Western Atlantic - Part Seven: The Maritime Way

On we went to Port Hood, and our lodging for the day of our last Celtic Colors show, which happened nearby in Mabou, one historic location of several populated by Scottish emigrants arriving in the mid-19th century. The favored watering hole is called the Red Shoe, and is cultish enough that we saw an elderly lady with some undefinable localism to her, with a shirt with the logo "Red Shoe-aholic". We were completely ready to indulge in the very respectable Nova Scotia Cereal Killer - this being the name of their oatmeal stout - from the Big Spruce brewers, and the RS was ready to indulge us in that desire.

Right across the street, roughly, was  a vivid view:

And after a suitable time, we proceeded across the other way to the local meeting hall, where the salmon feed fundraiser was underway, where we met both locals and nonlocals from Maine and California, moreover Central California, perhaps improbably. This meal was Thanksgiving-like, no surprise given Canada's Thanksgiving had just happened two days before. The salmon stood in for turkey, but otherwise familiar fare.

Before I forget, though, I need to cover our spare lodging down the road, where a very taciturn fellow threw open a door to the office at our arrival, and left it open. Inside was a stack of flooring tiles, a woodworking-ready table on the other side of the somewhat cavernous room, and CNN provided the soundtrack. Impressively, a sweeping view of the hardware store greeted us out our window:

It was a fitting introduction to our meeting hall dinner somehow.





And we had just enough time to hustle down the road to the concert, a locals-heavy reflection on the musical connections across the Atlantic, many to the Inner Hebrides, including several MacDonalds who emigrated to Mabou, Judique, and other NS locations, carrying with them the Gaelic speech incomprehensible to the other transplanted Canadians, as well as the musical styles, the strathspey being one of the notable forms associated with this North American maritime area.

Suffice it to say that this area of Cape Breton has significant talent in step-dancing, pipes, fiddle, bhodran, whistles and Gaelic ballads. The local kids learn Gaelic, and Gaelic tunes, at an early age, and although none of the songs with lyrics were in any other language, many in the audience were singing along, and there is a local choral group which apparently only does music in the old language.

We got ready to drive back to Moncton in the morning in increasingly driving rain. Then I noticed the sign on our motel room door.

Just sayin'.