When we lived in Canada, the popular notion was that most Americans believed that snow was to be expected on a summer trip to Canada.
While I can remember seeing snow in Newfoundland in August and "enjoying" at least one September snow storm, in general the worst weather we saw in Halifax in July would have been a day when your down jacket might feel good.
It is a little hard for me to remember how cool it could be in Halifax since it has been twenty-two years since we left Halifax.
The North Carolina coast is not known as being cool in July so my memories are clouded by all the warm Carolina days.
The Southern Outer Banks or SOBX portion of the Carolina coast did have a couple of days last week when the temperature got down in the sixties at night. We were able to turn off the air conditioning those evenings. It was nice but it only lasted for two nights, then we were back to heat and humidity.
Most of the time I no longer mind heat and humidity. It is to be preferred to cold and snow or ice. Having salt water at eighty degrees is much nicer than having salt water in the forties.
We used to take our kids to the beach in Prince Edward Island. While the beaches are beautiful, the blue skies often matched the blue color you got from staying in the water very long. I am having trouble remembering, but I believe the mid-sixties were about as warm as the water got.
Of course there are advantages to cool Canadian maritime temperatures, you can do without an air conditioner most of the time in Atlantic Canada. Then again on the Carolina coast we do without heat often in January and February.
I used to love camping on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. Our farm there went down to the water. It was easy to pitch a tent and build a nice driftwood fire for the evening. The fire would feel good, and often you would awake to a foggy morning like we are having in the Virginia mountains this morning.
Recent reports from my college roommate who summers in Halifax are that Nova Scotia is suffering through a summer of little heat or as my old friend Harvey used to say, "We have eleven months of winter and one month of damn poor sledding."
So with that I will wish Canadian friends in Atlantic Canada luck on coming up with those late August tomatoes. Our first ones this year came on June 5. Our tomatoes are catching their second wind after almost taking over our counters earlier in the month.
I can highly recommend learning to live with a Carolina summer since winter without ice and snow is so pleasant. If you are a Canadian still looking for a place to vacation, try the beaches of Emerald Isle, you might end up liking it a lot more than shoveling snow.
