Valentine Dinner aftermath.

Behind the retail store of Clearwater in Bedford is a large storage complex for the company’s main product: fresh Atlantic lobsters. Submerged in salt brine baskets and special trays, they wait to be shipped out or sold through the Coldwater retail store. Lobster condos, as dry land pound trays are called, hold 30 lobsters per tray, with a total storage capacity of 150,000 pounds of the crustaceans. That’s the way the crustaceans like it -- dark and cold, which prevents moulting and -- not incidentally-- lower market value.

Mother’s Day has the highest demand for lobsters on restaurant menus in North America, with Chinese lunar New Year celebrations coming on strong in world markets. Our backroom tour guides, biologists Stacey Fram and Melissa Dorey, explained that lobsters do not feel pain when immersed in boiling water because they lack a central nervous system. They gave a restaurant tip too: if the roe is black, send it back (it’s undercooked). www.clearwater.ca

This 9 - 10 pound male (American species) lobster is about 40 years old.

Female lobsters carry their eggs in clusters beneath their mid section.

Following our countryside exploration, the Westin Nova Scotian played host to the travel media conference I was attending. In a pivotal location by the train station and cruise ship docks, this building was one of the original hotels owned by Canadian National Railways built in the 1930s and 40s as landmarks across the country. It’s been undergoing a massive renovation which was still in progress on some floors, but not mine on the 8th. A faint whiff of paint announced my room was finished, offering a view of Bishop’s Landing power plant, the Pier 21 immigration museum, Georges Island and the harbour entrance beyond.

The bottom of one window could be opened to the brisk salt air; I always appreciate that, being a bit of a fresh air fiend. Morning sun through the blinds made even an oil refinery on the opposite shore look good. Pity I wouldn’t have time for the hotels’ pool and fitness center or to check out the updated dining facilities --- even if I could no longer be greeted by a tuxedoed maitre'd and waiters à la the 1950s. www.westin.ns.ca/

Window reflections merge with a black & white print of a village fishing harbour somewhere in Nova Scotia’s past.