My, what a big fiddle!
Friday 17 May
Sydney, Cape Breton Island, NS
We're here tonight in Sydney, the unofficial capital of Cape Breton Island, at the northern tip of Nova Scotia. We took a fairly direct route from Halifax so that we could get up here and explore the town a little bit. Original plan had been to wander up the east coast of NS, but it looked like that would take many more hours than we had time/energy for. So, we opted for the "motorway" route, for the most part. It still took about 5.5 hours. See my comment, yesterday, about how Nova Scotia is bigger than I thought!
It rained last night in Halifax, but was sunny in the morning. The hotel appeared packed, at least the breakfast room did! It is the start of a Canadian holiday weekend -- Victoria Day -- and some families are getting a head start. We did get to meet the resident dog, Cocoa, before breakfast. She is tolerant of all the attention, but somewhat indifferent to it also. :-)
Our route took us across the center (centre!) of NS, then up the west side a bit, and then back across to the N-NE. The route happened to go by the Halifax airport, and we saw some commercial traffic coming and going. Landscape mostly rolling hills, evergreens, and deciduous trees, much like what we've seen in the other parts of the province.
We saw signs to a town with a fun name, Stewiacke, which touted its location on the 45th parallel. If you grew up where I did, just north of the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park, you know that means you're halfway between the Equator and North Pole. Had to stop there to get a picture...
Back on the road, and up through New Glasgow (!) and Antigonish, where we noticed the street signs became bilingual again. Not French/English, though - Gaelic/English. Here's where the "New Scotland" part really comes into play!
We crossed over the Canso Causeway onto Cape Breton Island proper, and took a secondary road to get to Sydney. In the center of the island lies a huge lake, Bras d'Or. It's about twice as big as Flathead Lake, which is my point of reference when it comes to big lakes. There are quite a few nice roads all around its various coves and bays, and we enjoyed winding around them.
As we neared Sydney, we passed Ben Eoin, a ski area by winter, golf course by spring/summer. It looks picturesque, with a nice view of the lake. Not a lot of "vertical," but a pretty setting.
Cape Breton Island is a major location when it comes to Acadian music, the North American flavor (flavour) of Celtic folk. That explains the giant fiddle along Sydney's waterfront! There are ceilidhs pretty much every weekend, and music around town. We ate dinner at the Governors Pub and Eatery, which has live music going most of the time, and is part of the province-wide "Taste of Nova Scotia." They're very locavore in their menu, which is cool.
The fog started rolling in during dinner, and we had to pick our way back up the hill to the hotel. It's lifted now, though. The forecast this weekend, though, does call for some snow, both here and on Prince Edward Island, our next stop. Probably nothing will stick, but it's going to be cold, nonetheless!
We're staying in a fairly new Hampton Inn, located on the hill above Sydney's downtown. It's also located in the Membertou First Nations neighborhood (It doesn't appear to be a separate Reserve, as such). So, traffic signs up here on the hill are also bilingual (or monolingual!), but this time, in Mi’kmaw.
Cool.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, as always, but that's it for now!
cheers,
--Kit and Nancy
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