I am Canadian and proud of it, but within that identity, I am also a Maritimer. This means that I live on the east coast of Canada or, as we like to call it, “God’s country”. Please note that “Westerners” and “Central Canadians” weep at night for the misfortune of not living in the east.
The East Coast Lifestyle is super-cool. Among other things, we lay claim to:
- The best walking-home-drunk food in the world. The donair. Google it.
- 4 true seasons: Warm, Wet, Snowy, and Really-Wet.
- Friendliness. If this was a package-able commodity we would be shipping it to other countries in bulk. And there would be pipelines because what’s the worst thing that could happen in that scenario? A bunch of friendliness leaks out and makes Nebraska farmers start smiling.
- ‘Normal’ coffee. Everybody loves a mocha-crappa-frappa concoction from Starbucks now and then, but first thing in the morning I don’t want ice cubes or whipped cream or squirts of vanilla in my coffee. I want a Timmy’s (that’s local speak for Tim Horton’s) in a roll-up-the-rim-to-win cup (which I will compost because I am Canadian).
- Eating lobster. Sure, you can buy a lobster somewhere else, but you can’t eat it right! Where I’m from, you all gather around the table, with plastic grocery bags looped on the chair arms and you let the juice fly. Everybody double-dips into communal butter bowls and sucks the sweetness out of the skinny little legs without shame. It is messy and barbaric and glorious!
- Talking about the weather. We have raised this to an art form. We chat about what’s happening at the moment, what happened yesterday, and what might be going on tomorrow. Total strangers in a grocery store line up will share some moaning and groaning over rainfall/snowfall predictions, and compare apps. We LOVE to compare weather apps. What are you using? I’m seeing a sun with a cloud on top of it and three raindrops. What?!? You’ve got a site with a full sun pictogram? No way!!!
- Roots sweatpants. Every Maritimer has a pair. In gray. Canada should receive international recognition for the invention of these garments! I think that world peace might be attainable if we just put all those G8 folks in Roots sweatpants and let them talk it out in a living room somewhere. When tempers got too high, everyone could take a break and order in some donairs!
Stuff my dog taught me 
Not unlike New England, except for the Roots sweatpants and friendliness, which is spotty at best. Otherwise, out here in the REAL New England (Boston doesn’t count — they buy coffee from Starbucks), we live for weather (or die from it). Although to be fair, it’s less about apps than it is about aching backs, knees, and lumbago. I always suggest saving money by not hiring meteorologists. Just hire old, arthritic people. WE know what weather is coming. And when it’s leaving.
Personally, my favorite way to eat lobster is out on the back deck in a bathing suit. That way, I can hose everything down when we’re done. Garry is a champion lobster eater. He can dismember a lobster in such gory detail even a seagull would be envious.
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Bathing suit dining… not a bad idea at all. But here, you couldn’t eat from 4pm to 6am because the mosquitos would devour you. You would be chicken pox coated with those bloody bites within 20 minutes, long before your lobster was eaten. Sigh. That’s why I love spiders and bats.
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Yes, that IS an issue. Northern mosquitoes are aggressive and apparently starving. We could bomb the porch before we go out to eat. But then we’d have to breathe in poison while we eat, which is probably not optimum. We used to eat out back when we were on the Vineyard. With the ocean a few feet away, there were very few bugs, though we were plagued by aggressive seagulls. I’ll have to ponder this.
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We clearly have much in common. I have also battled with seagulls for ownership of a french fry. Those things are ornery! (But not as ornery as a middle-aged woman defending her fresh from the food truck fries)
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I’m not sure I could handle seeing Stephen Harper in Roots sweatpants but I think Obama would rock ’em. Happy Canada Day from the capital!
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Everyone deserves the right to their Roots. Even the Harper… not saying it would be an attractive or welcome sight… but it certainly couldn’t make him any more dour and humourless!
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Marilyn and I are on the same wavelength here: however, being closer to Canada (NH) I think we have a lock on some of the friendliness and while I have no clue about donair, I will admit anyone can draw crowd almost anywhere from waiting rooms to checkout lines, by saying, my god wasnt that a storm last night which sometimes will take us all through the checkout line and out to the cars…
Roots I also have to look up, too
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Do not just look up Roots! Order a pair (make them good and big!). And while you are on the website, grab a pair of their socks. Trust me on this one. It will revolutionize your world.
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they look wonderful, truly. with pockets, my god with pockets. Ill have to mull that over, but winter is coming, eh
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yes to the pockets!
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Not available from Amazon or anywhere in the U.S. that I can find. Is there a link?
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Wow…really? There is definitely a Roots website. Never realized these sweatpants were such a difficult commodity to acquire.
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Apparently they lack a U.S. distributor. Eventually they’ll get here. Everything does.
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Seriously?!? How can this be? Our national athletes sport Roots at the Olympics for God’s sake! How can they be unable to find a U.S distributor?
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Maybe they are not LOOKING for an American distributor. Maybe they like being Canadian.
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Hmmm. Possible… But secretly, despite all of our ‘I am Canadian’ crap, we all want a piece of that giant South of the Border pie!
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As a Montrealer, a central-east Canadian, I have yet to visit the east coast, but will one day. I much prefer the Roots brand to Lululemon, which has the west coast in its grips. I think it only appropriate that on this day we all say a great big Sorry! Because we do that pretty well too. Cheers and Happy Canada Day.
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Ha ha… I forgot that. We do like to apologize.
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But sometimes we know what we are doing. https://dcmontreal.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/sorry-but-we-canadians-do-not-apologize-too-much/
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Good list. You had me at real coffee and lobsters, but I will need to check out the donair and Roots. Friendliness is always a plus.
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Please tell me that this gets sent to Nova Scotia Tourism…because it will make any reader smile and want to check it out, if not for the lobster, at least for the apps and conversation.
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Having lived on both the West coast and the East coast, I agree having four seasons is a plus. I love the fall colors. In California, leaves only turned two colors: greenish-brown and brownish-dead. Another plus: fireflies! Never saw them until I moved East.
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No fireflies in the west? Hmmm… Wonder why?
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Fireflies are having a hard time. There used to be great flocks of them all over the east coast … and you rarely see them anymore. Environment. Poison spraying for mosquitoes kills the fireflies (who used to eat the mosquitoes.) Same old story.
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Really? Sad.
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