Saturday 24 February 2007

Twenty years ago today

Twenty years ago today I moved from Antigonish, NS, to Toronto.

Antigonish is a small of town of about 5,000 people. The Town of Antigonish was incorporated in 1889. Established as the Highland Heart of Nova Scotia, Antigonish is the home of the oldest continuously run Highland Games in North America. Established in 1853, St. Francis Xavier University (St. F.X) moved its campus to Antigonish Town in 1855.

I had moved to Antigonish in September 1980 from Sydney, NS, to go to St.F.X. I met my first husband (he was a "townie") and stayed after I graduated.

My dog, Smidley, and I flew to Toronto, almost 1,800 kms away. My then-husband had come up three months earlier to find a job and an apartment.


As soon as I moved to Toronto, I loved it!

At that time, a lot of our friends were moving to Toronto because they couldn't find work in Antigonish. But they hated the city ... it was too big (our current population is just over 4.5 million). They would work long enough to be able to collect Employment Insurance (aka "pogy") and then move home again.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

what a great story! You know I'd love to visit anywhere East. I've never been including in the states, although I've visited a lot of the states, but none of Canada just yet....

Congrats on site of the day too!

Jodi_Lee said...

Congrats on not letting the BIG city scare you away!

I used to live there for a while...in Scarborough. I lived in the condo's on the corner of Brimley and Elsmere. I can't remember the name of them for the life of me. Anyhow, I loved it when I would come to visit, but I hated it after I actually moved there. The City of Glass was too much for this little Indiana girl.