If you had the chance again, would you rearrange things?
If you had the chance again, would you really change things?
from “You’ll Be Home Again”
by Allister MacGillivray
Tempus fugit
Hard to believe, but it’s been five years since my friend and I pulled into the driveway after dark, with a disintegrated rear tire and most of Michele’s and my worldly possessions in tow. A lot happens in five years – job changes, semi-retirement, expanded families, activities tried and activities abandoned, health changes, and life generally lived. And identities forged.
Most of what Michele and I hoped for in moving to New Brunswick has met or exceeded expectations while some has not, but this wouldn’t be unusual, as life is full of twists and turns regardless of location. We have gained a sense of belonging to a place; we see the ocean every day; we are more proximate to family; and we get to live our lives in two and sometimes even three languages.
The things we miss about living in Alberta are the things we knew we would miss: our children; our friends; having a university campus in our community, with all the different activities and people there; proximity to a major city (Edmonton) and all the options that this entails; and just having a wide array of contacts in so many different facets of our lives.
But, as Joni Mitchell sang, “Something’s lost and something’s gained in living every day.” Regardless of trade-offs, we were both now exactly where we belonged.
A good start when we got here, but then…
After arriving at the end of July those five years ago, there were many things to do in August to get settled in: buy one new vehicle and register the other; buy things we would need for the house; try to find a family physician; and prepare for starting our new jobs in September – I at Service New Brunswick’s Property Assessment Services office in Miramichi and Michele in the psych ward at the Miramichi Regional Hospital.
There were some difficulties with those jobs, not the least of which was that each was an hour away. However, we persevered for the time being. I eventually transferred to the closer Richibucto SNB office, while my wife got a job at a nursing home in Rexton, next to Richibucto. We also spent a lot of time thinking about what our life outside of work would look like and who we would be as New Brunswickers.
But then, as we all know, Covid made its heralded appearance in March 2020 and everything changed both for us and for the rest of the world. My wife and I were fortunate in that each of our jobs was deemed necessary, so we were very grateful not to experience any loss of income during that time. My wife naturally still had to go to her place of work every day, as I, too, did at the outset, at least until I received a laptop and cell phone so I could work at home.
Covid’s impact
Whatever thoughts Michele and I had about exploring our options in New Brunswick in terms of activities and identity outside of work were curtailed significantly when Covid came around. Like everyone else, we were in a kind of suspended animation, in which we had to figure out what we would do and who we would be as New Brunswickers either without leaving home or in very limited circumstances outside of it.
In that regard, we were grateful that a) we loved where we were living; b) we had jobs occupying our waking hours and taking us out of the house regularly; and c) we like being around each other. Overall, being mostly house-bound wasn’t the disaster that it was for some people, so it became an interesting, albeit limited, exploration of our options.
We wouldn’t be able to go to sporting events, concerts, private get-togethers, or volunteer activities we might have considered, like we did when we were in Alberta. On the other hand, it made eating healthy and losing a bunch of weight a lot easier during that time (we’d actually started the weight loss before Covid) and it allowed me to focus on fitness at the gym when the one where I was going re-opened under limited conditions.
So we actually got healthier during Covid. Who would’ve thought?
Recreation during Covid: Let’s buy a boat!
Buying a boat – what a great idea! Not.
As was the case for many people during Covid, recreational activity that did not involve interaction with others became very popular. We now lived on the ocean and were in close proximity to one of Canada’s great rivers, the Miramichi, so my dream of having a boat with which to enjoy our surroundings to the fullest made sense, or so I thought.
Warning: do a lot more research on buying a boat than I did. I mean a lot. And run from any ad that includes the words “older inboard/outboard” or words to that effect. And don’t buy it just because it has a portable toilet.
I’m going to save the whole sordid, expensive story of our three-year period of boat ownership (out of our total of five years living here) for a stand-alone column at some point. Let’s just say that I did a lot of learning during this period and that the course tuition was extremely high.
Oh, and we of course had to trade in our new small SUV for a truck that could pull the damn thing around. Not sorry about owning the truck, as it came in handy both for my job and for miscellaneous things around the house and yard, but it’s still part of the boating story.
Let’s never buy a boat again
One thing is certain: you don’t just “buy a boat” – you become a boater, or at least that’s what I wanted to become. I took courses in navigation and radio operation, I joined the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, I equipped and retrofitted my boat with everything I legally required and then some, and I attended whatever training the CCGA offered. I enjoyed doing little repairs on it when it sat in the yard and I absolutely loved being out on the water with it – when it worked, that is. Which was, shall we say, intermittently.
But this was all unrequited love. I gave my mistress of the waters all the attention I could. I fawned over her and spent lavishly on every little thing she asked of me. But, while she basked in the attention, when it came time to embrace, she just turned up her nose at me and made it clear that a boater I was not to be. I would have to find my joy on the water in the vessels of others those few times when the opportunity presented itself.
I was so glad to see it leave the yard when we sold it in May of this year. But, boy, would I ever know what to look for if I were ever to jump into the abyss of stupid and consider buying another one. Don’t worry – won’t happen.
Who the heck wants to remember Covid?
I don’t like writing or talking too much about the Covid period because it feels like two lost years. And, of course, Michele and I were not as adversely affected as some, such as those who couldn’t say a proper good-bye to their dying loved ones or those who had to endure domestic abuse while in quarantine. Overall, it’s a period I’d rather forget about and I don’t think I’m alone in that, as this is apparently similar to the aftermath of the 1918 influenza pandemic in that regard.
Who among us wants to remember Covid and of being robbed of at least two years of our lives? And that’s just for those of us who made it through relatively unscathed – not those of us who lost loved ones precisely because of this pestilence or who had children at home who somehow needed to keep up with their schoolwork.
However, since Covid affected almost 50% of Michele’s and my five years in New Brunswick, it’s an unavoidable topic.
Covid had particular personal impacts for us
Michele and I did forgo a couple of things during the pandemic.
One was the opportunity to attend our daughter Jill’s wedding. For a variety of reasons (no, it was not a “shotgun wedding” – do people even have those any more?), it made sense to marry her Irish-born fiancé, Conor, back in Covid’s early months (they now live in Ireland). It was held in her grandparents’ spacious living room in Edmonton and I therefore lost the opportunity to walk her down the aisle or dance with her after the ceremony.
Perhaps Jill and Conor will renew their vows at some point so I can do those things but they’re busy building a life in Ireland and we love watching them do that – and visiting them from time to time, of course! It’s ironic that Jill now lives physically closer to us in Ireland, as the crow flies, than she did when she was in Edmonton. As I mentioned in Part II of this series, we live in a bloody big country.
The other thing we forwent was the opportunity to visit with our son, Joel, in Alberta. Living with a disability, he had limited enough options as it was in the face of the pandemic but the fact that we couldn’t visit with him for quite an extended period made things very difficult for all concerned.
Covid’s challenges abounded for all concerned.
Enter the Ukrainians
Our quest for figuring out where Michele and I fit in in our new home continued apace as we came out of Covid. We lived just enough off the beaten path that running daily to Miramichi or Moncton were not places where we could regularly direct volunteer energy and we certainly don’t have a campus of a major university in our community like we did in Alberta. I was also done with coaching basketball by this point but I wasn’t yet prepared to pull away entirely from participating in community life in some way, however “community” would be defined.
Then came the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.
As I wrote in this post and this one, the invasion provided me with an opportunity to use my knowledge of Ukrainian language and history, both to invite Ukrainians fleeing the invasion to settle in Miramichi and to conduct context seminars for other Government of New Brunswick employees (while I worked for Service New Brunswick) who were hiring Ukrainians in a program that the Government had established for this very purpose. I was even able to do those seminars in my less-than-perfect French.
Despite the sickening reason behind why these opportunities occurred, this was the most fulfilled and useful that I had felt since moving to New Brunswick. Obviously, I would prefer that the invasion had never happened, but some positives came out of it, both in general and for me personally.
Here in Pointe-Sapin
In terms of having chosen this community in which to live, Michele and I couldn’t have chosen better – it has been five years of joy. The people here have been as warm and welcoming as you could ever hope and I swear we have the best next-door neighbours anywhere on the planet.
As the former Dean of the University of Alberta Augustana Campus used to say, the good news and the bad news about 1,000-student Augustana are the same: “All the professors know your name.” The same can be said of any small community, including Pointe-Sapin. By the time we moved here five years after we’d purchased the house, anyone who cared about such things sort of knew who we were and they certainly knew where we’re living.
In fact, if I had a dollar for every time someone said to me about our house, “That’s where my former teacher used to live!” we would be well-off indeed.
I like to tell people, “Je suis le seul ukrainien qui habite à Pointe-Sapin,” and people here know this well. When the Russians invaded Ukraine in 2022, there were people at our door within a day with a fruit basket and condolences for the situation. They also had a “Prayers for Ukraine” at the church here, en français, of course (I was unfortunately too ill to attend that day), and the main reason they did that was because they care about us.
How could we not love living here?
A particular way of being part of the community
So how do you become part of a community where a) everyone is either related or knows each other; b) almost everyone is Acadian and you’re not; and c) everyone speaks French (and some only French) in daily life?
Well, Michele and I found that trying to speak the French we do know goes a long way. Never once has anyone criticized our French and those who are able to do so will switch to English when it’s clear we’re not understanding something. I joined the board of the Centre Communautaire and, even though the meetings are entirely en français and I miss some of the nuance of what others are discussing, the other board members always make me feel welcome and valued.
I also speak French when we shop at the Co-op here and I often help sell tickets at the weekly Chasse-à-l’As fundraiser. Great opportunities to keep learning the language. And to get to know people better, of course.
I also wash the dishes at the occasional community breakfasts we have and help with events at the annual Festivale du bon pêcheur. More chance to live in that second language, the way I’d always wanted.
Makes all the work we put into learning at least some French as we prepared to move here worthwhile and then some, even though five years of practising beforehand and another five years of practising while living here are still producing, shall we say, “mixed” results in terms of ability.
Career change…sort of
Despite enjoying the people I worked with, the very flawed assessment and taxation system in New Brunswick made working for Service New Brunswick’s Property Assessment Services branch difficult for me, especially since I’d worked in a very different system in Alberta. I got extremely tired of being blamed for people’s high taxes in New Brunswick while the politicians who actually set the tax rates enjoyed taking no responsibility for doing so.
I also simply wanted to begin the transition toward retirement. And I loved driving.
So I took a job driving motorcoaches with Coach Atlantic. I’d driven some school bus in Alberta and completed my air brakes course there just to keep my options open in New Brunswick, so the transition to this type of work was not difficult.
I got to travel all over the eastern part of Canada but it turned out that the job was not as good a fit as I thought it would be. The multiple stresses and long hours of this kind of job – never mind that I had to drive to the shop in Dieppe, 122 km away, to start my day whenever I worked – didn’t make up for my love of travelling the open road.
And, after the types of professional careers I’d had, I never really did embrace the identity of being a bus driver.
One year of that was enough. It was time to take another step closer to retirement – or semi-retirement, really – by delving into writing full-time.
Negative #1
In Michele’s and my quest to become New Brunswickers, I’ve got two pet peeves from our five years here.
One is that it seems to be culturally acceptable here not to return/acknowledge phone calls, e-mail requests, or even letters – I can’t count the number of times that this has happened.
To wit. There was a time not long after we moved here that I offered my basketball coaching experience to a coach at Dr. Losier Middle School when I was working in Miramichi. She was very interested and we agreed to meet to discuss it. She didn’t show, but I heard later that her mother had died right at that time, so I of course understood and expected to hear from her afterward. Never did.
Then, based on my experience with the University of Alberta Senate, I’d offered to volunteer in any way I could at Mount Allison and sent an e-mail to the President in that regard. No answer, so I thought it may have gone to his junk folder. Followed up with a letter – never heard a word.
There have been many others, too: a poet who said she’d get back to me to discuss some type of mentorship but never did; a contact at the Telegraph-Journal regarding submitting articles who had interacted with me before but then simply ghosted me; and several others besides.
If this is a New Brunswick trait, it’s not a very endearing or professional one, that’s for sure.
Negative #2
This isn’t so much a negative as it is a head-scratcher; it’s about how differently people perceive distances and times here in New Brunswick than they do in Alberta, or at least in rural Alberta.
Coming from rural Alberta, Michele and I thought nothing of driving an hour and a bit to Edmonton to do something or see Jill, but it seems that people here don’t see it quite that way. I worked with a fellow at Service New Brunswick (you know who you are!) who thought that an hour’s drive from his home to see us here in Pointe-Sapin may as well have been an excursion across the continent.
Then there was the appliance repairman who wouldn’t come from Aldouane to our place because the 41 km was just too far. Aldouane! I guess he must have enough business from the people on his block to keep his family fed. Sheesh.
On the other hand, we’ve had many friends from Alberta come visit us and each one has been a joy. In fact, one couple has been here twice, although their having a daughter in Nova Scotia makes a 4-5-hour side trip to see us not much of a problem. Then, again, they are from rural Alberta – we’re thankful that, for them, the road to see us doesn’t seem as long as it does for some right around here.
Summing it all up
Doesn’t matter where you live – every place has its positives and negatives. In the five years we’ve been here in Pointe-Sapin, New Brunswick, Michele and I have faced numerous challenges in figuring out where we fit but the joys of feeling at home to the extent that we do here have outweighed those challenges tenfold.
I love living rurally, I love living next to the ocean, and I love that I’ve finally figured out who I am as a now-semi-retired New Brunswicker. For her part, Michele loves the yard and garden, loves walking along the beach and finding treasures that feed her creative spirit, and she loves being close to her aging parents so that she can help them out from time to time.
We cherish our community and especially love our next-door neighbours, who have been a godsend in so many ways. And even the weather is enjoyable, with winters that are nowhere near as cold as they are in Alberta, and falls that are long, colourful, and simply enchanting.
Neither of us has any major regrets about moving here (except the damn boat, of course), even though we knew we would miss many things about Alberta. We maybe could have done some of the logistics of moving differently but that’s to be expected. We still pulled it off.
After five years, Michele and I know who we are as New Brunswickers and we know we are home in every sense of the term. For Michele, it was always home while, for me, it was home before I ever even knew it. It’s as if living here was always meant to be.
❤️❤️❤️
Jerry, I really enjoyed your account of your move to New Brunswick. As you say there are pros and cons to any move, especially a move of 4,400 km to a French-speaking village on the Atlantic Ocean. I knew you would make the language thing work as I saw the effort you put into French while you were in Camrose (not exactly a hotbed of Francophones!). Your contributions to Augustana were significant and greatly appreciated. I share your befuddlement when people that could have benefited greatly from your contributions never bothered to get back to you. We wish you all the best as you continue your lives as Maritimers, and of course We Stand With Ukraine.
Oh, my, Alan – I am absolutely humbled by your kind words and your reading of my stuff. You would know a thing or two about contributing to community, so your words carry so much more weight yet for me. And thank you ever so much for your support of Ukraine.