1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (119 page)

The Cabot Trail follows Cape Breton Island’s rugged coastline, providing spectacular ocean views.

W
HERE
: 175 miles/282 km northeast of Halifax.
Visitor info:
Tel 800-565-0000 or 902-425-5781;
www.explore.gov.ns.ca
.
C
APE
B
RETON
H
IGHLANDS
N
ATIONAL
P
ARK
: Tel 902-224-2306;
www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ns/cbreton
.
When:
open year-round, but park services available mid-May–mid-Oct.
C
OOPÉRATIVE
A
RTISANALE
: Chéticamp. Tel 902-224-2170;
www.co-opartisanale.com
.
When:
May–Oct.
F
IDDLIN’
W
HALE
T
OURS
: Pleasant Bay. Tel 866-688-2424 or 902-224-2424;
www.fiddlinwhaletours.com
.
When:
June–Oct.
K
ELTIC
L
ODGE
: Ingonish Beach. Tel 800-565-0444 or 902-285-2880;
www.signatureresorts.com/keltic
.
Cost:
from US$258/C$291 (off-peak), from US$285/C$321 (peak); includes dinner and breakfast.
When:
mid-May–Oct.
H
IGHLANDS
L
INKS
G
OLF
C
OURSE
: Ingonish. Tel 800-441-1118 or 902-285-2600;
www.highlandslinksgolf.com
.
Cost:
greens fees from US$58/C$65 (off-peak), from US$74/C$83 (peak).
When:
June–Oct.
B
EST TIME
: Sept for fall foliage and nice weather, with fewer crowds and less traffic.

A Wee Bit of the Old Country Transplanted West

Nova Scotia

The craggy hills, precipitous coastline, and slender lakes of Cape Breton Island must have looked just like home to the Scottish immigrants who streamed into Nova Scotia (Latin for “New Scotland”) between 1770 and
1850, but who could have foreseen that its isolation would preserve an island of Gaelic culture into the 21st century? With the only native Gaelic-speaking population outside Scotland and a thriving Celtic music and art scene, Cape Breton preserves its Scottish heritage with passion and sheer pride.

A glance at a map of Cape Breton shows names—Glencoe, Dundee, Inverness, Dingwall—that are redolent of places the early Scots settlers left behind. Today’s heartland of Gaelic culture runs in a swath through the center of Cape Breton, particularly the Mabou Highlands and lakes and channels that make up Bras d’Or Lake, a major boating destination.

Overlooking St. Ann’s Bay, the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts is North
America’s only school devoted to the study and preservation of the Gaelic language and Celtic arts and culture. The college hosts summer ceilidhs (pronounced kay-lees), or musical gatherings, on Wednesdays with virtuoso fiddling and traditional dancing, and its Great Hall of Clans museum depicts the history of the Great Migration, the exodus of the Scottish people for the New World. The annual Gaelic Mod, a day of traditional Gaelic language, song, and workshops held every August, ends with a traditional codfish supper to celebrate the centuries when cod was king.

The Black House at the Highland Village Museum represents a common mid-19th-century Gaelic home.

At Iona, on Bras d’Or Lake, is the Highland Village Museum, a living history museum set high on a mountainside overlooking Barra Strait. A self-guiding trail winds up the side of a hill to a series of ten historic buildings, including a crofter’s hut, farmhouse, blacksmith forge, school, and church that chronicle the life and times of the Scottish immigration to Nova Scotia. If you think you can trace your Scottish roots back to Nova Scotia, their genealogy center is the place to try. The Highland Village hosts Scottish concerts on its outdoor stage throughout the summer.

Don’t miss the coast-hugging hills around Mabou (population 400), another bright outpost of Scottish culture. Gaelic language is still taught at Mabou’s high school, and the Red Shoe Pub, a former grocery store, is one of the best venues in which to enjoy frequently scheduled and impromptu live Celtic music and a pint of ale. Pick up some CDs of local recording artists to play as you tool around the back roads of the island. Just north of town in the forests near Glenville is the Glenora Inn and Distillery, Canada’s only single malt whisky distillery. The distillery offers full Scottish hospitality, including tours that let you sample a “wee dram,” a pub frequently alive with local Cape Breton music, and a dining room with regional specialties. If the drams are not so wee and you don’t want to drive, there are comfortable guest rooms in the adjacent inn or in new log chalets with fireplaces, Jacuzzis, and lovely views that will convince you you’ve woken up somewhere in the misty highlands of Scotland.

It is not surprising that local folks wait until October, when the summer tourists have gone home, to host the islandwide nine-day Celtic Colours festival, a full-fledged celebration of all things Gaelic, the largest of its kind in North America. There’s plenty of music, workshops on folklore and history, and over 300 artists from around the Celtic world; it’s as if the first Scots landed just yesterday.

W
HERE
: 175 miles/282 km northeast of Halifax.
G
AELIC
C
OLLEGE OF
C
ELTIC
A
RTS AND
C
RAFTS
: St. Ann’s. Tel 902-295-3411;
www.gaeliccollege.edu
.
When:
Great Hall of the Clans open daily June–Aug; closed weekends, late Aug–Sept; closed Oct–May.
H
IGHLAND
V
ILLAGE
M
USEUM
: Iona. Tel 902-725-2272;
www.museum.gov.ns.ca/hv
.
When:
late May–mid-Oct.
R
ED
S
HOE
P
UB
: Mabou. Tel 902-945-2626;
www.redshoepub.com
.
G
LENORA
I
NN AND
D
ISTILLERY
: Glenville. Tel 800-839-0491 or 902-258-2662;
www.glenoradistillery.com
.
Cost:
from US$111/C$125.
When:
May–Oct.
B
EST TIMES
: mid-Aug for Gaelic Mod; 9 days in Oct for the Celtic Colours International Festival (
www.celtic-colours.com
).

Picture-Perfection on Nova Scotia’s South Shore

Nova Scotia

At the base of island-dotted Mahone Bay is the historic seafaring village of Chester, with colorful clapboard homes and fishing warehouses clustered above a bustling harbor. This is poster-perfect Nova Scotia as the tourism
authorities would have you imagine. Settled in the 1750s, Chester and its idyllic location soon caught the attention of more than fishermen: By the mid-1800s the wealthy elite from Halifax began to build exclusive homes on the hills above the bay. Chester became a favorite seaside colony and later a haven for artists, socialites, and the yachting set even as it retained the hardscrabble vigor of its fishing fleets. Main Street snakes along the bay and is lined with waterfront galleries, boutiques, and cafés.

The harbor is always busy with yachts and sailboats—Chester remains one of the most popular boating destinations in Nova Scotia. Little wonder, as it’s even more eye-catching from offshore. Things come to an annual climax in August with Chester Race Week, Atlantic Canada’s largest regatta.

If you’ve left your yacht at home or missed the August hoopla, jump on the next passenger ferry to the nearby Tancook Islands. They offer unmatched views of Chester and the bay, along with the chance to wander quiet country lanes in an idyllic atmosphere that gives you the peaceful sense of being lost in time.

W
HERE
: 50 miles/80 km west of Halifax.
Visitor info:
Tel 902-275-4616;
www.chesterns.com
.
W
HERE TO STAY
: Oak Island Resort & Spa, tel 800-565-5075 or 902-627-2600;
www.oakislandresortandspa.com
.
Cost:
from US$85/C$99 (off-peak), from US$111/C$129 (peak).
B
EST TIMES
: June–Sept for weather; Aug for Chester Race Week.

Chester epitomizes Nova Scotia charm.

Evangeline and the Acadian Expulsions

Nova Scotia

The expansive vista over Grand Pré—a broad green peninsula flanked by the sea and distant, cliff-sided hills—today seems bucolic, even serene. In the 1750s, however, Grand Pré (French for “large meadow”) was the
scene of violence and great sadness, as British soldiers forced the resident French farmers and villagers into exile during the Deportation of the Acadians. Like historic battlefields, Grand Pré exerts a ghostly power over the visitor: For descendants of the French Acadian diaspora, the site of Grand Pré is a haunted place; for others, it is a sanctuary for quiet reflection.

Grand Pré was founded in 1680, with French colonists building an extensive dike system along the shores of Minas Basin, converting and taming the salt marshes into fertile farmland. By 1750, around 1,350 settlers lived here, making it the largest single village in Acadia, the name given to French colonies in Atlantic Canada. In 1755, with the British and French preparing for the Seven Years’ War in Europe, the British governor in Halifax saw the French-descended Acadians as a threat. When the Acadians refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown, the governor confiscated their property and ordered the deportation of the entire French population. Villages were burned to the ground. Before the year was over, more than 6,000 Acadians from the region were deported to other British colonies in North America. Many wound up in Louisiana—land then held by the British—where the Acadian refugees became known as Cajuns (see p. 434). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized the deportations in his epic poem
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie,
which is set in Grand Pré and tells the story of the Acadian deportations and the forced separation of young Evangeline and her fiancé, Gabriel.

A bronze statue of the fictional Evangeline Bellefontaine stands outside a stone memorial church with exhibits on the deportation and struggles of the Acadians. The grounds have retained their formal gardens, with 14 landscaped acres where the razed village once stood.