Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Tuesday, Wednesday

Exploring Cape Breton.  We soon left the Gaelic signs and entered an Acadian area with signs in French.  Stopped at The Trois Pidgons museum which was about the Acadians  and the craft of rug hooking for which the area is noted.

Sacre Coeur Church

Beautiful hooked tapestry

Today we traveled through Cape Breton Highlands National Park, a wild and rugged country with beautiful coastal scenes and steep  MacKenzie and North Mountains. It was a bit rainy, so we did only a few trails, to  Benjie’s Lake and a couple of water falls – Beulach Ban, and Mary Ann. Lots of ferns and evergreens.  Moose country and we saw signs but no moose, just this plump (grouse?) bird which looked like it would make a great meal.

Cold, rainy start to the Park

Fiddlehead Ferns add color to trail

Atlantic Coast

Camped at a nice campground called Broad Cove which was on the coast.  Great hot showers and wonderful scenery just a short walk away.

Wednesday morning the light was gorgeous so we enjoyed this scene for a while.  Added to the pounding of the surf was the “singing” of a cluster of seals bobbing offshore. 

Before we left the campground, Greg helped a couple from Germany who had a rented RV which wouldn’t start.  He successfully jumped (they preferred “boosted”) their vehicle and they insisted on giving us a bottle of wine as thanks! 

 Stopped at the Gaelic College which is a non-profit that promotes the Gaelic culture on the Island, including music, dance, weaving, story-telling.  They had a demonstration of music and dance with Brandy and Rodney explaining the history  and playing fiddle and dancing.  Both music and dance are an integral part of life and you can find cielidhs (pronounced kay-lees)most every night of the week in small church halls, pubs, etc.

Music and Dance

Clan Tartans

Gaelic College

Next stop was the Alexander Graham Bell (a Scot) museum in Baddeck.  Very well done and very well attended thanks to a cruise ship and a few buses!  The telephone was only a small part of Bell’s achievements as he began with teaching the deaf with a  complicated “visible speech” program using symbols to represent positioning of the mouth, tongue, etc.  He also was involved in flight (the silver Dart made the first flight in Canada), kites, xrays, a hydrofoil and much more!

The day continued to be rainy so we decided to do laundry.  Met some nice folks from Virginia with whom we later had pizza.  After Pizza we went to a cielidh at St. Michael’s here in town and enjoyed about 2 hours of music and dance.  Fiddle and piano, step dancing and a few other small group dances.  The hall was quite small though and sold out not long after we got there! 

Spent the night at the Visitor’s Center in Baddeck. Quiet, rainy.