Except for the lies, the following story is true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
 
By Jim Liar
"Yeah, well, here’s your gear, survey van, crew – and them? Them’s your flag girls."
"Flag girls?" I thought. "Never worked with flag girls before. This could be interesting…’"

We have enjoyed some entertainment on the beach over the years from kite surfers and powered paragliders to small aircraft, fishing boats and even horses and their riders enjoying the wonderful expanse of the beach at low tide. I would love to get out in some sea kayaks and do some exploring from here but I don’t know if I am brave enough.

Fast forward to 2011—finding us on this stretch of Fundy shoreline again searching for a spot we could call our own. We had spent many years camping with our children in the Fundy area but we were getting tired of the packing and unpacking and never finding one particular spot that we liked to go again and again. One day we spotted a small “land for sale” sign in front of Waterside beach. We immediately scoped it out to see its potential for development and access. It was just an overgrown field but we could see the potential and who couldn’t dream with that view?

We secured the land in 2012 and tried camping on it but the wind and the bugs had us changing our minds very quickly about how we were going to use this property. We drew up some plans with a local draftsman, borrowed some money and found a builder to start building our cottage. After the local plumber, electrician and drywall finisher did their jobs, we did the rest of the finish work ourselves.
We have a lot of pride in what we did because we had never taken on such a project in our lives.  By the beginning of summer 2015, we were finally staying there overnight with most of it finished and really starting to enjoy it with our family and friends.

 This place has been our escape from work and the city, a place for our family to gather, a place for our kids to find summer employment and, hopefully, a place where we can retire. The beauty of this place has ignited our love for the area all over again and our creativity has blossomed. I like to upcycle and paint furniture and garage sale finds, make signs, and sew decorative pieces. My husband loves photography and is hoping to expand his repertoire as time goes by and he has more time to devote to it.  We have found ways to inject our gifts into our cottage and make it feel like an expression of the things we love about this place.

 We started a blog this year called “The Road to Waterside” to feature the area and the places you pass from Riverview to Fundy. It will also feature DIY projects, my husband’s photography, and fun information and events going on in our lives, all influenced by our link to this beautiful area. We would love to have people follow us along. I try to post three to four times a month. 

We look forward to many years ahead enjoying this little piece of Paradise. Thank you to our wonderful neighbours for welcoming us to your community. We love it!

The Alma Village would like to send a huge Thank You to all the volunteers who helped to make this year's Alma Celebration Days such a memorable success!

All the events were attended and enjoyed.  Some of the highlights included Karaoke, it appears we may have some undiscovered talent in our town. The dinner theatre, Life in Snake Falls, was amazing.  

The Single Member-Proportional Vote (SM-PV) system (aka The Bennett Method after the former Prime Minister from Albert County) has been proposed by James Wilson, a 28-year-old who was born and raised in Albert County. After studying political science, history, and classical political thought at Mount Allison University, he went to Alberta to get work at the end of 2013.
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Continue to read his story and his proposal for electoral reform.

Alma has its Celebration Days, Hillsborough has Homecoming Days and Riverside-Albert’s Shepody Days is growing to rival these two neighbouring celebrations, while sandwiched between them on the second weekend in July.

Shepody Days began four years ago with a great idea by Joanne Butland, her mom Beulah Morrissey and her family – to hold kayak races on the river near Riverside Consolidated School. 

by Rachel LeBlanc

  Three years ago a tired couple who were backpacking across NB randomly stopped at our house and asked if they could borrow our backyard as a campsite. Simon and Mieke were from the south of France and we had a beautiful evening with them, and in the morning we shared a warm cup of coffee. Meike was expecting a child so we chatted about all things baby. It was wonderful. 

Simon and Meike taught me that sometimes life brings you amazing opportunities in the form of strangers. Welcome this.

The next summer, as I drove home the twisty-turny roads of Route 114 towards Hillsborough, I noticed a couple of cyclists labouring their way in the darkest, stormiest rain.