Where Natures Pallette of Perfumes is Just Enough

We've all been to a big city. We've all had those experiences of odour; sewage, trashy smells, diesel fumes, petrol fumes, smog...those scents of a big city. We try to escape them, desperate for a breath of fresh air. It often starts when we drag our luggage out of the airport doors to hail a taxi. It slams us in the face and we know we're in Big City X. Nice. Not.

It struck me the other day, returning from Washington DC on another business trip. Tired. Ready to just get home. But often if you live in another major city, well, you come back to, smog. Petrol fumes and all the other odours of a big city. But not Halifax. I walked out those airport doors for the bus to the extended parking and well, yes, I got slammed with odours. Actually, scents. A fog was rolling in. From the ocean, 20 KM's away. I could smell the ocean. With the breeze I could also smell the pine trees. No gas, no diesel. Just nature's perfume. In a city of 400,000 people.

That's Nova Scotia. Ocean winds that carry away the detritus smells of a big, bustling city, and anyone who thinks Halifax doesn't bustle? You need to visit here. We know how to bustle when the bustling is good. A major container port, a high-tech corridor, five universities.

We don't manufacture on big scales here. That's not what we're about. We're about being smart with how we work and what we do. Knowledge-based industries and a passion for our healthy environment. Clean. Ocean breezes that carry fresh, salt-scented air that clears the lungs and mind. The scent of pine on hot summer days, the Lilac bushes in summer throughout the city, the uplifting scent of fresh lawns after a heavy rain. The falling leaves in the autumn and the crisp fresh air of a winters day.

That's Nova Scotia. Balance between bustle, hustle and sanity for the senses. Pure gold.

(Photo Credit: Johnfromnscas)

Of Airports and People

As I wearily rolled my luggage out the front door of the airport in Halifax heading for the Park n fly pick-up, I breathed in the tang of fresh air with a hint of ocean. You don't get that at SFO or O'Hare or even Toronto or Montreal. It's that gentle scent of Nova Scotia that reminds me I'm home.

What really struck me though, was the older couple standing on the sidewalk, well, the fellow was in a wheel chair. They were talking animatedly. As I walked past the woman looks up at me with a big smile on her face and says "dear, how many loonies in a roll? Is it twenty?" I nodded and replied I think so, I wasn't sure.

She had no idea who I was or even if I was Canadian, let alone spoke English. But she asked. Just like that. I was drawn into a conversation, asked in that way to take part. There are precious few places in the world today where that happens. Certainly not in a major city in the U.S. or Canada. But then, Halifax is a major city on the Atlantic coast. Sure, less than a million people, but still not a small town.

It's just one of those things. People here will share something with you, a way of quickly connecting. And it seems that more often than talking about the weather, we like to share a little joke or amusing quip or settle a friendly debate. Human connections. That's Nova Scotia, that's Atlantic Canada.

The Sweet Ocean Embrace

I've been fortunate enough to visit just about every continent on this planet; over 90 countries in my life so far. Deep into the interior of Africa, across Asia and all over Europe...even climbing the heights of the mountain road from the airport near Caracas up and then down into Caracas in the wee hours of the morning...and being held at gun point in the jungle in Venezuela. All sights and sounds vivid in my mind.

But one of those most poignant elements of life in Nova Scotia is the intoxicating scent of the sea on a foggy or rainy day. As winter ebbs into spring and the rains commence, the snow fading from mind and eye, you can sometimes scent the salty sea on the air. Somehow it is comforting, a gentle yet ever present reminder that you are alive.

As beautiful as Canada is in the West, it is the siren call of the sea on a foggy day, the miasma of the mists carrying the oceans whispers. Standing on a dock on the harbour, one almost feels the presence of the old fishing fleets and ancient naval vessels that plied these waters centuries before. The history is rich and these scents of the sea are what tell us who live here that we are home and embraced by the ocean we live and play beside.

(Photo: Courtesy cmcsailor's photostream on Flickr)