Western Atlantic - Part Five: Coast To Ceilidh

Here it is, if anything, the most perfect morning we've had yet, in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia, the view out our room's window, watching the river flow:

Well, I should say, perfect until a child next door decided to move furniture, play basketball, or engage in some other obstreperous activity. He was busy last night as well, fortunately only until 8:30 or so we got a good night's sleep. 

I was thinking about a couple of interesting people we've encountered so far, along the "most far-flung" category. The winner is a New Zealander, waiting tables at a Halifax ramen shop, a recent arrival who told us she was "terrified" at the thought of her first winter there. But an interesting runner-up was our host in St. Martins, a retired Denver homicide cop who told us that at the time of his retirement, he thought running a BnB in Canada sounded like a treat, and has not, some years later, appeared to revise that opinion.

Our place was right next to the entrance to Cape Breton Highlands National Park, so we decided to avail ourselves of the Acadian Trail, literally a short walk from our motel, on shiny, crisp weather, Barb is making her way along a particularly sylvan part which reminds me of UCSC campus, but a deciduous flavor.










                                                                                 .. and this takes you to an overlook platform in a couple of kilometers, this time with only a breeze rather than a raking hurricane as yesterday:

Our next night was in the town of Baddeck (bad-ECK, we screwed this up, of course, initially), where we had our first Bretonic music experience, an afternoon jam session at the yacht club, or one version of a Ceilidh (intuition never serves for Gaelic, that would be like the name Kaylee):

The young guitar/fiddle/singer especially could rock a jump tune whether original or trad/Celtic. (n.b. In many cases the best sessions will occur after midnight, but you're unlikely to find us there under the circumstances, or really ever, we've grown to love our sleep too dearly.)

 But we must remain at some point focused on the next destination, in this case the vicinity of the island's main metropolis, Sydney, but on the way understand many will make a stop at the Gaelic College, nominally Syndney area, but really quite rural, Barb here is posing next to a sculpture of their logo on the quad:

And very nearby is a series of ocean-fed lakes called Bras d'Or, which define the geography of the southwestern sector of the island, of which this panorama gives but a hint:

And at this overlook, called the St. Anne's Overlook, more of the far-flung - a man wearing an Oklahoma Sooners sweatshirt and his wife, major fans and veterans of many Celtic Colors years who drove up from the Sooner State. Right after they supplied us with essential ferry information, we started back to our car, when we heard another couple approaching them and saying, "I can't believe it! We're from Oklahoma too!"

And with a little time to kill, having gotten to Sydney, we decided to squeeze in a too-quick visit to the very substantial Louisburg fort, the result of an enormous effort in the sixties to reconstruct an utterly destroyed 18th Century French colonial fortress to its 1740 incarnation:

Now, needless to say, the destruction of said fortress was the work of England, but in the 1740's was firmly in French hands. I was challenged by a sergeant in period costume who at one point declared, "I ask the questions here, sir." I felt so frustrated not to be a Francophone at that point, just to adopt a proper truckling attitude.

The somewhat bleak town of Louisburg (pronounced Lewis rather than Louie) and its accompanying fort are on a particularly exposed point of the Atlantic, and the simple soup they served at the fort's canteen was particularly welcome as we escaped inside from a cold raking wind on an otherwise brilliant day.

Then it was time for checking in, shopping, laundry, and preparation for our first ticketed event in Sydney, at a vintage theater called the Savoy, in the town of Glace Bay (here again, you can't go French on this one, the locals say "glayce", they'll get you every time.)

This is a snippet of the show we saw last night at the Savoy, including Donald Shaw and Karen Matheson with Scottish folk group Capercaillie - a group with quite a bit of panache: 

And speaking of the far-flung: in the lobby awaiting this show, we talked with a mother and son, the former a Seattle-ite, the latter an Ohio resident, who had taken a very big drive trip which encompassed, among other things, Aptos, CA, and Midland, TX, on their way to Nova Scotia.

The show was a bit subdued on the audience side, alas, they needed some whipping up by the performers, and appeared to require permission to clap for a jig. But then, this was a pretty old crowd, perhaps one in fifteen was under 40. We mused about whither the trad scene, if the kids reject that trad stuff like they do the silver tea set or brown furniture, well...