[URBAN NOTE] "Hunting for Pokemon with my son in historic Lunenburg, my doubts lifted"

[rfmcdonald]

I really like Erin Anderssen's article in The Globe and Mail, also from mid-July, about time spending bonding with her son.

By the harbour, in front of the Bluenose Store, as a horse-drawn carriage carrying tourists clopped by, we captured a Jigglypuff. By the fire hydrant on Montague Street, a bouncing blue Nidoran was waiting. Not far away, a Pidgey was snagged, waiting dangerously in the middle of what was luckily a quiet thoroughfare. (Nothing like a digitally squashed Pidgey to take the fun out of things.) Coming around one corner, a Krabby – as in, a crab – surprised us. “There he is, there he is,” my son, Samson, whispered, forgetting, in the moment, that the Krabby couldn’t actually hear him. “I am sort of freaking out right now,” he confided to me.

It’s surreal playing Pokemon Go in the historic Nova Scotia town of Lunenburg, hunting virtual cartoon characters along the famous waterfront and brightly coloured, carefully preserved 18th-century houses. And yet, surprisingly fun. Two hours later, we had 27 Pokemon, and a level 5 ranking. This meant we could do battle in the nearest “gym,” which had been strategically placed by those clever game masters on the wharf, next to where the Bluenose would usually dock. On this Wednesday evening, the wharf was mostly empty, the famous schooner currently away from its home port. But every new visitor to Lunenburg eventually stops here; now every Pokemon Go player will, too. The founding families never imagined this.

It’s no understatement to say that Pokemon Go has become a worldwide obsession, sending Nintendo stock soaring. It’s already been downloaded more than the dating app Tinder, and is closing in on Twitter – even though it’s only, officially, available in the United States, New Zealand and Australia. Not that this has stopped any motivated gamer in Canada.

For a week, my son, who is 11, had been excitedly volunteering intel about the game, watching YouTube videos to learn how to play, and cleverly crafting the public relations case for why someone in the family should hack the system and get it on their phone. (He doesn’t have one of his own.) “It’s mother-son time,” he told me. “It’s really an app to go sightseeing with your kids.” “I can run around and burn off energy.” “We won’t get fat.” When he learned we were actually going to play, it was as if he’d chugged seven Red Bulls in one sitting.