By Doug Dunmire
It’s true that the beauty of the Canadian Maritimes includes a stunning diversity of scenery including rugged coast lines, pastoral coastal farming villages, charming vacation cottages, cliff hung light houses, authentic fishing harbors, remote island anchorages along with sunrises and sunsets that take my breath away.
It’s also true that the Maritimes offer many sightings of whales, porpoises, seals, and sea birds, some of which are hard to find elsewhere.
However, an even more remarkable Maritimes beauty exists in the hearts of the people who live here. A single experience of someone we were casually chatting with at the bar offering us their brand-new GMC Sierra for the next day to tour PEI and get our errands done, could be written off as an alcohol induced moment of weakness, but it wasn't!
An emergency dive on our anchor, to free it of fishing gear might be the work of a singular hero (which it was, even if his 5-year-old son denied it).
A woman, with whom we’d previously shared stories and appetizers, upon hearing about our hobbled boat drove two hours to help us tie up and see that we were ok. Well, that may have been just a chance encounter with the most empathetic person in the world. However, all of this (and more) has happened in the 4-5 days we’ve been in the Maritimes. Experiencing the kindness and generosity of these islanders has been the highlight of our journey.
As a post-script: There is a conflict it seems among the islanders that I don’t see being easily resolved. On more than one occasion, while sharing stories of kindness, it’s been mentioned that while yes that marina/island/town is kind and generous there’s really no kinder or more generous place in the Maritimes than here. So perhaps the friendliest place in the world is where you find yourself at the moment in the Canadian Maritimes.
Thank you Blue-nosers, Spud-Islanders and Herring-Chokers for a most remarkable visit.