My Unexpected Hometown

For the first thirty-nine years of my life, I lived in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. And while most of you may think that I should be writing about that place, by the end of this tale you will understand why I am not.

There are so many clichés about “home” and they all ring true in some sense but for me I realized one fateful weekend that “Home is Where the Heart is” is taken way too lightly by society. The meaning behind this simple statement is truly profound.

In November of 2014 I took a weekend trip that would end up changing my entire life. I'm talking move across the country, change everything I had ever known to the complete unknown. It had to be done, after that trip there was no going back to my comfort zone. As scary as it was, I knew I would always regret letting fear get the best of me if I did not shake my world up.

This adventure would not only show me where my home was, but it would also show me my inner heart. The one that I kept hidden for so many years to cope with what the life I thought I was living. Sure, I had a life before that trip. A pretty successful one, actually but Fort McMurray opened my heart in a way I had never experienced before.

When I stepped onto the plane to leave that day my level of excitement was insanely high and I thought that as because I had never flown before I thought it was normal to feel so much adrenaline. Add to that a full weekend away from adult responsibilities, two whole days where I could be nothing except myself. I was overflowing with emotions but underneath there was a lingering feeling that I tried to ignore. The feeling that my little trip would change my world.

At the end of the flight, I stepped off this tiny little plane, maybe forty seats total, onto the tarmac and took a huge breath of ice-cold air my whole body shivered, and I had one thought. “I am home!” Oddly enough, I never questioned that thought at all. I just knew that was where I was meant to live.

It was so cold that day I thought my lungs were going to freeze on impact, for those of you who are not familiar, -40 degrees Celsius is common for winter in parts of Alberta. It is a dry cold, and it does not get right into your bones the way east coast cold does but Alberta cold is far more dangerous. You do not feel it until it is almost too late to stop frostbite on some days. I found that out the next day when I forgot my mittens in my hotel room. I walked around downtown to explore and in one part of the town they had all the trees lit up for Christmas and that cemented it. I had to move away from Nova Scotia, I could never be happy there again. To this day I cannot explain what happened that weekend, I just knew…

I did move the next spring and started to live my best life. The community in Fort Mac as we so affectionately call it was warm and welcoming. Everyone I met was like an old friend whom I had not seen in years. There was never a feeling of not belonging there at all. I was prepared to have a phase where I felt disconnected and lost due to being in a new place, but I was surprised at how easy it was to settle down there.

Fort McMurray is built with one road in and you use the same road to get out. If you drive far enough you can find the end of the road but first, you must first cross the Bridge to Nowhere. As I write this it brings a smile to my face remembering the first time I heard the name of the bridge because I thought it was the silliest name. But it literally goes nowhere except the end of the road.

My hometown of Fort Mac, as we so affectionately called it, is full of surprises everywhere. Each day can be an adventure if you just let it. From fishing spots along the highway to snowmobile trails that go for days there is never a shortage of things to do. In a city of 70,000 people, you are only a minimum of 10 minutes away from pure nature. Walking trails line the edges of the city and at specific points along the trails there are pieces of outdoor exercise equipment to be used in warmer weather. Even in winter with the bitter cold you can always find something to do. We spent so much of our time on skidoo’s in winter, the river freezes thick enough that you can sled for miles, ice fishing is a popular activity. Packing up in early morning was not always fun but you still knew that the day was going to be epic. The river freezes thick enough that you can drive a truck over it so a little sled was no issue, and you could go for miles down the river. Usually with a break mid day to build a fire and have a snack before you made your way back to the drop off spot to load up and go home. Even if you managed to break your skidoo from a jump that was a bit too adventurous it just meant that it would get fixed before the next trip. The days spent outside in nature always left me feeling stress free. There is something about connecting with the outside world that just melts away all of my troubles and leaves me feeling refreshed. Exhausted, but an overall good feeling.

My absolute favorite thing about Fort McMurray is the Northern Lights. Until you have witnessed this miracle of nature you will never truly appreciate the miracles that exist in this world. Something so majestic and yet so unexplainable. I'm sure that there is a scientific explanation but I choose not to find out what it is. I will just keep believing in the magic.

I remember the first time I saw them I was in complete awe of those lights just dancing in the sky. It was around 2 am and the glow had woken me up from a sound sleep when it crept in my window. I walked out on my back deck to see what was going on and I couldn't even speak I was so in awe. I rushed back inside to wake up my 16 year old son and he was a bit grumpy but the minute he stepped outside he just took a huge breath and went silent. I couldn't tell you how long we stood there but I do know we didn't speak at all until the next day. In the five years I lived there I never lost my sense of wonder when they would come out to play, it was like seeing them all over again for the first time. They were always different, some nights just a dim glow that slowly moved around the night sky. Other nights they lit up the whole place as if it were day and they danced a jig around us. You never knew what you were going to get from them, but they never disappointed me in the slightest. I could just sit on my deck and watch for hours at the natural phenomenon and be perfectly content.

We lived through the fire that made headlines in 2016 and that was an experience that I will never forget. So many people were impacted by a natural disaster, and we all felt the pain of that for months afterwards. I remember being out on the motorbike with my boyfriend just an hour before the fire spread and we were evacuated. When we got back, we were standing in the driveway having a conversation with neighbors and we could see far off in the distance the glow of the fire. Suddenly, we saw what looked like snowflakes, instantly we realized that it was ashes from the fire. After that it all seems like a blur, we got the call to pick up the kids and evacuate and the next 6 hours or so we were only focused on getting out safely. When I think of that day, I can still feel the heat in the truck as we drove out through flames on both sides of the highway. The sound of propane tanks exploding is forever etched in my mind and the utter fear is a feeling that you never want to feel. I am forever thankful that we made it out safely, to my boyfriend who drove, and the family that we had in Fox Creek and Leduc who gave us a place to go during that time.

So many things about Fort Mac made it my hometown but I know that the biggest thing that made this place home for me was the people. In a "transient working" town you would never expect to find the relationships that I did. Being a fairly social person myself, I did worry about living somewhere that I only knew a couple of people. It wouldn't take long before I saw that the people I met were looking for the same thing. Good friends to help ease the pain of being away from family. The majority of the people who do live there have moved from elsewhere in the world and, like me, left behind families. The street we lived on was full of amazing people who were always up for a chat at the end of the driveway. No matter what time of night or day it was, if the garage door was open, people knew that they were welcome to stop in for a visit. Those visits usually ended up being long and sometimes loud but always fulfilled. People cared, they cared that you were doing alright and if you weren’t, they were there to lend a shoulder. We had the best neighbors you could ever ask for and still miss them to this day. I probably always will. Work friends become family in a short period of time, and when you work the crazy shifts like we worked out there it is a good thing you can find a family to work with because you end up spending more time with them than you do the people you actually live with. People who I would never have met had I not left the town I grew up in to move to a city that will always be my home. I guarantee that even after being gone for almost two years that if we went back tomorrow, we would be welcomed with open arms and fall right back into that life as if we had never left!!

It seemed like no matter what I was doing, I was always living my life to the fullest. I found myself right where I needed to be all along. So, I guess what I am trying to say with all of this is that “Home is where the heart is” was just a cliché to me until I found my home in Fort McMurray, Alberta. “Home” is a feeling, a place that gives you peace and tranquility no matter how busy life gets. A place you can feel safe and loved and a place you can spend your life doing things that you want to do with people you love spending time with. So many people in this world think that their hometown has to be the place they grew up in but it doesn’t. it is the place where you find your soul, the place that makes you happiest. That is your home.

A couple of years ago we moved back to Nova Scotia and still to this day I can not think of it as home, nor will I ever be able to think of any place other than Fort McMurray as my home. Sure, I can find a place to be happy and settle but my heart will always belong to good ol’ Fort Mac. There with my family that I left behind. Someday I will go back even for a visit, just to feel the peace of being in my place. The place in this world that brings me peace.