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​In Nova Scotia, there exists a tradition of buried treasure.  In the “golden age” of piracy, from approximately 1690 to 1730, Nova Scotia was scarcely populated by Europeans so it became quite a good hideout for pirates and privateers.  Among them, the notorious Ned Low.

​Recently, while wingrunting, I was engaged in a conversation about wine with a woman. While we began our conversation in English, I immediately noticed that she pronounced certain grape varietals, such as L’Acadie Blanc and Maréchal Foch like a francophone. For the next few minutes I switched and spoke French with her. Then our conversation continued, sometimes in English other times in French. While I am not used to having this kind of back and forth outside of Montréal, I asked a question which, in hindsight, I know to feed into one of the many false dichotomies created by the culture we live in. I asked her: “Alors, vous êtes francophone ou anglophone?” She smiled at me indulgently and replied: “Non, je suis Acadienne.” I could not help but smile too at the immediate realization of my own misconceptions.

OK, since we are on a brief vacation, we’ll make a fleeting reference to September 7: … on that day in 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi entered Naples on his way to uniting Italy.