As we understand it, they are everywhere, flocking to the city state of Halifax, but also buying land and properties out in the boonies. Legend has it, these purchases are often made sight unseen, so desperate are the buyers to vacate pandemic-riddled cities elsewhere, or, unshackled by the new remote work world, to make their lives in a place that reflects their newfound priorities.
By which we mean here, where the living is easy, the real estate, by the standards of Ontario, Alberta, or British Columbia, still a bargain, the plague, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.
I feel for these folks, I really do.
It must be perplexing to arrive in a place where “Buddy” can be a given name (“Buddy MacMaster”), a burn (“My buddy DeMont), or an accusation (“Buddy over there threw the first punch, officer.”)
Even for locals the accents baffle, the South Shore drawl, the Gaelic-tinged Inverness County timbre, the tone and cadence of our Acadian speakers that can be as confounding to the untutored ear as the place names on the road map: Musquodobit, Mushaboom, Shubenacadie, Tatamagouche and Mabou.
It must be hard to discover yourself in a topsy-turvy province where directions make no sense: the community of Western Shore being found on the South Shore, which, the way things work around here, is just down the coast from the Eastern Shore, while Halifax has a north, south and west end, but no east end, which, technically would be Dartmouth.
A place where getting around requires a reservoir of arcane local knowledge — “take the old road towards the cove, until you hit the field where MacDonald’s sheep farm used to be, under no circumstances turn there …” — or a grasp of strange settlement patterns which ensure that within a few kilometres a newcomer, head spinning, could drive through Lower West Pubnico, Middle West Pubnico, West Pubnico, Lower East Pubnico, Middle East Pubnico, Centre East Pubnico, East Pubnico, Pubnico Point and just Pubnico.
Even for locals the accents baffle, the South Shore drawl, the Gaelic-tinged Inverness County timbre, the tone and cadence of our Acadian speakers that can be as confounding to the untutored ear as the place names on the road map: Musquodobit, Mushaboom, Shubenacadie, Tatamagouche and Mabou.
But journalism is a public service, and I am here to help.
Our weather, famously, changes minute-by-minute. You will find our meteorological descriptions equally off-putting since a spring day in the Ontario fruit belt, is considered “boiling” here, while five below zero, a “dry cold” somewhere on the Prairies, gets right into the bones in damp Nova Scotia.
First off, a few things newcomers ought to know right off the bat: not everyone in this province plays the fiddle and step dances, although, as a colleague from Inverness County, Cape Breton, points out, they should.
Not everyone likes donairs, has done a stint out in Fort Mac, is particularly friendly, and lives, as the Department of Tourism folks like to say, within 10 kilometres of the ocean.
We are, though, masters of what a colleague calls “passive-aggressive polite driving,” in which a driver lets you go around a corner first, but feels compelled to usher you through with wild arm swinging and stern impressions — or they stop in the middle of a busy street, forcing you to cross right then and there, even if it involves dodging traffic in the other lanes.
Watch out for those people. While we are on the subject, know that we are said to be poor drivers and suicidal pedestrians, and that, when going around the Armdale rotary, the most dilapidated car, by definition, always has the right-of-way.
Our weather, famously, changes minute-by-minute. You will find our meteorological descriptions equally off-putting since a spring day in the Ontario fruit belt, is considered “boiling” here, while five below zero, a “dry cold” somewhere on the Prairies, gets right into the bones in damp Nova Scotia.
When meeting someone for the first time, you may not necessarily be asked “who’s your fadder” any more as our society becomes more diverse, but someone, somewhere along the line, may call you an “Upper Canadian,” which has to do with the lingering view that we’ve been screwed by Confederation, along with our touchiness about stories in the papers elsewhere in the country that refer to Quebec and Ontario as Eastern Canada.
I would suggest that you pay attention to our way of speaking, which, I am told, can be baffling. There is, for starters, the Gaelic gasp, or as linguists call it, pulmonic ingressive speech, which is that strangled “yup” with which we sprinkle our speech, which comes from signaling agreement while inhaling rather than exhaling oxygen from the lungs.
Our choices of words and phrasing can also confuse. The adjective “some”, for example, adds gravity when added to a noun like “cold,” as happened Tuesday in the Chronicle Herald newsroom. But throw “right” into the mix — as in “right some big” — and it is another matter all together.
When, after you have talked at length about, say, the delights of Kensington Market, and a longtime Nova Scotian replies, “Go on,” they are denoting skepticism, rather than saying “that is so interesting, please, tell me more.”
Do you see what I mean? Until you get your bearings, you must be forever vigilant.
For that you will be rewarded. When you pay attention you see colour everywhere in Nova Scotia: fishing boats tied up along wharfs, clothing snapping on rural clothes lines; the interplay between woods, water and sky.
As Marjorie Simmins, the transplanted West Coast writer pointed out Tuesday, the ocean is saltier here than it is in the Pacific.
You can taste it in the air, particularly now that spring is coming. Yesterday, forget about the weather, hope was in the air here as well.
You will enjoy it here, I’m sure of that. This place just takes a little getting used to. Remembering that rule about the rotary is a start.