Cape Breton Island and the Cabot Trail

The most Northeastern part of Nova Scotia is called Cape Breton Island, and was settled by Scottish and French people.  Having been to Scotland, I can see the similarities in climate and geography, and they must have felt at home here (in spite of what we read about North Carolina in the Diana Gabaldon series!). The most well-known feature is called the Cabot Trail, a road that circumnavigates the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, which makes up a large part of the island. It is well known for it's soaring cliffs that go right down to the ocean, actually St. Lawrence Bay, and for it's steep hills and valleys and for sometimes scary driving. But mostly it's just breathtakingly beautiful. I drove around it for 3 days, stopping at every lookout to drink in the views.

The first day started at the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck – a great museum with some really neat exhibits. I was not aware that Bell came to the telephone through experiments to help his deaf wife hear. He was also an inventor in all sorts of areas – including building a plane called the Silver Dart and flying it only 4 years after the Wright brothers famous flight. The museum contained a full-sized replica of the Silver Dart, along with some of his other inventions. The other neat thing about that town was the farmer's market the day I was there!  I got a very tasty loaf of French  bread that I was still eating this morning (4 days later).

I camped at the National Park in Cheticamp and was most fortunate that there was a concert in the Visitor Center that night, a local fiddler and a keyboardist playing traditional music. I could even walk there from my campsite! And what a concert it was; the music was toe tapping, hand clapping, foot stomping good!  And as an added attraction, there were several girls in the audience who were step dancers and they joined in.  It was a rollicking night for sure!

The second day was supposedly the most beautiful part of the trail, from Cheticamp to Ingonish, and that day was rainy and foggy. I was really sad that I wasn't getting the full effect of the scenery, but that's what happens sometimes – conditions just aren't the best. It was very pretty, but….The next morning I woke up to beautiful sunshine and blue skies, and thought to myself – I don't have a schedule, I don't have to be anywhere, I'm just going to go back the way I came yesterday and see what I missed.  Oh, it was just incredible, and I'm so glad I made that decision.  

Day one, foggy and rainy.

Day two from the same place, beautiful and sunny. 

One of the fun things I saw on one of the beaches was a whole lot of stone sculptures. I suppose they were done by people like me, piling up stones into pleasing arrangements, and the great thing is that so many of them were still there.

I did several short hikes; one of them was to this Scottish sheepherders croft that was rebuilt in the very early 1900's when some of the land for the park was donated to the province.  I missed it the first day because it was raining so hard, but found it on the way back on day 2. 

I ended the day at another place steeped in Scottish tradition – the Glenora Whisky Distillery – the only place in North America that makes single malt whisky.  They can't call it Scotch because it doesn't come from Scotland, but it's pretty close.  Not good enough for me to buy a bottle, though!  I'll stick with my Cragganmore!

Serving up the Glen Breton.