My parents had visited this town on a trip to Nova Scotia. By the time I made a trip to Nova Scotia, my mom had passed away and my dad was in hospice care.

But I remembered my dad’s souvenir from this town, a vintage brass alidade that he held on his lap (carefully boxed up) on the flight home. Later, he spent several months polishing the brass until it looked like it was new. It was his pride and joy.

So it seemed right, that as he lay dying back home, I’d take a short detour to Annapolis Royal and sit by the water and think about his alidade. And him.

(Oh, and what’s an alidade? It’s a surveying or navigational tool used to sight distant objects. His introduction to the field of engineering was working on a surveying crew, and his Nova Scotian souvenir was surely a reminder of his youthful years.)

Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia
photographed 7.27.2015