35-member Garden Club whose July Gardens by the Sea
Tour featured my from-scratch garden last year.
Now totally absorbed in our new life, with more
close friends, civic involvements, and business
opportunities than we ever could have imagined, we
are seasoned (not seasonal) residents of Tropical
Canada and true-North residents. Indeed, we have a
month more of winter than we did in the mid-Atlantic
(garden zone 5 as opposed to 6), but we’re so busy
with our enriched lifestyle that we hardly notice.
Ken has learned to carve birds
and make fabulous Chianti and Sauvignon Blanc, which
our many visitors find quite palatable. Most of our
retired friends (and those who work with a laptop)
up here take a breather from the winter cold to
somewhere balmy (like Florida, South Carolina, Cuba,
the Dominican or Argentina)
for anywhere from a
couple of weeks to a couple of months. The weather
at our coastal home on the water is tempered by the
bay so it isn’t as bad as inland parts of NB, and in
the summer our temperatures rarely rise above 80
degrees with a lovely breeze every afternoon – a
pleasant alternative to the heat and humidity of the
D.C. region.
Like Garrison Keller says,
“Here all the men are rich; the women are good
looking, and the children above average.”
Every
year we feel more at home and frankly in love with
our Tropical home. We’d swear that the weather is
getting warmer although we had a record level of
snow last winter like the rest of North America.
However, with global warming gathering steam, we may
well have moved to Tropical Canada!
What we
reply to the locals who ask us why we moved here is
“Yes, Charlotte, there is a Tropical Canada, a warm,
inviting place visitors feel compelled to come to
and once here never want to leave. It’s called St.
Andrews by-the-Sea (and by coincidence our
County is called Charlotte).
Since we arrived, we’ve seen an increasing number of
“expats” move to
St. Andrews each year from the lower 48,
including a Harvard professor, a best selling
author, a horticultural educator, a former World
Bank executive, and a distinguished international
leader on African development from D.C. Of the
100,000 people from the U.S. who move to Canada
annually, we are getting our share. In fact, for the
first time in two decades,
New Brunswick is experiencing a population
increase from the influx of immigrants from many
points on the international compass like the U.S.,
China and Britain, and India.
Frankly, we’re getting a little worried that our
friend in Montreal has been spending too much time
on the bus chatting to gullible strangers about
Tropical Canada.
(Mary
Colburn-Green is President of
Marketing Solutions/ATLANTICA, Inc. and can be
reached at
mary@marketingsolutions-ca.com.)
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