Visit to Cape Breton -- LONG post!

Ciad Mille Failte! (One hundred thousand welcomes, in Gaelic. Pronounced Key-ad Mill Fal-chou)

Stan & I drove to Nova Scotia at the beginning of October. It's a heckuva drive; GoogleMaps says 963 miles one way.


View Larger Map

It took us 2 days and we had the dog along. THAT was ... interesting! The drive is all through moose territory; my eyes were tired at the end of the day. (Note: A moose's eyes don't reflect; makes them doubly dangerous in/near a road at night.)

One of the places we drive through on our way through VT, NH, ME, N.B. and mainland N.S., is Marshfield, VT. If I remember right, this is the sister city to Marshfield, WI.



I think my sister Siara had a friend who visited the VT town. What Stan & I found there was the Rainbow Sweets Bakery & Cafe, a place started by what were probably a couple of Woodstockies who had hung around New England after the event (Woodstock was in NY, which is NOT a part of New England). The food was outstanding but so were the prices. A brunch, which did include my first brioche, came to $39. Needless to say, we didn't eat a big meal even at dinner that day! But that man can really make pastries. Yum.

The trip took the place of Stan’s annual trek with his fishing partner Jerry, who had to spend time in L.A. awaiting/celebrating the birth of his granddaughter. This would have been Stan & Jerry’s 20th consecutive year of fishing Cape Breton rivers for Atlantic salmon, and Stan was mightily disappointed that Jerry had to cancel. Stan looked into going it alone but decided it would be too expensive. So, not that it saved him/us any money (!), I volunteered to go along, since we’d talked about going in the summer but never got around to it. I hadn’t been since 2000 when Jerry & wife Sally and Stan “took me around” Cape Breton. Jerry & Sally bought a house on Cape Breton that year and that’s the house Stan & I stayed in this month.



It was like being at camp for a couple of weeks. (This is “camp” as it’s meant in New York, a word used in place of cottage or cabin.) There was running water and a flush toilet, an electric stove and lights, TV but no picture, a decent boombox-style CD player/tuner, and a kerosene heater. The mornings definitely required the heater, even though the temps had been around 20-21° C (that’s 70s to us F users) when we arrived. In October!!! But things got seasonal quickly. When we arrived it was still pretty green, a few trees having turned. Here's the view from the porch (using a bit of a zoom).



While we were there the color arrived. Wow. I took this shot from the driveway, which climbs about a 35° angle (no joke) with a switchback.



I spent two weeks—11 days actually—on Cape Breton in October and never once saw a moose. Stan had said that was impossible but when we got back I told him I’m going to market myself in N.S. as moose repellant. I think I’d get hired! Jerry & Sally had sent us photos of a bull moose walking outside the kitchen window and I never saw one. They also said they had a black bear visit the yard; I never saw one of those either. I did see eagles while sitting on the front porch, and spruce grouse—endangered species in the U.S.—in the back yard. No good photos of those, all too far away.

The people are what make the Cape Breton trip so special. Carmel & Davey are a couple with whom Stan & Jerry stayed on their visits until Jerry got the house. They’re a terrific “Caper” couple: Irish as a shamrock and tough, tough, tough. I just realized I should’ve taken a picture of them; they’re such big players in Stan’s trips. And then there’s a couple new to me: Allen & Suzi Moore. He’s an architect, mostly retired, and she’s retired from building custom cabinets to training bird dogs. This links to one of Allen's most recent designs--click on the Slideshow. He designed (in the 70s?) the Church Street Mall in Burlington, VT, a place I'm pretty familiar with! They also have a home on Cape Breton, talked about a little bit in this article in Forbes. Other homes are Miramichi, N.B., the Bahamas, and home base is Newburyport, MA. During dinner Allen told me about a house called "Seven Doors" that he designed for a famous mathematician friend; the friend wound up marrying Allen's ex-wife who then had to live in the house she'd watched being built. (She didn't like the house--no bathroom in the crow's nest master bedroom!) Doing some librarian sleuthing based on clues from our conversation, I believe this is the house.

Anyway, they were terrific people, as were the others I met at the Margaree Salmon Association Annual Dinner. That was a bit of a tightwire walk for me: I kept hearing, "At last we get to meet the wife!" I wasn't sure just what size shoes I was expected to fill so I was a little restrained. (No, really!) Anyway, the dinner featured a seemingly endless fund-raising auction after and I'm very glad we stayed to the end because I bought the LAST item: a beautiful cutting board made by an old guy in Margaree Harbour who has no one to continue his work so I know this will be even more a treasure in the future. It is really gorgeous (the martini is there for scale ;-)).



I should talk a LITTLE about the reason we were actually there. The Margaree River on Cape Breton (includes the Northeast Margaree and of course, the Southeast Margaree) is a world-renowned Atlantic salmon river. It flows into the Gulf of St. Lawrence at Margaree Harbour. (I think.) The towns around the river are named like some in Massachusetts--Newton, Newton Falls, Upper Newton, Lower Newton--you get the picture. On Cape Breton it's Margaree Valley, Margaree Forks, Margaree Centre, Northeast Margaree, East Margaree, Upper Margaree. I think that's all! And they're all tiny, tiny towns that are really collections of homes within an undefined circumference as far as I can tell. It's a hard place to make a living but the people are resilient. They lumber and lobster and do 'most everything in between. You can see Cape Islanders like this one all over the island. It's most fun to watch them taking in the lobster pots--with lobsters in, of course--but we didn't see that this time. The last time I was there I was told that permission to lobster rotates in sections around the island so maybe it wasn't my section's time. And I only got to eat lobster once. But it and the mussels were absolutely grand.

Back to fishing. Right. A friend came up while we were there and Stan played guide for him for awhile. He'd never salmon fished here although he & his wife had been here twice (she's my friend, Lorna). I think they both had a good time but I don't think any/many fish were caught. Once our friend left Stan fished on his own and did get a very large rainbow trout and the next day his one salmon. He was moderately happy--years ago there were many more fish to be had. But getting one this year beats last year's catch. And of course it's absolutely ALL catch-and-release here to keep the fishery going.

While Stan fished, I spent much time doing cross-stitch and reading. I walked a little but with moose on the loose I didn't do a lot. It's their mating season and I really, really didn't want to see one up close. Out the window, okay, but not face to face on a lonely dirt road with no weapon except my camera. The bulls are VERY aggressive around now and tales abound of things smashed and kicked by marauding moose. So the dog and I walked a little. I did spend a day in Cape Breton's "Lake Placid" town, Baddeck. It's VERY small and I think charming, again because of the people. The Celtic Colours celebration was in progress while we were on the island but Baddeck had nothing during the days we were there except for a very small art/quilt show. Nice work but nothing that I liked well enough to buy.

So I Christmas shopped in the small stores and galleries and got things I'm VERY happy with. This articulated fish



is my absolute favorite purchase. I especially like the slightly sad look on its face. If you hold it by pinching its lower lip and get it level, it "swims" all on its own. Too neat for words, and beautiful workmanship to boot.

All in all a wonderful trip. Beautiful place on the planet. Next time I told Stan I need a vehicle at my disposal and I'll do the Cabot Trail again (Jerry calls it the Cabbage Trail) like a regular tourist. But a five-star place to go for any and all.

Slán go fóill. (Good-bye for now; shlahn goh foihll)