For those who don’t know the Maritimes is a region in Eastern Canada that is made up of three different provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Back in 2021 these provines had a population of just about 1.9 million people making it about 5.1% of the total Canadian population.
One of the things that unites these provinces is their proximity to the sea, namely the Atlantic Ocean. And it’s the ocean that influences the climate there, making it a humid continental climate. There have been reports of snowstorms in April and the northernmost areas of New Brunswick are only just above the subartic with very cold winters.
The Maritimes were the second are in Canada to be colonized by the Europeans, the indigenous people are the Mi’kmaq. The national territory of the Mi’kmaq is called Mi’kma’ki and their language was once written in hieroglyphs but now they use the Latin script.
The European Colonizers were predominately of West Europe, like the Scots, the Irish, English and the Acadians. However in New Brunswick, there is a much higher francophone populations and at one time ther weas a significant Gaelic speaking population. The Maritimes sometimes get a bad reputation for being hard to understand, but it just stems from the original colonizers and the small communities that preserve the thick accents.
The economy and stuff has really changed recently. Up until about five years ago, or maybe a bit more, housing was really affordable. They have the best seafood in all of Canada. The Maritimes mainly export their natural resources but near the time of Covid their tech sector was experiencing a boom.
Now a days the cost of living has really affected these oceanic provinces. This may have been brought about by the population changes that Covid installed. A lot of Canadians are moving eastward, mainly in search of affordable housing. And this is having a deleterious affect for those native to the areas. It’s so hard when wealthy city people move to another area with their generational wealth and buy up property. It puts it in greater demand and the prices just skyrocket.
There are so many threads on reddit talking about the cost of living and how it’s changed recently. A lot of people say that we’re friendlier out here than in the mainland and I’ve found that to be true. The younger generation is facing a bit of trouble with finding good jobs, there are always lower waged jobs to be had and it seems to be a bit easier to find a job if you have local references, which I realize is a catch-22 but it is what it is.
Stay tuned for more Maritime ramblings, hopefully you’ll find some interesting tidbits here and there!
Leave a Reply