Glad to hear that you enjoyed your trip to Canada. Funny that you should mention about Canadians being "so polite". As I believe I mentioned, we had some European visitors staying with us for a few days before and after their trip to Nova Scotia. They thought that we were almost hilariously polite here...apologizing and saying "I'm sorry" when our toes get stepped on by someone squeezing past in a lineup. And stopping to let pedestrians cross even if there isn't a crossing, or waving at motorists to go ahead and make a left hand turn in front of us at intersections. We just thought, "Hey, that's not Canadian...that's normal!"..(Guess maybe we're taking something for granted around here).
And yes, the taxes are kind of heavy duty here, but I suppose that's the price that we pay for having a lot of good things in a country with a relatively small population to support its infrastructure.
Hmmm...yes..., you usually won't find much "litter" around here. The Europeans also brought that subject up. I don't really know the reason. I do know that we have had anti-littering laws since the 50s and I can well remember my parents warning us not to throw so much as a gum-wrapper out of a car window when driving down a highway. Maybe that is part of our national psyche now...(??). Also, maybe there are just a lot of nutcases like me around who pick up trash if they see it lying around because they hate the look of it so much. When I'm out paddling, I can't stand seeing so much as an old styrofoam coffee cup or a plastic pop bottle stuck in the weeds along my favourite creek, so I take along a small plastic trash collecting bag on every trip and pick up offending objects so that I never have to see them again... (yep, I know... that sounds obsessive and I guess it is).
And yes, we could probably use better pollution controls here. It isn't for lack of laws and standards. Instead, I believe the proliferation in pollution is a recent "recurring problem" which is due to many cutbacks in the environmental departments which look after inspections and enforcement. A growing number of people are quite vexed by this and hopefully there will be some changes before long. Fortunately, most of my favourite rivers are relatively clean, or gradually becoming cleaner, so I think these problems are more of a regional thing.
I noticed your mention of Fort Louisbourg... It really is quite a nice place... often overlooked by tourists because it is a bit of a hike up to the top end of Cape Breton. However, it's well worth the trip IMO.
croc |
