In 1994 Michelle and her mom invited me on a trip to visit Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. I was there for close to three weeks and her relatives adopted me. Her aunts treated me like a member of the family, her cousins treated me like one of their own, and we went all over the island seeing the sights. I fell in love with Cape Breton Island, so much so I wanted to move there despite having no plan, no marketable skills, and no idea how to make it work.
25 years later, during Trump’s first term as president with the world gripped in a pandemic, cracks in the foundation of the United States exploded into open confrontation and unrest. As we faced an uncertain, if not worrisome future, Michelle filed the paperwork to register her Canadian citizenship. We didn’t realize then how important that decision would be a few years later.
November 5th, 2024 Trump was elected for a second term, and our lives changed in a single moment.
Around 2:00am on November 6th we woke to cries of despair from our big-hearted, gentle soul of a son. Dominic was in our room sobbing. He sounded defeated, weak, and without hope – his reaction to the reality Michelle and I were still processing. There was so much disappointment, heartbreak, and pain the morning after that election. We were numb, and the only question we kept asking was “how after everything, how did this happen again?”
We weren’t ready for whatever was coming next.
The idea to moving to Canada was always a novel, “what if” nuclear option, a backup plan, the “break glass in an emergency” contingency. Although Michelle had her Canadian citizenship, there were no logistics in place, there was no destination in mind, there was no ground crew to help us land, and there was no safety net. We found ourselves in a game of chicken with fantasy and reality, and it was awful. We were confronting the specter of our small world collapsing under the weight of what was coming…or were we?
I wish I could say the decision to move was easy, but that would be a half truth. Accepting the reality our “American Lives” were over was the easy part, but now the reality of that decision was settling in. Our fever dream of moving to Canada was here, abrupt, impossible, and raw. The road ahead was littered with difficult pitfalls to sidestep, chief among them two questions. The first, and most important was, “where would we live?” The second, and as important, “how do we get there?” Questions that required a lot of research, more than a little paperwork, and of course, crunching numbers, lots and lots of numbers.
Thanks to new legislation, Dominic could become a citizen, allowing him to move to Canada with Michelle, but I was a different story. The only option for me was through spousal sponsorship for permanent residence, which had the potential to be a long process. Yes, I could stay in Canada for up to six months on a Visitor’s Visa, but it didn’t guarantee I could stay in Canada until my permanent residence application was processed and finalized.
In our quest for a solution we explored every possible option including Michelle and Dominic moving just across the border in Ontario or New Brunswick while I lived in Minnesota, Michigan, or Maine, but none of these options were acceptable. We were all going to Canada, or none of us were going, end of discussion.
With no clear destination in mind our plan was unraveling, fast. I was losing hope, Dominic was losing interest, and the world we lived in was losing cohesion at a shocking rate of speed. Property in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Mainland Nova Scotia was expensive if you wanted to live in even a modest home in a decent city. Despite the proceeds from the sale of our house, buying a home with a single income was going to be impossible when all other expenses were factored in. We were on the verge of giving up when Michelle and I arrived at the same solution – why not Cape Breton Island?
The reasoning was simple; our limited finances could be stretched a lot farther on Cape Breton Island, Michelle had relatives there, and we both loved the idea of living there. Cape Breton is beautiful, it’s surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, and housing market was comparable to Menomonie, WI. In that moment everything clicked into place, and our future, in doubt for so long, not only came into focus, it was possible. 3300 kilometers, 15 days, and one shitty trailer later, we would arrive in North Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Today marks one year since we set out on that journey. The Cape Breton Regional Municipality has become our home, we’ve made new friends, Michelle is writing again, and I’m working on projects for my YouTube channels TwoCowsGaming, Uncommon Karma, and John_From_WI.
A lot can happen in a year.
Regards, John
