Well after some fab days in the Valley we headed up to Truro, which was once the hub of activity in Atlantic Canada with Rail lines converging, but the heyday of the Steam engine has long since passed and the town is now reinventing. The town could be described as being much like Lithgow in many ways. We meet our host family for the 3 days we would be spending in Truro for lunch before we separated and headed for our new host parents homes. Garth and Trinki would be my host parents, a delightful retired couple who I could converse with at length about Australia. They had spent some time travelling in Australia a few years back and I helped provide some details for places they had been.
Garth and Trinki
The local Rotarian clubs where a relaxed bunch with presentations over a beer and plate of good tucker at the Pot Luck dinner. This was followed by Shannon’s host Mum and friends busting out a few old favourites in a Kitchen Party or "Ceilidhs". Part of the town reinvention has included the building of Nova Scotia Agricultural College, this college helps provide education that integrates hands Smart and book Smarts to the many young people who are moving from the city back into farming. Like Australia the agriculture sector is struggling to get skilled labour coming into the work force. Many of the students here are not from farming families or are new arrival’s to Canada.
Nova Scotia Agricultural College
Mark and Kristine graciously put on a cook out, where we experience Smoked Maple Salmon (yes it task as good as it sounds) and few other activities that Mark will do with the international students that are studying at the agricultural College where he teaches. These activities are Smores and Spider Dogs (I will let the photo’s explain) which need a good fire pit some marsh mellow, chocolate cookies and Hot dogs.
I also had the opportunity also to meet the Royal Mounted Police, no no don’t worry I didn’t get arrested. As part of my vocational exchange I meet and spoke with Rick Mosher a Mountie who has worked in the dog squad for over 19 years. It was good timing for my visit as the police had just received the results of a Nutritional study into the best diet for their dogs and was lucky enough to get a copy of the findings. I was also surprised by my trip to Canadian Tire where I was expecting to see lots of black round donut’s, but instead found a Franchised department store that would be like Big W or Kmart back home in size of store, sales and the range of stock. The franchise model was intriguing and as Bart the local franchise owner explained that he is only allowed to own 1 site at any one time.
We also got to experience the local Rotarian projects in town, with Rotary house. This is a collection of business that have been set up to provide opportunities to person that my have not been afforded them otherwise. The business included a Work shop (converting old shipping pallets to kindling), Cafe, Second hand cloth’s shop, Workshop which manufactures Show ribbons and Cardboard shipping packs for windows. The Show ribbons business now supplies ribbons all over the world including Australia.
We also went to the zoo, and saw a moose!!!!!
Moose:
Groundhog:
So that was Truro, the end of our Nova Scotia experience. With Nova Scotia behind us, our next stop is Prince Edward Island.
- Colin
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