Fredericton, and the trip to Charlottetown

Neil came to the rescue with New Brunswick and got us hooked up with a place to stay in Fredericton, and I must admit he outdid himself. We're crashing at Ewan's place, and Ewan is awesome. We managed to take it easy and get a variety of interviews over a couple of days at the same time. I'm not sure how we managed that.

I got introduced to a katimavik alumni here, who did an interview. Katimavik is a national youth program that places kids age 17-21 in groups that represent the demographics of Canada, and they all live together in three different provinces for three months each. For a better description see: http://www.katimavik.org/

I love the idea of this program, and only wish I'd heard about it earlier. There are rumblings that the current government may not keep up the funding, which would be a shame. We keep hearing about national unity and we need to keep Canada together and blah blah, but do they ever do anything concrete about it? And when something concrete is done, like Katimavik, why isn't there better advertising or media for it? And why do they now have to fear for its future?

I also got to interview the Secretary to the Chief and Council of the St. Mary's First Nations community. He was really interesting, and very open to speaking about his life and experiences and culture. Fantastic interview.

And we even got to take a much needed day off. Neil spent the day watching season 2 of Battlestar Galactica, and I finally got to watch the first season of Dr. Who, which I'd started before leaving the UK. I find it kinda odd that we're both hooked on remake series. There's really nothing new anymore.

And now we're off to PEI. We're staying with another couchsurfing host, and are getting picked up at the bus station in Charlottetown. It still amazes me that people are so willing to go out of their way to pick us up and put us up. If everyone could be this way, the world would be a better place.