I’m home. Flying back from Halifax only took fifteen hours longer than driving would have. I hate flying.
So I’ve now done the Maritimes. I’m glad I’ve been there and I enjoyed the trip, but a return trip is not a terribly high priority for me. The whole area is just too rural and lacks a lot of the urbanity and diversity I associate with Ontario and Québec, though there are still some interesting notes I’ll add to that long essay on suburban form in Canada I’ve been formulating for years now.
A few more random thoughts:
- New Brunswick is the only “officially bilingual” province in Canada. Greater Moncton (and particularly) Dieppe was the only place I visited where it really seemed to “take.”
- There are a lot of a highways that seem to have much more capacity than the traffic requires.
- I found Halifax the most interesting place of all, probably because it’s the biggest city in the region and had some of the only decent bookstores I found.
- Halifax also has one of the oddest street numbering systems I’ve ever encountered anywhere.
- I’d like to read a spatial history of Saint John because I really don’t understand how it developed the way it did.
- A&W’s “beyond meat” burger? Meh.
