July 26, 2013 Cabot Trail

7/26/2013

Today we had a bus tour of the Cabot Trail.  Cabot Trail is a road that circles Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.  Most of it is very scenic. We traveled almost 200 miles.  It was a long, but interesting day.   The day started out with rain and fog and we were afraid that we would not see much, but before we got to the scenic part the fog lifted and breaks in the clouds appeared and it turned out to be a lovely day.  We have really been blessed with remarkably good weather so far. 

Cabot Trail is a fairly new highway (built in the 1980’s or 1990’s).  John Cabot did not go around the peninsula, but he did land here in the 1400’s.  We saw the cove he described in his journal.

The guide on the bus was a native of the area and very knowledgeable and a very good speaker.  At one point we were along a river and there were a few fly fishing.  Atlantic salmon come into the river to spawn, but unlike Pacific salmon they do not die after spawning, they go back out into the ocean and return yearly to the same river to spawn. The only kind of fishing allowed is fly fishing.  Boats and flotation devices are not allowed.  There are also trout in the streams.  There is only one kind of salmon in the Atlantic—Atlantic salmon.

Early in the day we visited a rather unusual museum.  It largely features the work of a Dr Elizabeth LeFort. She spent most of her life hooking rugs.  Her work is spectacular.  I really don’t know to describe it, but they are works of art as you may be able to see in the attached pictures.   A lady at the museum led a tour, explained the details of the art and also demonstrated how to hook rugs.  Many of the ladies doing it dye their own yarn, etc.  It is one of those things you have to see to believe.  She would draw the design on burlap, color the yarn herself, and some how put the colors in the right spot, even when she was working on very large pieces and could not see what she had done.  Hooked rugs are very, very, labor intensive and people are not willing to pay what they are worth.  Young people are not taking it up.  The Acadians started hooked rugs in this area of Cheticamp.  Some came here after the expulsion from Nova Scotia.  The soil was poor so they took up fishing.  The guide said 97% of the people in the area speak French.

We also toured a beautiful Catholic church.  It could seat 2,000 persons in a town that had a population only a percentage of that.  It was a rather plain looking old stone church on the outside with a tall steeple that could be seen for miles from land and from the sea.  The inside was very beautiful and as ornate as many Catholic churches.  It was built in the late 1800’s.  It still has a pipe organ with a handle on the side that some one has to use to pump the bellows to provide the air for the organ.

Some of the time, we were very close to the Ocean.  Part of the time near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, part of the time near the Atlantic Ocean., and part of the time by both.  We traveled through The Cape Breton Highlands, the first national part in the coastal Atlantic area.  We also went over three mountains, which are not as impressive as the Rocky Mountains, but nevertheless very pretty and steep. The tallest was only 1400 feet high. I was glad that I wasn’t driving the bus.  There were a lot of sharp turns and steep grades.  These mountains are not part of the Appalachians, like the hills in Quebec Province.  This land mass was once part of Scotland.  That is why a number of Scotch and Irish settlers came here or had summer homes here.

We had lunch at a small restaurant along the way and stopped for ice cream at the Keltic Lodge/golf course/spa in the afternoon.  It is one of only 3 hotels operated in Canadian National Parks.  The guide said that if you played 18 holes on the course and walked it you would have walked 8 miles by the time you finished.  There were wonderful sandy beaches mixed in with jagged rocks, all natural.  It was an area called Middle Fork (I think).  It was exceptionally beautiful.

One of the main industries is fishing for crabs, as well as lobster.  On the way back to the RV park we stopped and got come snow crab.

Tomorrow we travel all of 10 miles.  We will be close to the ferry, which we take to Newfoundland on Monday.  Internet connections may be very poor after Monday.  Accommodations may be poor too.  We stay in one park 3 nights with no services. (dry camping without our generator).  We are going to go back to Baddeck to see the rest of the Bell Museum and we will do house keeping chores like laundry and grocery shopping.  Pray for calm seas for Gordon.

St. Peter's Catholic Church, steeple is so high it
can beseen from north, south, and the seas

hand pump organ at St. Peter's Church

Hooked Rug Demonstration

Lefort Rug (may have 30+ shades of brown)

US Presidents until John Kennedy.  Lefort could stitch 55 stitches a
minute; it took 60 stitches/sq. inch.  She could complete a rug
this size in 5 to 6 months.  She hooked 6 hr/day, 7 days a week
Large rugs like this might have 8 miles of yarn

Pictures don't do the Cape Breton Highlands National Park justice

Another view of Park

example of the fog we had in Halifax