It was a simple plan. Straightforward. Not foolproof mind you, but what good idea doesn't allow for unforeseen circumstances? Maybe we could have guessed that among selling our house in Toronto, moving to another province, building a yurt and starting a new career a couple of things were bound to go awry. Fate did not disappoint. Up until the yurt went missing somewhere between British Columbia and Ontario we were only a week behind schedule. Not bad considering I'd never built my own house before, much less a round, canvas one in rural New Brunswick. Despite the upheaval, the strain of building a structure outside of local codes and sensibilities, we found a way to survive. The fact this new beginning would tax our relationships with family and friends was inevitable. But just as the yurt and the chaos of our lives was beginning to settle, our new life taking root, the biggest, most unexpected challenge was churning a path up the coast and straight toward the homestead: Hurricane Earl!
About the Author: I'm a farm boy at heart. Slugging bales and milking cows during the summers of my youth in Southern Ontario. Palmerston to be exact. A place where the railroad birthed a town overnight only for the iron highway to slowly die out just a hundred years later. The tentacled stretches of the tracks drew me on their path and the long ride to who knows where has remained etched in my mind so long as the horizon hid their purpose. It's no surprise I finished my arts degree at Wilfrid Laurier with the full intention of taking the film industry by storm in 1997. I was on a mission. To get into show business, gain enough knowledge to make my own film, and carve out a niche as a writer/director. I reached my goal in 2001 where Shotgun Journalism appeared in exactly ONE film festival. I had a decision to make: Now what? I remained a lighting technician, living with the ebb and flow of the cycle of work. In the summer of 2001, a slowing film industry in Toronto sent me to Saint John, NB to work on a movie. It was there I met the love of my life, Sylvie Mazerolle, a make-up artist on the same project. At the end of that year, Sylvie moved to Toronto to live with me and pursue her dream of becoming a full-time make-up artist. Since then, Sylvie and I have lived, worked and travelled together until some startling news changed our lives. Just two days before Christmas in 2007 Sylvie found out she was pregnant with our first child. As 2008 dawned and the housing crisis started to break down south of the border, we were starting to wonder how secure the investment our Toronto home had become. Feeling the pull of family and the chance to start a-new we sold our home and moved to Richibucto, New Brunswick and built a yurt. From there, we reasoned, we would figure out "Life, the Yurt and Everything". Seeking a more cosmopolitan atmosphere we eventually settled in Dieppe, the commercial hub of Acadia and a suburb of Moncton.