I am writing from the small town of Wolfville in the far flung reaches of Nova Scotia. --Far flung, that is, for anybody living in one of the other provinces of Canada which doesn't happen to look out over the Atlantic Ocean.

I've done moves before, where all my stuff was bundled into the back of a truck with me at the helm, teetering down the highway. But seven years ago when I first moved in with my cartoonist friend, T.J., I did it with one of those basic vans of the type one might most commonly associate with cable installation companies and, (if you were born in the seventies), Fuzzy Dice. This time, however, having accumulated a few metric tonnes of Thieves & Kings stock, I opted for something a little more, um. . , diesel powered.

I rented myself a big cube-truck with a big door at the back and one of those extending metal ramps. Figured such a vehicle should be big enough for everything, though I am fairly certain now that I was breaking at least one regulatory code. Carson and I loaded that mid-sized beast up, and according to our calculations, we exceeded the maximum weight limit by at least 200%. Carson squinted at the bulging tires and heavily slanted front end and commented, "Well, at any rate, it'll sure handle well with that much weight on the front tires." --And it did!

At first, I was a bit nervous about piloting such a large vehicle, but after taking an unintentional, (got off at the wrong exit), navigational crash course through the wilds of Queen Street West in down town Toronto through early morning rush hour traffic, without hitting, denting or killing anything or anyone, I was ready for the real road.

My old Toronto next door neighbor, Vern, who once taught at a truck driving school in the Caribbean, advised me that truck driving was easy. "Just take your time. If people get mad and honk, so what? What are they gonna do? You're in a truck!"

He couldn't have been more right. If there isn't any room to move, just sit there until space makes itself available. Being perched in a truck cab, able to look waaaay down upon all the other vehicles on the road certainly helps encourage this kind of attitude. "Just go as fast as you feel comfortable going. If some guy in a car behind you wants to get killed trying to go around you, then that's his problem. What's he gonna do? You're in a truck."

With this attitude firmly established, truck driving becomes fun.

Although. . .

Montreal. What gives? I was born in that city, and I know some fine people who live there. But man! That town has by far the worst highway system I have ever experienced! It's like a broken pinball machine with the 'tilt' set too sensitively, --determined to dump you at the slightest provocation into the middle of downtown gridlock. The signage seemed almost deliberately misleading, demanding several times without warning, (and at the last possible second), that drivers cross three lanes of traffic to avoid being flung from their desired course into parts unknown. Basket weaves like a bellowing hydra desperate to keep would-be escaping travelers strangled in its smog-blackened clutches. I spent two solid hours playing idiot-ball in the middle of rush-hour traffic on that filthy behemoth! Luckily, Vern's advice served me well. "Hey, man. Have patience. What else are you gonna do? You're in a truck."

Everybody I mentioned this to, ("The drive? Oh it was nice! Except for Montreal. What's with that nutbar highway system?"), laughed and nodded and recounted stories of their own encounters in trying to navigate through Montreal. "I know what you mean! After you first get the run around, you learn to remember what lanes to be in before the signs even come up! It's the only way."

Now it was a long drive from Toronto to Wolfville. About 22 hours altogether, feeding diesel spray to that grumbling heavy machine engine. The fuel tank on that mid-sized monster cost about $135 to fill up from empty. I spent about $400 altogether on fuel, hauling all my stuff across four provinces. I didn't make it across the Quebec/New Brunswick border as I'd hoped to before fatigue overtook me and I had to stop and go to sleep. I pulled over to a rest stop about 100 Km outside Montreal.

Now, Carson, being the clever guy he is, looked at the boxes and the little sliding hatchway from which the cargo bay could be accessed from the cab, and said, "Hey. If we stack things just right, we can make a little tunnel from the cab up to the top of all your stuff in the back of the truck. You can sleep up there right on top of all your TPB's. That'll be cool!" And this is what we did.

So I pulled over, visited the lonely road-side washroom, and then got back into the cab. Locking up, I climbed through the hatchway behind the driver's seat and up on top of all the cargo. I pulled open the garbage bags containing my blankets and pillows and stuff, and I layed out a nice comfy spread. Under the beam of a flashlight I ate a meal of cheese, grapes and nuts and such, (which Carson's mom had bought for me to snack on during the drive. "I love you, Mark!" she said while squeezing me goodbye. Moms are nice.)

Now, at first, I was worried that some cop or parking lot attendant would bang on the truck door, or worse, cut the lock and slide open the cargo door, to discover me bleary-eyed with sleepy hair, under a blanket wearing nothing but my jockey shorts. --And then haul me out to do push-ups in the parking lot or something. But this concern proved to be silly. As the evening wore on, I could hear other big rigs pull into the same parking area. --I couldn't figure out what the drivers were doing, because there were no hotels or restaurants around, and the trucks just stopped and sat there. Then I realized that the drivers were doing exactly as I was doing. Getting ready for a night's rest. --The cabs of some trucks, I recalled, have small sleeping quarters set behind the driver's seats for just this purpose.

That night I dreamed that I was sitting around a big camp fire, laughing and trading stories with a bunch of truckers, all of us bundled up in sleeping bags, camped out atop a sea of cargo and goods inside the back of an impossibly huge truck. We roasted hot dogs and drank from huge thermos flasks, and it was good.

The next morning, I woke up very early and got going just as the sun was rising. I wanted to be in Wolfville by that night, and figured I had a good 14 hours of driving to do before getting there. So off I went.

The landscape in northern Quebec proved to be some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The Trans-Canada highway makes its way North and South along the lush green of the Saint Lawrence river valley. The further North toward the Atlantic, the more exotic and robust the scenery. --Huge igneous or glacial mounds (I can't remember which from my geography lessons), rose abruptly, hundreds of feet from the valley floor, covered in green, all surrounded by a gentle spring mist as all the plants and living things in the valley breathed and came to life. I wondered at it while I drove and frowned at the fact that my camera had self-destructed, (with my assistance), a couple of weeks earlier.

Ah well. Some things, I figure, are meant to be observed by only those who are there to witness them. --Just as some doors are meant to be gone through alone. A couple of good friends had suggested that they might like to travel with me, and while this was partly a very appealing thought, (the unknown being a lot less scary when one travels it with a friend), I quickly decided against inviting any company along. I'd been living in stasis in Toronto for far too long. I had quite literally grown sick and withered in the contained certainty of the city, strung upon old life threads which had long reached their natural ends. A deep part of me was starving to be alone on this journey, to be free of old ties.

So I turned East and traveled across the northern border between Canada and Maine, and after a couple of hours, entered the province of New Brunswick, which along the Trans-Canada highway is featured by a series of ancient mountains and ridges. Up and down many hills, while the earth grew redder and redder. Nova Scotia is famous for its red, red earth.

I spent a few years growing up as a child in New Brunswick, and the fresh smell of the air and the look and feel of the rocks and vegetation brought back memories I'd forgotten I'd even had. And it was a beautiful day for driving, too! I stopped and got some lunch in a little town at a high altitude, atop one of those ancient, worn peeks, and I ate sitting with the door to the cab open, a cool spring breeze blowing my hair. I could actually remember parts of this old highway that my family had driven along when I was a kid of just seven or eight years. I drove for another few hours and just had to stop. --The small town of Hartland, New Brunswick, home of the world's longest covered bridge came within view, and I blinked in amazement.

When I was a kid, my mother and I both thought covered bridges were extremely cool, and so we had driven out to visit this one. And man, was it ever a long bridge, built from the browned wood used back when people built such things. I abandoned the truck and gazed at the structure, more memories filtering back though the sunlight from twenty-six years ago. I walked along that sucker and stopped right in the middle where I'd once stood as a kid, (my sneakered feet on tip-toes, clasping at the wooden railing), to watch the Saint John River flowing beneath. It hadn't changed at all from what I remembered. Funny that I hadn't even considered upon leaving Toronto that I might be making these little pit-stops through my past. Retracing old roads, doing the full-circle thing.

I walked the rest of the way across the bridge and sat in the sunlight on a huge stone. The truck which contained everything I owned, all my artwork, on the far side of the river was distant enough that it looked like a toy. It seemed strange to me that so many concerns should be contained inside such a small, silly object. I ate an orange and drank a coffee, and sort of drifted in a daze of exhaustion. Lying back on the stone beneath that sunlight, listening to the river was very pleasant. Two days of packing and truck-loading with little sleep in between, and then driving all of the previous day with only five hours sleep in a parking lot. . . I could have easily slept for the rest of the day and night, but I was determined to reach my destination before evening. The truck was only mine for five days, after all! So coffee, as it has done faithfully in the past, became my trusted traveling partner.

On the road again.

I was stopped by a provincial highway police officer, and a little adrenaline began flowing. --I'd been avoiding the truck weigh-stations which require compliance at border crossings. --I'd been passing them by while whistling innocently, worried that I'd be fined or penalized or some-such because of the bulging tires and grossly exceeded weight limit on my truck. (Damn trade-paperbacks, anyway! Why must paper be so heavy?) But the officer, I suppose, was looking for drug traffickers or similar. He was intrigued to learn that I made comic for a living and moreover, that I was moving away from Toronto. ("Usually seems to work in the other direction.") I tried to give him a copy of one of the books, and he was clearly tempted, but refused me on account of regulations. "Ah. Right. Your superiors might think of it as bribery." He nodded a little reluctantly. "Too bad."

I was sent on my way, and I strictly obeyed the speed limits for the next 30 kilometers or so before opening her up again. (You can reach some fairly spectacular speeds, I discovered, even with a fully loaded truck. People, I noticed, seem to get a little irked when you blast by their sports cars in a hopelessly un-cool rental truck.)

When I finally crossed the border into Nova Scotia, I pulled over to the tastefully designed provincial welcoming office. Designed mostly for tourists, I nonetheless felt it was appropriate that I be welcomed to my new home. I also suddenly needed to use their washroom. (The last toilet I'd sat on was at Carson's place, and I thought it was neat that the next friendly toilet seat I visited happened to be at the welcoming post of my new province.)

The girl at the desk smiled at me brightly and gave me elaborate directions to Wolfville, saying that it was one of her favorite towns and that she had a friend living there. I walked back across the parking lot which overlooked the bay of Fundy. A steady ocean wind threw my hair all over the place. I was getting close to the edge of the world and I felt light on my feet!

--A brand new toll highway had been installed which would take me on a very direct route to Halifax, and I decided that I would ignore it, wanting to use the old highway 2 which would take me along side the water of the Minas Basin, (one of the fingers of the Bay of Fundy). I never did find my way on to that highway, but followed for about 80 km a two lane country road through some of the most beautiful land I've yet seen. CBC radio played my way through with music by Mozart and a rustic French fiddler, sounds which fit the landscape to a tee.

Finally, I was reunited with the Trans-Canada, and I followed it most of the way into Halifax Harbour, turned right and an hour later was rolling into the incredibly beautiful town of Wolfville. --Set on the side of the valley, it overlooks the river and mud-flats which have already turned bright green with grasses as drifting seeds find purchase in the fertile clays along the dykes.

Darren greeted me warmly and we talked into the night, sharing news from our perspective ends of the world. I fell soundly asleep that evening, but strangely was awake again at the crack of dawn. Darren headed off to work, and I got down to the job of emptying the truck into Darren's basement apartment while his landlady watched me periodically from her window. Distressed to learn that her world was changing to the tune of one cartoonist from Toronto, she headed outside around lunch time and told me that she was going to raise Darren's already top-heavy rent by another $100. She offered a long list of reasons as to why she was justified in doing this, and her explanations sounded sensible enough to me at the time. --But then I'm quick to sympathize with people, especially when I've been staying awake primarily by way of coffee for going on four days. It was only later when I realized that I knew two people in Toronto who were each paying less for basement apartments, both much nicer than this one. Darren and I have since decided to start looking for a house together. If it's a matter of $100, then we might as well get an entire house (with it's own basement!) for our trouble.

(Addendum to the above: When I informed Darren about the potential price change, he was NOT pleased. He fumed and frowned and shook his head, and when his land lady came down to talk with him, I think she sensed his disappointment. A week later when it came time to pay the rent, the issue of a price increase did not come up. Looks like we may stay living here for a while longer.)

--Curious as to why rents seemed to be so chaotic in this town, I did some asking around. As it turns out, not so very long ago one could, on average, rent a whole house for little more than $400. But there's a big university in this little town, and its masters recently underwent a bit of a power struggle. University tuitions jumped by several orders of magnitude as the institution began catering to a richer class of student. Now the town and local government want their cut of the booty.

--Originally the primary focus of the campus was on arts and performing, (Acadia is home to the renowned Atlantic theater festival), but one of the science and technology department heads somehow found his way into the dean's chair, and he immediately had the whole place wired for high-speed internet, (among other things). Very shortly thereafter the once rich campus life died. I have been told that the SUB, (Student Union Building), had until recently been a place where one could find standing room only, filled with happy and excited kids engaging in life, learning and the endless conversation which makes up a healthy campus. The people in town now shake their heads sadly at what it has become; a desolate place. Tony and I stopped in there last winter during my visit so that he could show me around his old school and visit a beloved professor he knew. He was disturbed to discover that the SUB was virtually empty. There were only a dozen or so students in the whole hall, each engrossed in their lap-tops. There was zero conversation, the only noise in the air being the antiseptic clicking of keyboards and the odd grunt as somebody killed somebody else in one of those first-person perspective shooting games. Three cheers for the information age.

Well, apparently, (and boy, does news fly fast in a small town!), after some high-level struggle among some powerful circles, the science and technology dean has been removed. The town feelings, however, I fear may be a little more difficult to reverse. Unless people here prove to be more robust of spirit than those in the rest of the world, then I suspect that this place will have high rents and high property taxes forever more. Greed is like a fungus; a disease hard to cure once contracted. --But thankfully, it's not a universal situation. Darren grew up in these parts and he has many connections. He remains entirely confident that we'll be able to find a house for a reasonable price, so I'm not particularly worried. Greed, like all things, is a choice, and there are some very enlightened people who share this town. It is, in fact, one of the very reasons I moved here, hopefully to add my creative spirit to that which already exists. I was told by one shop clerk that if anything strange and interesting were to happen in the valley, it would probably happen in Wolfville. That's where all the artists are, after all!

I am quickly learning that I'll have to wake up and get to work early if I want to be productive, because the evenings are full of social distractions. Every evening so far after people get home from their jobs, they have gotten together in order to spend time talking or walking or playing games. --I've barely been here a week, and already I've spent an evening playing D&D! People socialize a great deal more out here than they ever did in Toronto; I was told that this was the case, and it certainly appears to be true. Last night, Darren and his friend took me out for a long walk where we stopped and chatted with several people after a 2 kilometer hike along the dykes. Holy smokes! The beauty out here takes my breath away again and again. As a direct result, I went down to the local hardware store and bought the wood and parts needed to make a new portable drafting board which will be able to fold up and fit into my back-pack. I look forward to getting myself a pair of good hiking boots, (perhaps a pair military jungle boots), and then visiting the dozen or so settings I've seen so far in which I mean to sit while drawing.

So just yesterday I concluded the bulk of my paperwork nonsense. (Changing driver's licenses, registering I Box Publishing with the Nova Scotia government, getting a new business account set up with the local bank, getting a buisness discount rate at the local post office, getting myself set up with internet access, etc., etc, etc.) And the second I'm done updating the website, I plan to start drawing. Man! I just want all of this stuff done with so I can get back to the comic! There is a mountain of work I want to draw. This environment is just loaded with creative power, and it is affecting me in ways I've not yet begun to explore! But the website needs attention.

And so. . .

My new mailing address is;

I Box Publishing
P.O. Box 2414,
Wolfville, Nova Scotia,
B4P 2S3
Canada

Also, check back shortly. With everything settling down, I plan to have T&K original page artwork on sale very soon!

Take care everybody, and best wishes from Nova Scotia!