From Coast à Côte

A west coast girl, I imagined Canada's east coast to be similarly and alternately rugged and green - sandy and rocky. Wind-swept. White-capped. Any photos I had seen didn't belie this perception.


So, when visiting New Brunswick last summer, I was totally unprepared for the primordial, awe-inspiring Bay of Fundy and its environs. Glopping in the mud, ducking under ancient rock formations, then climbing to escape the 50' rising tide left an indelible impression on me and my first born.

But something else washed over us in the francophone city of Moncton: the ebb and flow of an effortless bilingualism - the overlapping glory of code-switching. Forget official languages and product label crash courses - this is where the Great Canadian immersion experiment lives and breathes. However much I get my west coast knickers in a knot over language policy, the melodic langues of Moncton soothe the savage anglophile.

And, of course, there are signs bilingues - so I can practice being a good Canadian bilingual:

BTW: You haven't had a sticky bun 'til you've had one from Kelly's Bakery in Alma, N.B. Grab one after you've seen the Bay of Fundy and you can eat it in French or English.