Travel Travel

In 1976 a redhead was born in Calgary, Alberta at the Holy Coss Hospital. (All of the photos in this post are from Scotland not NS)






Thirty years later she would head to Scotland for a couple of weeks to visit her best high school friend who had moved there a few years earlier. This visit would plant the seed for an idea about where home is, what happiness really means and why there was always an inexplicable desire to get away from (almost) the only place she'd ever lived.

I got home from that trip and immediately decided that if I was going to live anywhere in the world it would be Scotland.










The following months saw me all over the internet doing my research, making calls about the cost to ship my junk overseas, and even began the process of obtaining my dual citizenship.

I finally came to the conclusion that although I felt Scotland was in my blood (even though it's not at all, I'm Irish/English ancestory) it was going to prove too expensive, especially with the dogs and cats who I would absolutely never leave behind.

As it happened, while I was in Scotland, a friend of mine was in Nova Scotia for a wedding. She had also been to Scotland in years past and said "If you like Scotland you'd probably also like Nova Scotia since that is what a lot of their culture is based upon." I dismissed the idea since the western stigma against the Maritime provinces was in the very hemoglobin of my Alberta blood.

One day I was online at work, not doing my job, and decided to check MLS(multiple listing service) for homes in Canada that I could afford. I knew I'd never buy in Calgary, too expensive, and I didn't want to stay in the city or province anyway. On a whim I clicked on Prince Edward Island.

$35,000 for an older house on an acreage.

And that, in June of 2007, is when the real research began. Employment, house quality, location, topography, demographics, renovation costs, moving costs, lifestyle, animal bylaws, dog show circuits and all the things you need to know before you pick up your entire life and move it 5000km.

So here's the continuing story of how a grain fed, beef loving, country raised girl from Alberta decided to leave all she knew and head east with four dogs, three cats and two dogs in spirit.