On Saturday night we drove across Nova Scotia near the Northumberland Strait where we camped by the ocean on the way to Cape Breton Island. Nova Scotia means New Scotland, so what better way to begin our time there than to learn about the Scottish influence on the island. About 25% of the current residents are of Scottish ancestry
Sunday morning we drove into Pictou on the Strait to visit the Hector Museum and learn about the early history of Nova Scotia. Our guide was a very knowledgable teenager who gave us a personal tour. The history was almost a parallel to the Mayflower story. In 1773 approximately 200 people including 30 children under the age of 2, fleeing English persecution in Scotland, set sail on the Hector for Nova Scotia where they would be free and start the first Scottish settlement in Canada. The ship was about the same size as the Mayflower on which 100 people sailed.
The passengers on the Hector took enough food for the six week voyage, but a hurricane near Prince Edward Island pushed them back halfway to the British Isles, and the voyage took 12 weeks. By rationing food, all but eighteen passengers survived the voyage. However, it was too late in the season to grow anything, and they would have starved to death in the winter if the local Indian tribe hadn’t helped them. (Very like the Indians helping our Pilgrims!)
Then we drove on to Cape Breton Island where we attended our first ceilidh (pronounced kaylee) which is a Scottish music party with lots of fiddling and dancing. The first fiddler we heard was a girl no more than 20 years old who was a joy to watch and hear because she seemed to become the music. She was sitting in a chair fiddling as fast as she could with both feet dancing up a storm as she played. Sometimes she’d move her chin off the chin rest and lay her face on the fiddle, as if to absorb the music into her whole soul. It was a “sight to behold!” As the fiddlers played, several dancers took to the floor doing something akin to our square dancing. They actually call it square dancing, although they didn’t actually make a square, more like a circle with 4 to 7 couples. It was fun to watch, and got my toes tapping! We are actually in part of the island called the Ceilidh Trail because of the number of Scottish families here and the fact that ceilidhs are held all of the time in the villages around here.
On Monday we visited The Highland Village, a museum somewhat like Genesee Country Village that depicts what life was like for the Scottish immigrants from their arrival until the 1930s. It was very well done with original buildings brought in from their previous locations and placed on a high bluff overlooking the huge Bras d”Or Lake. The guides were wonderfully knowledgable and tried to stay in character for the time period they were depicting. We got to try a “lunch” of white pudding which was oatmeal, lard, and spices cooked in a cow’s stomach (with the stomach contents removed!) The lining of the stomach is just used as a casing for the ‘pudding” although it certainly was not like any pudding I had ever tasted!. It actually tasted a lot like Thanksgiving stuffing.
The Bras d’Or lake is gigantic. We live in the Finger Lakes of New York which are said to look like impressions of God’s fingers. This is not like the imprint of God’s fingers on land, it’s more like his whole hand including a very large palm. The lake is a salt-water lake that is 425 square miles right in the middle of Cape Breton Island. It is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by St. Peter’s Canal in the southern part of the island. It’s French name means “Arms of Gold.”
We also visited the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. Bell was born in Scotland, but immigrated here with his parents when he was a boy, and then later lived in a beautiful house in Baddeck that is still owned and used by his descendants. The museum was very well done, and I learned that Bell was responsible for many useful inventions.
Right now I am sitting at the base of a lighthouse in the otherwise deserted Mabou Harbor waiting for Bob to cook my lobster dinner. We happened upon this spot earlier today and met the “keeper” of the lighthouse museum, an artistically talented teenager, who told us it would be fine for us to camp here for the night. Since we are going to a ceilidh in Mabou tonight, this spot is perfect.
There are lobster boats here, but they are not currently in use as lobster season in this part of Nova Scotia lasts only from May through June. We went to the local lobster pound to buy lobster, which they have in special tanks with salt water continuously sprayed into them. That way they are able to keep them through the summer tourist season.
I asked what the lobstermen did the rest of the year since the season is so short. I was told that some of them fish for tuna when that season starts in August, some work locally at other jobs, but most fly out to Alberta where they work in the oil fields.
9:30 PM - Just got back to the lighthouse after attending the toe-tapping Ceilidh in Mabou. It featured two talented college boys, one who played Cape Breton fiddle, the piano, and also step-danced, and the other who played Cape Breton music on the guitar. There were also many young people in the audience. I think it is great that the long tradition of the Scottish music is still going on here with so many young people doing what they can to keep up the tradition.
You can see the rest of the pictures here
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