# Going down east

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2018-04-14

canadian-maritimes, cottage-country, down-east, down-south, florida, new-england, the-maritimes, toronto, uncategorized, up-north, vancouver

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/c5b5e1592ee73a97a20030361de0683c.jpg)

I live in Toronto. 

When I am headed north to cottage country, I say that I am going _up_ north.

When the Florida snowbirds talk about escaping the winter, they usually say that they are headed _down_ south.

These geographic references are fairly straightforward.

If a friend were to move to Vancouver, I might say that she or he moved [_out_ west](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/out%20West). This one starts to get a bit more interesting because it speaks to a location that is out, or away, from the center. Toronto is the center and that person has moved _out_ from it.

But the one that really made me think was _down_ east. My mother was born in the Canadian Maritimes and when she references this part of the country she calls it down east. 

I used to ask her: “Why is it called _down_ east? Geographically, it is actually _up_ east.”

Turns out that [down east](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_East) is (probably) a nautical reference. It is used to identify parts of the east coast in both New England and Canada. The prevailing winds in these parts blow from the southwest. So when sailors traveled from the west to east they were going _downwind_.

So there you have it. Do you have any peculiar geographic references in your part of the world?

UPDATE: I should have also mentioned that the [St. Lawrence River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lawrence_River) generally flows north-easterly and that there’s an elevational difference between what was formerly known as [Upper Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Canada) and [Lower Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Canada).

_Photo by_ [_Matthias Jordan_](https://unsplash.com/photos/EnC09G-ICbU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) _on_ [_Unsplash_](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/going-down-east)*