The Birchdale Letter March 2026

Great Expectations

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” — Charles Dickens

This line comes from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. A phrase that rankles when thinking about March. I stand in the sun and feel the spring, then step into the shade that winter holds fast to. My optimism projects onto a new season, but our beloved Birchdale road, as ever, is less sentimental.

Birchdale in March.

The lake begins to glint in a different way, the air occasionally softens, the sky lifts. There are moments when the whole world seems to lean toward spring.

Maybe it’s why Dickens feels so right for this month. He captures not only the weather but the deeper sensation of being caught between states. March is less of a season, it’s a threshold. We plan no events for March. We may be more than ready for spring, but the road, the lake, the mud, the thawing ground, all of asks for a little more time.

The Road as Steward

Besides, there is still so much to do. Preparing feels like a forgotten skill amid our click and play existence. We live in a culture of immediate access. We are accustomed to getting where we want to go when we want to go there. Birchdale has never really worked like that, and in March it works like that least of all. For a few weeks each year, the road becomes our steward. It decides.

I find that strangely reassuring. Einstein was born in March. It took a little while before we understood the importance of that birth. Anticipation has a way of doing that. It sharpens attention. It makes us notice the smallest change: the quality of light on the lake, the altered sound of wind in the trees, the slight loosening in the day. The “not here yet, but coming.”

And so we begin by plotting in earnest for warmer times ahead. We’re checking off lists, from preparing to build a screened-in porch for the main lodge, to installing new wood stoves. We’re thinking about water and coffee and the practical details that make access and hospitality real. March is a time to strengthen what we offer. We are remembering the people who have been here countless times and imagining those who we’ve yet to meet.

In the Light, In the Shade

It has also been a hard month in Nova Scotia. So much of what helps hold community life together can seem sturdy until suddenly it does not. Funding shifts. Plans change. People are asked, yet again, to do more with less. In moments like that, care stops being a decorative value and becomes something more essential: a way of insisting that welcome, steadiness, and generosity still matter. The cultural life of Nova Scotians, the health and well-being of our citizens and our land is what makes living in this province and in this region a blessing. We must fight for the light of spring, even as we can’t quite get there yet.

And March does have a few practical advantages too. No black flies. This alone deserves a moment of appreciation. And, thanks to the inaccessible road, we don’t yet have to begin our annual preparations for ticks! Birchdale in March may be a threshold, but it’s a threshold with consolations. 😜

So here we are in March: in the light and in the shade. In the promise and in the pause.

The road says no for now. The season says soon. Birchdale, as ever, is getting ready.

March is a month of great expectations.

As always, thanks for reading,

Sarah

Coming up SOON!