Earlier in the year, I posted about the idea of making a game of your walks as a way to keep things interesting. A friend of mine read it and took it to heart, and quickly did a series of alphabetical walks that covered street names in Toronto for every letter of the alphabet except I think X (there is no Toronto street starting with X) and Z (only a handful).

Having moved to Lunenburg, I took a look a the map and realized that it wouldn’t take long to cover the alphabet here.

Having walked the length of Yonge St in Toronto, it took me much less time to walk Young here in Lunenburg, to cover off the Y. But there are no streets that I can find in town that start with E, I, Q, R, U, X, or Z. I was somewhat surprised to realize that there’s a King but not a Queen street in town, since most towns in English-speaking Canada seem to have both, and the lack of a street starting with an R was a bit of a surprise too. I’m giving myself the letter O, by the way, as Old Blue Rocks Road, so if you don’t think that counts then there’s no O either.

But nevertheless, in under 2 hours I had pretty much covered all the other letters of the alphabet, and had learned a bit about the town as I went. The UNESCO-designated heritage area of the Old Town, with its colourful houses and well-preserved wooden churches, is always delightful to wander through.

More surprising to me, perhaps, was wondering through the New Town area to the west of the harbour, up near the hospital, where I went to catch the W’s (Wolff Ave and Whynacht St). Visiting the town as a tourist, I hadn’t wandered up here before. The lower part of the New Town has some stately Victorian-era homes turned into B&Bs, and as you continue up the hill the homes get progressively more modern until up by Wolff they are just a few years old.

It’s good to see the growth in town that way. There’s more to Lunenburg than just the chocolate-box cheer and the colours of the Old Town. There’s more to it than just tourism, for that matter – there are factories and shops and services along with the restaurants and museums and galleries. There’s a school and good coffee shops and a pub where the locals go, and a hospital, and groceries, and a library, and playgrounds. The harbour is a working fishing port as well as a picturesque background, and the hills rising above the harbour have more than pretty views.

I like that it’s a complete place, self-sufficient and year-round. I like that we welcome people from round the world and share our place with them. And I like that come the autumn, it’s going to be our place, where a close-knit community keeps a steady beat until the next cycle of tourists come round.