Never ending story

That might be the case as at the moment I am not in the position to move, but thinking about is equally fun :-).

As written in other entries I am rather hooked to Canada, and especially to Nova Scotia. Why? The mix of perfect scenery, very friendly people, nice sea food, clean air and empty roads, gives a very comfortable feeling, at least to me. As living in Amsterdam is missing some of those aspects, but you do get other nice ones back though. And no I do not mean smoking pot or whatever ... Amsterdam is just a very nice and not too big city. Not been there? Try it :-).

Back to Nova Scotia. Almost every day I am checking out lots and houses and it seems I am narrowing the search, really .... only search ...

I think the best mix you can find is in the Chester area, but this is also one of the most expensive parts of Nova Scotia. Another area, near Lunenburg, and especially close to Kingsburg is rather special, not cheap but less pricy compared to Chester.

From Wikipedia:

Kingsburg, Nova Scotia is a small community in Lunenburg County on the South Shore that is now mainly a vacation area.

The village is located at the end of Kingsburg peninsula by the villages of Rose Bay and Riverport. The closest major centre is Bridgewater. It also is not very far from Lunenburg. Kingsburg is located between two beaches: the popular Hirtle's Beach and the lovely, but usually deserted Kingsburg Beach. There are also a cape which has hiking trails (Gaff Point) Like all of Nova Scotia, the ocean is usually too cold to swim in,but many of the locals do but Kingsburg has two large lakes and a number of smaller freshwater ponds that are popular swimming locations. and the locals only swim in one of those

The village was settled by German settlers, with a land grant from King George lll of England on July 5 1787 to five families. (Leonard Hirtle, John Mossman, Peter Knack, Christian Hartman and John Kayser) It was for many decades primarily a fishing community, and a fish packing plant was established there. The village grew to have a few hundred residents.

In the late twentieth century, with the widespread decline of small-scale Atlantic fishery, the packing plant closed and the fishing culture nearly disappeared completely. With little industry, the town's population collapsed and many of the buildings were abandoned and destroyed, leaving the town with only a few dozen full time inhabitants.

By the 1990s, however, the South Shore had become a major vacation destination. As other popular destinations such as Mahone Bay and Chester became crowded and very expensive, travellers turned to smaller locations like Kingsburg. Kingsburg with its beaches and quiet isolation became a prime location. The old houses were bought and restored, mostly by wealthy out-of-province cottage goers from Ontario and the United States. The empty land was also bought up and many new houses were built. Prices skyrocketed and land there is now worth over 200 000 Canadian dollars per acre ($50/m²).

One of the only detractions to Kingsburg's idyllic setting is the great amount of fog. It is perfectly possible to go for weeks, even in mid-summer, with only a few days of visible sun.

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The last sentence is not so good and the one about lot prices is also not very positive, but all together still very interesting.

One of the interesting aspects is also that a well know architect, Brian MacKay-Lyons, has built some extremely nice houses in the area, most of them on spectacular cliffs or in open fields with views you can only dream of. Well in my dreams I see myself overlooking the see with a beautiful sunset all from a Brian MacKay-Lyons house. Will I ever?

Below is one of his designs, the Hill house, now costs a staggering 2.650.000 $ Canadian, you get at least a nice acreage :-).