When Eldiyar Daniyarov arrived for his first day of work at Atlantic Ballet Atlantique Canada in 2012, an ear-splitting alarm went off. The 26-year-old ballet dancer had been anxious to get to the studio early, warm up, and make a good impression. Although he had a key, he was so early that the building’s alarm hadn’t been disabled. Then the phone started ringing. “I was so scared,” he says. “Everywhere was noise.” And then some guy showed up. Daniyarov didn’t speak a word of English. Clearly confused, the man picked up the phone, while Daniyarov frantically tried to explain he was a dancer. Luckily, co-founder and CEO Susan Chalmers-Gauvin was on the other end, and she cleared things up for both men.

Born in Kyrgyzstan, Daniyarov had landed in New Brunswick the previous day, and was the ballet’s newest hire. After dancing across Central Asia and Russia, he’d applied to more than 20 companies in the U.S., Switzerland, England, Germany, and Canada. He received multiple offers and ultimately chose the Atlantic Ballet because he wanted to live in Canada. The company secured his work permit, but the support didn’t stop there: they found him an apartment, helped him open a bank account, and set him up with an English teacher. Now 36, Daniyarov continues to dance with the company, owns a home, speaks English (and is learning French), and has a close community. “My immigration experience was much easier,” says Daniyarov, “because I have huge support.”

The Atlantic Ballet currently employs seven full-time dancers, five of whom are from overseas. In addition to Kyrgyzstan and Canada, the dancers hail from Mongolia, Japan, France, and England. Igor Dobrovolskiy, the artistic director, is also an immigrant, from Ukraine. After Dobrovolskiy founded the company in 2002 with Chalmers-Gauvin to help build a professional dance industry in New Brunswick, the Ballet unintentionally became a magnet for newcomers and a model to other organizations of how to support employees from overseas embarking on a new life. In doing their part to attract, retain, and integrate immigrants, the Atlantic Ballet doesn’t only revitalize New Brunswick’s Arts scene, it revitalizes the province’s communities.

The ability to attract and retain newcomers is vital to New Brunswick, a province with an aging population. It has also been a strategic priority for the provincial government in recent years. New Brunswick is experiencing its highest rate of population growth since 1976. Between March 2021 and March 2022 alone, the population grew by 15,000 people, and over the past five years, the population has grown by more than 40,000. The province is now home to approximately 800,000 people—that’s the largest its population has ever been.

In a provincial news release, Premier Blaine Higgs credited the surge to a successful population-growth strategy, leading to higher interprovincial migration and higher international immigration. The strategy, in effect until 2024, includes three main targets: to reach 7,500 newcomers annually, to reach an 85 percent retention rate, and for French-speaking nominations to account for 33 percent of all nominations.

According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 population estimates, 22.5 percent of the province’s population is 65 and older, landing New Brunswick in second place for the highest percentage of seniors in Canada (Newfoundland and Labrador takes first place at 23 percent). “We are getting hit very hard by the retirement wave,” says Francis McGuire, the president of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. “We’re going to lose 20,000 people a year to retirement in Atlantic Canada.”

Dobrovolskiy is familiar with the pains of immigration. After coming to Canada from Ukraine just over 20 years ago, he found settling into life in Moncton challenging. There was a lack of professional dance opportunities, and he and his wife were planning on leaving. But a coffee break with Chalmers-Gauvin changed his mind. A life-long ballet lover, she wanted to bring more dance to the province. At the time, Dobrovolskiy was teaching her daughter’s class at a local recreational dance studio, and Chalmers-Gauvin, a consultant, was drawn to his work. “I saw a piece of choreography that he did for the school…. It made me cry,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is an amateur production and I’m sitting in the audience bawling.’”

They discussed how underdeveloped the professional dance community was in Atlantic Canada, despite other arts disciplines flourishing. “If you’re not in a big rush to leave, I’ll do some research,” she said. Chalmers-Gauvin discovered that at the time, the Canada Council for the Arts was distributing around $18 million a year to professional dance projects across Canada, but no Atlantic provinces were seeing that money. Later that day, she and Dobrovolskiy opened up P.O. Box 1783, and it was decided: they were going to start their own professional ballet company in New Brunswick.

After raising more than $300,000 in donations, the next obstacle was hiring dancers. Canada is home to at least five professional ballet training institutions, all forming new graduates, so they distributed their audition notice within Canada, wanting to prioritize Canadian dancers. But the interest wasn’t there. Dobrovolskiy says Canadian dancers didn’t take the new company seriously, because it was burrowed in an eastern province with no professional ballet community. “The first year, [we had] one Canadian application from Quebec,” he says. “The rest—60 or 70 applicants—from all over the world.” So next came the task of figuring out how to get all of the international dancers into Canada.

“Looking back, I don’t even know how we figured out how to do that, honestly,” says Chalmers-Gauvin. “Flying dancers in from all over the world and to get through the immigration papers to get them here.” She describes the ambitious duo as “naïve” back then. “And thank goodness we were, because I don’t think we would have ventured forward without that naivety.” Then rehearsals started.

In the early years, Dobrovolskiy found himself surrounded by dancers who all spoke different languages. Dobrovolskiy speaks Spanish and English, so he could do some translating, but this only went so far. “Sometimes rehearsals became an international discussion of languages,” he says, laughing. Formal language lessons were quickly introduced into the work day for dancers from overseas.

Daniyarov would sit with Paul Delaney, a professor and writer in Moncton, on some of the breaks between rehearsals. Delaney volunteers his time to teach the dancers English, and when Daniyarov started at the Ballet, the two met twice a week. As the dancer’s English improved over time, their meetings turned weekly. Their lessons moved on from naming everyday objects, such as “wall,” “ceiling,” “light,” “ table,” and “chair,” to having conversations about things like Canadian history, Acadian culture, and Indigenous communities. The goal was for Daniyarov to not only communicate, but learn about his new country. Jump forward more than a decade to the present day, and the two still stay in touch and have tea together. They’re even neighbours. “Since the day I have met with him, [Delaney] has become my mentor,” says Daniyarov, who describes the professor as part of his family now.

The ability to express himself is one of the reasons Daniyarov came to Canada all those years ago. A major difference between living in Canada and Kyrgyzstan, he says, is the ability to speak his mind here. This year, the country in Central Asia was again labeled “Not Free” by Freedom House, a nonprofit in Washington that advocates for democracy, political freedom, and human rights. And according to their scoring system based on political rights and civil liberties, things are getting worse. The country’s current score is 27/100, down from 28 in 2021. In Canada, “you can express your vision,” says Daniyarov. “You can argue, you can say ‘What do you think?’ loudly, and this is your right.”

Not to say that things are perfect here. “I don’t want to talk about racism,” he says, “but unfortunately, I wouldn’t say it doesn’t exist.” Still, he feels, for the most part, happy and settled in Moncton, citing the proximity of the ocean and the warm culture of the east coast as major contributing factors.

Olga Petiteau, 33, just celebrated her 10th anniversary with the Atlantic Ballet. Originally from France, she also had to adjust to New Brunswick culture. She says that in Paris, no one makes eye contact when out and about. “You may get in trouble,” she says. “You just do your thing.” But in Moncton, strangers say hello on the street, on the trail, or in the shops. “It’s a small city, it’s growing, but it’s got this small-village kindness,” she says. And that kindness is part of the Atlantic Ballet culture too. During the pandemic, Petiteau hosted a new company dancer awaiting access to her apartment, continuing the circle of support she’d benefited from as a newcomer. “When you feel welcome, you want to stay,” she says.

Louis-Philippe Dionne, the ballet’s operations and community relations manager, is in charge of immigration processes. He says that despite the company’s success in this area (he has secured work permits for more than 18 dancers since 2010), it doesn’t always work out. Thomas Badrock, who joined the ballet in 2017 from England, is currently undergoing struggles in his immigration journey. Getting a work permit, he says, was easy. The Ballet took care of the paperwork. “And now all of a sudden, to become a permanent resident, it’s like pulling teeth,” he says. The last time he applied, he had to take a language test that included speaking, reading, and writing. Speaking and writing were no issue, but he was told he scored too low on his reading test. He will have to take the test again, costing another $250.

Badrock is dyslexic, and says that he usually gets extra time to complete tests. But when he requested support, he was told there wasn’t enough time to make the accommodation. “It doesn’t make sense,” he says. “I’ve been in the country for five years. I’m obviously capable enough of surviving.”

What also upsets him is that he pays into employment insurance, but because he can’t secure permanent residency, he can’t claim it when the Ballet goes on break for August, December, and January, forcing him to go home. “I feel very vulnerable because I feel like I have no status in this place, when I’ve dedicated five years of my life to it,” he says. It’s frustrating when things don’t work out—whether because of paperwork, homesickness, or circumstances—but it’s never for a lack of trying on everyone’s part in the Atlantic Ballet.

“One, two, three, four….” Daniyarov counts to 12. That’s how many newcomers he knows, whom the Ballet has helped build a life permanently in New Brunswick. And now, more than a decade later, he says Moncton is starting to reflect the diversity of the company.

In July, the company performed at the Mosaiq Festival, an annual multicultural festival featuring artists from all over the world. “I have a chance to represent myself there, with my motherland country,” he says. Petiteau has also found a small community of Francophones. “I’ve got the best of both worlds,” she says. “I can speak English, I can speak French. It’s pretty brilliant to have.”

Throughout 2018 and 2019, the company hosted four immigration summits in Moncton, St. John’s, Charlottetown, and Halifax. The summits were for businesses from all sectors to learn about the processes and the responsibilities of hiring from outside of Canada.

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency financially supported the summits, and was heavily involved in the organization. According to McGuire, the president of the agency, it’s not really the Ballet’s immigration stats that they are recognized for. “It’s the example they set,” he says. “They understand, ‘I’m bringing a person in.”

At nine years old I was an under-the-covers reader. Even on nights when my parents were distracted by their cassette tapes and homemade wine, I wouldn’t risk turning on my bedside lamp after 8:30 p.m. Maybe my parents knew I was deep into the world of Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown under those blankets, a flashlight illuminating the clues and cliffhangers on the pages.

Now, almost four decades later, I’m once again reading Nancy Drew books at 8:30 p.m. every night, only in my 10- and eight-year-old sons’ room. We join Nancy as she investigates mysterious bungalows or stolen clocks, and my youngest son makes wild guesses about what the criminals are up to. Both boys are often still debating plot possibilities after I turn out the light. I don’t think they read under the covers after I leave, but I wouldn’t mind if they did.

The popular culture of my kids’ generation is phenomenally different from the pop culture I grew up with. There is more of it, for one thing: an abundance of TV channels and streaming services, music apps that let them listen to what they want when they want, and many more book series tailored to their age group. Yet the appeal of a child detective is untouchable.

So much media for children in the tween and teen years features kids doing adult things with little adult interference. Teen-detective stories are appealing at this developmental stage because they provide examples of how a person can remain a child, while accessing the bravery associated with adulthood. Because growing up is scary.

In the most recent Nancy Drew novel I read aloud, Nancy gets knocked out then spends several chapters trapped in the gross basement of a bungalow in the middle of nowhere. For me, this is terrifying. For my kids? Well, they take it in stride. Their faith in Nancy is unshakeable. Nancy is brave, and smart—she can handle anything.

The day after we read this section of the novel, my eldest son is starting at a new summer camp. He is excited, but clearly nervous, bouncing around the kitchen, checking his outfit in the mirror, speculating on every detail of how the day might go. He is in no physical danger, but freaking out about this adventure into something brand new. Watching him go through these emotions gives me some insight into why children around his age are so attracted to stories where they see kids confronting the unknown and emerging triumphant.

And in those older mystery novels, that’s where it ends. The mystery is solved, the teen detective wins. Then everyone goes back to their sock hops—until the next mystery crosses their path. But there’s something missing from those older detective books: how do the characters feel as they go through these intense experiences? Did Encyclopedia Brown ever contemplate whether he could live up to the expectations placed on him by his father? Did Nancy Drew ever ponder her own mortality after being hit on the head repeatedly by the bad guys? Did the Hardy Boys ever wonder if their close sibling relationship would survive into adulthood? We don’t know.

These stories were written in an era where children were not expected to examine their inner lives, even as they navigated the complex emotional path to adulthood. It is something that the books published before the 1960s rarely touched upon, but I’m starting to see it in more contemporary stories. Weirdly, the place I’ve seen this navigation of a child’s inner life chronicled with the most depth and heart recently was in The Bob’s Burgers Movie.

It’s a bit of a left turn, I know, going from the classic Nancy Drew novel to an animated musical comedy about a family running a burger restaurant in a fictional town on the east coast of the U.S. And I certainly wasn’t expecting a tween detective story to shape the narrative of the full-length Bob’s Burgers movie, when I took my own family to the movie theatre for opening night.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Bob’s Burgers chronicles the ups and downs of the Belchers: parents Bob and Linda and their three children, 13-year-old Tina, 11-year-old Gene, and nine-year-old Louise. They scrape by on the profits from their underrated burger restaurant, and each episode draws viewers into their flawed but heartwarming family life.

In the full-length film, Louise is positioned as a central character as she unravels clues related to a murder mystery that many of the characters are attempting to solve. It is Louise who finds the skeleton that prompts the discovery of the murder in the first place, and in the space of a few minutes her character goes from confident and sarcastic to reeling in terror. This, combined with being teased in the school yard for her attachment to a bunny-eared hat she has worn since early childhood, sends Louise into a spiral of self-doubt. Contemplating life without her beloved hat leads her to conclude the only way she can prove that she is brave and not—horror of horrors—“a baby,” will be to solve the murder mystery. The adventures that ensue and the eventual conversations Louise has with her family allow her to gain a stronger sense of self.

This is not a coming-of-age story. Louise doesn’t get through these trials by making a clear transition into adulthood. Rather, it is a story showing the tiny steps children approaching adolescence must take to understand themselves a little better. Louise is working to solve a real, messy, grown-up mystery, while also grappling with the fear of removing her signature childhood hat, after so many years of clinging to it for security and a sense of self. The murder is ultimately solved, but the important story is really Louise’s emotional growth. In a scene near the end of the film, we watch as Louise backflips off of a horizontal bar in the school playground, and her bunny ears fall to the ground. The viewer never sees the character without her hat, but the movie shows her calmly retrieving it and placing it back on her head. The hat has become a choice rather than a desperate emotional crutch.

As the mother of a 10-year-old, I see struggles like these play out every day with my own child. I’m conscious of the trend of encouraging children to acknowledge and name their feelings, a trend that was very much not present when I was growing up in the 1980s. Recently, my son woke up on a school day and immediately declared he was sick. This had been happening a lot since the pandemic, and I was suspecting it was more emotional than physical. When I was a child, there was no such thing as a permissible “mental health day.” If I didn’t want to go to school, too bad. Faking sick was the only way to get out of it, and I could see my own kids using that age-old technique. But all it took was a quick discussion about how it’s okay to be overwhelmed and a little freaked out about whatever lies in store beyond the safety of our family home, to shift the narrative. I’m glad this shift to naming and discussing feelings as a tool for handling life’s challenges is making it into the beloved child-detective genre too, in its modern incarnations.

When my family went to see The Bob’s Burgers movie, it was Louise’s story that stood out for us, providing an unexpectedly emotional and nuanced look at the character. Viewers of the TV show have almost never seen Louise without her hat, and over multiple seasons, the hat has rarely been acknowledged or mentioned. It’s just a part of Louise, a character many viewers have grown to love.

Watching her grapple with a personal change that seems small but is actually huge for a child, all while trying to solve a murder, connects the audience to Louise more than I ever felt connected to the unemotional teen detectives of the past. And last summer, whenever we were driving somewhere for a family trip, my kids would play the movie soundtrack. Listening to them sing Louise’s words in the song “Sunny Side Up Summer” always got me: “Each and every day/ I just think I’m pretty great/ yep that’s right/ no big deal/ I’m not hiding what I feel.”

Louise may not have the clean-cut poise of Nancy Drew or the methodical detachment of Encyclopedia Brown, but in The Bob’s Burgers Movie she’s the messy, modern kid detective we all deserve.