Friday, May 7th
The Highlands
And it’s a long way down,
It’s a long way down,
It’s a long way down to the place
Where we started from.— Sarah McLachlan, Ice Cream.
This morning, I finally do some advanced mathematics and calculate that I have three days per province. That means enough time left in Nova Scotia to circle Cape Breton. So I take off along route 19 which follows the shore of St. George’s Bay north. The first village, Troy, features an enormous sign pointing to ‘Downtown Troy’, but what one can see from the highway, the sign may actually be larger than downtown itself. I also wonder how many people in Troy are naming their daughter Helen. Probably a rather old joke around here.
I am following a truck that has a garden shed loaded. This certainly trumps the cola vending machine a couple of days ago and may even pass as a rather stylish version of an RV. You could use the rest of the loading platform for a barbecue area.
We are passing Christy’s Lookoff, the latter being the local lingo for look out. What exactly to look out for or off of, I cannot say, as the visibility isn’t all that great. There is some promise of blue skies in the west, though.
The next town is Juidique. Like many towns on Cape Breton, it also has a Celtic name. Whether this is Gaelic or Irish, I don’t quite know. The town itself has a large stone church, a cemetery on both sides of the road and the Celtic Music Interpretation Centre, as Route 19 is subtitled Ceilidh Trail. Ceilidh (apparently pronounced KAY-lee, who would have thought?) is a traditional celtic gathering at weekend evenings to make music and socialize. Around here, this sort of thing is still happening, at least according to the guide book. Since it is around nine thirty in the morning, I can’t check.
In Port Hood, I turn off the highway in search of a petrol station. I find a small town with two churches, one stone, one wood, and a court house. Finally I also find the petrol station when I return to the highway on its next exit. The station is with full service and I confuse the attendant by actually leaving the car.
After it went along the shore for quite a while, the road is now turning inland and hides in forests again. The trees are predominantly birches with a couple of pine trees added for good measure. But the distribution of the two is ever changing.
The entrance sign of the town of Maboo, where the highway crosses Maboo river, claims that it is the home of the Rankin Family, which Google reveals to be a Canadian folk music band formed by a subset of the twelve siblings of the Rankin family. The town also has a white stone church, which is a new combination. So far wooden churches where white (and protestant) and stone churches where grey or brown (and Catholic). The name St. Mary’s sets the record straight. Stone wins over white.
A sign outside of Inverness announces The Hoff Bar and Grill. Does this count for the Pub With Your Name rule? I hope not, because I didn’t stop. Inverness itself seems to have had a bit of a railway history. There is a museum and various Railroad Streets. Apart from that it has a big white two-towered church, an information centre, and lots of arts and crafts stores. But all is more or less along one single street. The drawback of spreading out towns so far is that they don’t acquire a proper centre. One has the urge to stop and walk around a bit, bit there really is nothing to walk around in. You can see everything by driving through town slowly.
After Inverness, we return into the wilderness, this time mostly coniferous. While the main highway now turns inland, an alternative route sticks to the coast. Shortly after its turn-off a small monument has been erected to remember the birth place of the Hon. Angus L. Macdonald. He was twice prime minister of Nova Scotia and in between, during World War II, Canadian minister of defense for naval services and as such fixed the Canadian navy.
As the road returns to the shore, it starts to rain. At Margaree Harbour I stop shortly (for some reason I have forgotten by now, but it was really important) outside of Lawrence’s General Store Ltd, which bills itself as a hardware and grocery store but also operates as the local post office. The road is then crossing Margaree river and joins Cabot Trail.
Despite its name, Cabot Trail is a regular highway running all the way around the northern part of Cape Breton. It is either so important that it doesn’t need or so unimportant that it didn’t get a number. The map has it labeled CT while the road itself only has a shield with an icon and the name on it.
We are also now entering another Acadien pocket. This one is relatively big and goes all the way up to the Highlands. It also is still very French with towns, rivers, and families all bearing French names.
A building next to the highway has big letters painted on its roof: ‘Last Esso for 140 km.’ But the letters are fading away and the petrol station on the other side of the road has been dismantled a long, long time ago. So the eager Esso customer hopefully has a full tank.
The centre of the region is Chéticamp, which can’t deny its tourist nature: restaurants, motels, chalets, galleries, arts and craft stores. The houses along main street are painted in various different colours, a rather nice diversion from the more usual white. I stop for a quick coffee but refrain from a walk on account of it being rather rainy.
After Chéticamp begins the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. I have a nice chat with the lady at the visitor centre, who explains all that I possibly want to know about visiting the park. She also hands me a pamphlet about bears, who, she says, are currently waking up from hibernation. So much for going on a little hike. I really don’t think I want to meat a black bear that hasn’t eaten all winter. Also, the black bears are the type that climbs well but apparently can be talked into not eating you. Not that I ever want to test that theory. In addition, the park has a coyote population big enough to warrant another leaflet. For the moose, there is no pamphlet, the advise simply is not to drive into them.
Thusly advised I drive off into the highlands. Today, they are shrouded in mist and mystery. First, the road runs along the shore line. I stop at a small beach, watch the waves crash into shore, and muse about a good way to make an interesting photograph of that. I decide it can’t be done (or needs a better photographer than I am) and take off again.
The road turns right and uses a side valley to climb up French Mountain. The stones at the road’s side look to the untrained eye like slate. Then the road stops winding and shoots straight into the netherworld of drifting fog.
Up, there is snow left in the road ditch. The rocks are crumbling, held loosely together by moss. Some bushes are clinging bravely to their top. Where there is earth, there are trees, though they too cling on against a merciless wind. What lies beyond the side of the road is hidden by a curtain of fog. A sign claims that it would be French Lake.
I stop by a display overlooking a valley. The rain, mixed with bits of rather wet snow, is falling heavily, so I read the displays from the dry safety of the car. The wind, still merciless, is rocking the car, trying to push it off into the valley. Luckily, it fails.
At Pleasant Bay, the road leaves the park momentarily for a settlement. Since there is no development allowed in National Parks, it has to. Apart from a backpacker’s hostel and a couple of restaurants, there is the Mid Trail Motel. It seems undecided whether it is a girl or a boy and thus is painted both in pink and blue.
The road climbs over North Mountain. Up on its top, there is proper amounts of snow left on the side of the road with drifts of up to two meters. The descent turns out to be a proper mountain road, clinging to the side of the mountain. The rain blows in waves over the road and gives the drive a bit of a B movie feeling.
Once we are down, we leave the park for some more villages. The largest (assuming such a superlative can be used at all) is Cape North, which is neither at a cape nor all that north but rather centrally inland. Its church has been converted into the North Highland Culture Centre.
I turn off Cabot Trail to go further north. The road goes on for about half an hour and ends rather unceremoniously at Bay St. Lawrence, which is both a town and an actual bay of Cabot Strait. Somewhere along the road there should be Cabot’s Landing Provincial Park at the very spot John Cabot landed all these years ago. But the weather is turning really bad now and there is no sign, so I miss it both ways.
This is really Grand Weather, up there with the Great Lugano Rainstorms. This is the ocean’s baby sister, sent out to make a mockery of the term dry land and drown it away once and for all. Or, in the words of the young people: This is like totally awesome.
About ten minutes south of Cape North and in the middle of nowhere lies the local High School. Unlike in Newfoundland, where secondary schools had funky names like Academy or Collegiate, here they are called High School.
I drive on through the rain and reach the coast again, now the east coast and therefore the Atlantic Ocean. And then finally it happens: Safely ahead, a moose stalks out of the forest, across the road and clambers over the guard rail on the other side. Of course this happens all to quickly and as I finally get the camera out, it has long since hidden away in the bushes. But there: the mighty moose.
There is a waterfall, Mary Ann Falls, about four kilometers up an unpaved road that the lady at the visitor centre recommended. Although the rain is not quite as bad anymore, I skip the experience nonetheless. Unpaved road in this sort of weather and within a park where I am pretty much the only visitor doesn’t sound all that appealing.
So I leave the park, having not made all too much use of the $ 7.80 I paid as an entrance fee. But then, I have seen a moose and have not seen a bear. Let’s count that as a success.
After the park ends, there is another mountain to climb, Smokey Mountain. On its top there is a great lookoff over the Atlantic (not much point, today) and then a great decent down. It is very much fun to drive, although I suspect they added a couple of bends just to confuse people.
Thereafter follows a long stretch of rather tame road, although not too tame. Dreamy road. Perfect to let the mind wander. The sun is coming out a bit, but it is still raining and the road starts to steam. Somewhere there is a fuel stop with a proper western-style saloon building as its store. The communities are spread out even further with a building every mile or so and no clusters indicating a centre. A big church appears out of nowhere and stands surrounded only by its cemetery.
The drive ends abruptly at an intersection where you have to choose whether to go straight ahead or right. Being in a bit of an absent state, the decision isn’t really all that easy. It isn’t made easier by the fact that Cabot Trail claims to go right, while Baddeck, my next destination and supposed to be reached simply by following Cabot Trail, is signed as straight ahead. I forge straight ahead, disregarding a sign saying that the ferry is not operating when light flashing, since the light is not flashing.
The road goes straight into St. Anns Bay. First on a dam, but then it ends with a ferry dock. The ferry ride on board M/V Torquil MacLean lasts the better part of three minutes and costs a fiver. The map reveals that you save about ten kilometers driving around the confused shore line of St. Anns Bay.
Baddeck actually is a bit of a detour, too. However, it was the chosen home of Alexander Graham Bell and as such features the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. I may be on a vacation to get away from work, but how could I possibly miss out on the opportunity to see the world’s first commercial telephone. (Add your own joke on how VoIP takes us back to Bell’s days here.)
Much like six year old Emma, whose letter to Mr. Bell is posted in the museum, I didn’t know that his real passion was teaching speech to the deaf. Nor did I know that he was making kites, research that resulted in the first powered flight in the British Empire. Which explains the motto of Baddeck: “Birthplace of Canadian aviation.”
As a German, I may be required to believe that the telephone was indeed invented by Phillip Reis, but that doesn’t harm the impression that Alexander Graham Bell was a great man with multiple interests and passions. He used the financial success of the telephone to happily research and experiment in all fields. The museum has a great quote by him: “Let’s try it – and note the results.” An attitude we all should follow more often.
The exhibit leaves me in a strange, contemplative mood. As I drive on, it still rains but the sun has come out too. As the road descends from Cape Dauphin Mountain a rainbow appears over the Bras d’Or. Along the road, I am chasing the shadows of clouds.
I stop shortly in North Sydney to have a look at the docks of the Newfoundland Ferry. One boat is leaving as another arrives. So I have at least seen one end of the ferry. North Sydney itself feels a bit more like a proper town. It has a downtown with some stores and workshops. When you drive out along the shore, there are several stately homes of the style you know from movies set in New England.
On to Sydney proper, with twenty-five thousand souls the largest community on Cape Breton. I decide to celebrate that by checking into a proper hotel at the water front. The Cambridge Suites Hotel has suites for rather decent prizes. And thus I am sitting on a comfortable sofa in my living room on the sixth floor. But as this rather long post comes to an end, I shall now leave for a pub that has been recommended. Later, I shall retire to the bedroom.
Beer of the day: Alexander Keith’s Red Ale (well, I didn’t go to the pub after all. There were a couple of loud youths outside and I really am not in the mood for that sort of thing today. So Keith’s Red at the hotel bar instead).