SUSAN: I actually slept descent last night and my alarm woke me up at 6:15 am. We went to have the hotel breakfast and assumed it was included. However, since we are not Hilton Honors ‘GOLD’ members, we had to pay. This morning’s waitress at 'The Cannery' was a talker! She told us all about her son who moved to Cape Breton and how she went to there for the first time despite the fact she was born and raised in Nova Scotia.
JAMES: After a decent hotel breakfast, C, J and I took the shuttle back to the airport to pick up our rental car. The shuttle was full, I guess that the weekenders are heading back home. We had a five hour drive ahead of us on our way to Sydney which is up on the northeast end of the cape. We decided to break up the drive by stopping at the lighthouse near Antigonish. It looked like it might offer a chance for us to see the scenery and stretch our legs. Nova Scotia is in near peak color autumn glory. As we drove the wide, modern highway, we were escorted by wide, endless views of mixed hardwood/evergreen forests as we drove the low hills.
We had to leave the main highway to get to the Cape George Lighthouse. It was a short drive away and up on a perch high above the water. The lighthouse was last used in 1968 and was home to a couple and their 12 children (!). I guess there were a lot of dark, cold winter nights to while away and nothing better to do? While we were there, I asked a guy who had just arrived if he could take a picture of us in front of the lighthouse. He jovially complied and we spent several minutes talking. When I mentioned that the plaque on the side of the lighthouse listed the 12 children that had lived there, he casually told me that his wife, a native Newfoundlander, had come from a family of 13 kids! Lots of Catholics up here!
Leaving Cape George we followed a hilly ocean road and past small farms and scattered vacation homes. When I saw a sign for “Jimtown”, I had to investigate. If nothing else, I wanted a shot of the town sign. We turned off of the road and onto a worn blacktop road that ran along a small inlet. Jimtown turned out to be nothing much. We parked at the end of the road where it ran into the beach and took a look at the water. The beach is composed of smooth, ocean polished rocks. There was an old, decrepit boat sitting there with pieces of miscellaneous clothing on it. I half expected for someone to come strolling out of the water any moment. That was it so we turned around and headed back to the highway. At least I was able to get a shot of the road sign pointing to the town and a lovingly crafted “Snoopy and the Red Baron” mailbox.
SUSAN: Now it was time for lunch. It was Canadian Thanksgiving Day so several restaurants were closed but we found that the Main Street Cafe in Antigonish was open. It was attached to a small, local hotel. There were lots of locals eating out as well so we put our name in and had to wait in the lobby for a table. While there we noticed they were selling ‘PEACE’ chocolate. Jim asked the hotel staff person and he said it was a chocolate company started by a Syrian refuge family. They offered a Thanksgiving dinner special complete with turkey and gravy.
JAMES: We had a brief wait to be seated, so while we waited, I went across the street to get a cup of coffee for the road. I was wearing my Timberwolves shirt and the attendant got pretty excited when he saw it. He wanted to talk all about the upcoming NBA season and then explained that he was an assistant for the local college team, St. Francis University, the “X-Men”. I love that name.
The food at Main Street Cafe was excellent! I had a healthy bowl of grains and veggies with some scallops on top. SUsan had a shrimp pasta dish. Dessert was the bomb- maple bread pudding and carrot cake. An excellent lunch.
SUSAN: After lunch we had another 1.5 hour drive to our AirBnB. While driving it was pretty stunning to see all the color of the leaves. Arrived at our AirBnB in Westmount around 4:30 pm. We still had light so it was great to be able to unpack in the light of day. John, Christine and I went to the grocery store to get some supplies for breakfast and lunch. We had hoped to get some wine and beer but the liquor store closes at 5 pm on Sundays so we just missed it.
JAMES: While the others went to the grocery store while I took a lovely walk up to a beautiful regional park with multiple trails through woods and with views of the harbor. Got back, ate a quick sandwich and fruit, then we jumped in the car to head for this evening’s concert in Boisdale.
SUSAN: On the way to Boisdale the sun was just setting. There was not much traffic, this is a very rural area. When we were within about 12 miles of the venue, two motorcycles came wheezing by, passing us on the two lane highway. Within minutes of that we saw that they were quickly stopping as there was a car pulled over on the side of the road and as John slowed down the car we saw there was something in the left lane, as we passed we saw it was a deer. One of the motorcyclists was next to the driver side of the pulled over car talking to them. We did not stop but were concerned and then a minute later we had an ambulance rushing toward us. So it concerned me more. We finally arrived at the venue around 6:50 pm. It was at the Boisdale Fire Department which had parking out front but that was full so a guy that looked like David Crosby signaled us to park in the large yard across the street. It seemed like organized chaos…but we were able to park and run across the busy highway.
Inside the fire department hall, we gave our tickets to the ladies at the door and were instructed to put our names on the back and put the tickets into the bucket up front. It wasn’t clear what the drawing was for but we followed the instructions. There were enough seats for everyone but the front seats were already filled. We took seats to the left side of the stage and I took the seat furthest to the left just under a window.
We noted that most of the people in the room were closer to our age or older…there were some younger people but not many. Also there were many locals and people were so friendly. It got really not in there fast and I looked and saw that we could open the window next to me. I looked at the woman behind me who was probably a local and said do you think I can open the window … she said YES and the woman next to her shook her head. Everyone wanted the window open and once that was done a very cool breeze came in. There was an audience of about 200 many of which were locals. At the intermission they did survey the audience and there were people from all over Canada, US, lots of Irish and some Scots…and one woman from Twain.
The Emcee was a character…started out by saying, “My wife told me last night…” and the audience was instructed to say back “What did your wife tell you last night?” The funniest joke was My wife told me that I needed some new underwear. Do you want briefs or boxers. He replied ‘DEPENDS’
JAMES: There were a lot of spectators at the concert. It was a bit chaotic parking and getting seated. The firehouse had a community meeting room where the concert was to be. The logistics, the parking, the tickets, even snacks and drinks were all staffed by local volunteers. The evening’s emcee was an older local man who told bad dad jokes and introduced the band. There was a drawing. The man explained that they had felt like they needed someone important to draw the winning entries. So who better than the Irish ambassador to Canada? And there he was!
There were four acts. Each performer did five songs. It was an interesting mix of acts but with a lot of local performers and a few true Irish and Scottish musicians. My favorite was a local fiddler named Howie McDonald who played with a woman on a keyboard. They were spectacular. I could have watched them all night. The performance finale featured all of the evening’s performers playing together. The whole show went almost three hours. Halfway through they had an intermission. The local ladies had made oat cookies, biscuits and jam and coffee and the spectators were invited into the kitchen to help themselves. Of course I had to take advantage of that opportunity.
After the show, we all shuffled back into the night to our cars. John joined the line of cars exiting the parking lot. He had no sooner pulled onto the road when an approaching car swerved into our lane and “WHACK!”, took off our review mirror. Yikes. We were momentarily stunned but luckily it seemed like there was no further damage to the car, so we continued our drive.
It had been a long concert, almost three hours and after our traffic trauma, it was good to be home and hit the sack.
SUSAN: There were four acts and all were very talented.
Màiri Britton, from Scotland but spends half her time in Cape Breton
Howie MacDonald and Beverly MacLean
Shawne Kish was a two spirit, from Alberta
All of the performers were phenomenal musicians. I can’t say enough about how talented they were. Funny thing, the fiddle player from the Bumblebees said they were in their ‘green room’ which was actually where the fire trucks are housed and it had all the equipment and red fireman hats stack. She said in there younger days they would have put on the hats…but they were getting ready and the alarm went off for the firemen to respond to the accident that we came upon on our drive to the venue. She said, “It’s not every day that you have a fire truck drive through your green room — only in Cape Breton.”
Leaving the venue was again chaos … as John was pulling out someone across the road was pulling out and that person nipped our mirror. It made a high pitched sound and the drivers side mirror went in … so John had to drive without the mirror all the way home. Once home we discovered that the mirror was indeed hit and the outer casing of the mirror was gone.
It was such a lovely evening and it sucked to have it end with a negative note. But we made it home safely. Now Christine and John will have to deal with the insurance company. It was a long day so off to bed at 11:15 pm!