It is no mistake that I lived in two places each year for many years – the coast of Nova Scotia and the wintery wonderland of Southern Québec, the landscape of my childhood. There is something about these two contrasting environments that makes me curious. Both are places where it’s not easy to live at times, the bitter cold of the Québec winter and the North Atlantic storms that batter the shoreline in Nova Scotia can make it challenging for mere humans. There is something of this hardship that appeals to me.