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Published: June 13th 2017
Geo: 45.013, -62.0983
Day 10
Our weather good luck charm gave out this morning. It was rainy and foggy. The first several hours of our bus ride, we could see very little. Allison said she has had entire tours do the Cabot Trail (our day yesterday) where she would have to say, "If there weren't fog here, you would be seeing a magnificent view of the water." Luckily for us, our scheduled sights today were not those of Mother Nature.
Our first stop was The Gaelic College in St. Ann's. It is a Scottish Gaelic school that operates just in summer. Kilt making. Bag piping. Step dancing. And many other classes designed to help revitalize the Cape Breton culture. The culture is especially strong here because of the island's isolation. For decades, there wasn't even a bridge to the mainland.
The visit began with a presentation by the kilt makers, talking about tartans and kilts. Denny Hohn got drafted to show how big bolts of fabric were used each day. The pleats were folded, the men would lie on them and attach them to themselves with a big belt and buckle. The extra fabric was used for warmth. Or decoration. Denny donned the kilt, the hat, even the sword and shield used for battle.
We then learned to speak a little Gaelic and sing a Gaelic song. There are 6 Celtic languages, one being Scottish Gaelic.
We heard a bagpiper – who explained how the pipes work; we enjoyed a fiddler (= violin); and we saw an exhibition of step dancing.
They were anxious for us to check to see if we had any Scottish heritage in our families. Patrick checked Arnall and Mahan but no ties to Scots. I checked Fleming, and sure enough, we are part of the Murray Atholl clan. I was able to find the plaid (see below, the pretty navy/green plaid with a red thread). You can actually order a kilt or scarf in your clan's tartan.
Our next stop was at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847. He grew up in a family that focused on speech, hearing and phonetics. In his early 20s, he lost both brothers to tuberculosis, so the family decided to relocate to Canada. Bell married Mabel, one of his hearing impaired students. They eventually bought a second home in Baddeck, because it reminded him of Scotland.
Bell knew a
Final night banquet: Table 1
Philip and Virginia Chong
Ron and Helen Gerrard
Linda and Denny Hohn
Patrick and melittle about electricity; and a LOT about sound, speech and hearing. He had a daring idea: an electrical device that would transmit speech the way the human ear does. The telephone was born. (I wasn't aware that Bell spent 18 years in court defending his claim as the inventor of the telephone.)
Later, he became involved in a variety of other inventions, including a plane that became the first to fly in public in North America.The
June Bug plane he worked on became the first aircraft to fly one kilometre in the western hemisphere,
Bell died in Baddeck, Cape Breton in 1922 and was buried here.
At Inverary Resort (also Baddeck), we had a buffet lunch that included soup, salads, two entrees, dessert. Decent enough. We dined with Philip and Virginia Chong (New Zealand) who are flying to Las Vegas tomorrow to tour the Grand Canyon. Philip is a little nervous about driving on the “wrong” side of the road.
As part of our entertainment during the transfer, Allison played a video on Canada, with lots of pretty pictures and many, many statistics. Population: 34 million. Then she did a quiz involving the map of Canada. I was a miserable failure. I never even heard of Nunavut, the newest of the Canadian Provinces. Color me red-faced. If I didn't learn it in school, then I need to learn it now. Just another reason to keep on traveling.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in transfer to Liscombe Mills, Nova Scotia. We drove along St. Mary's River, where Babe Ruth used to fish for salmon.
We arrived at Liscombe Lodge and were greeted by GM Karen, who is certainly enthusiastic about her fishing lodge. This is an unusual property for Tauck. Kind of in the middle of nowhere, on a scenic river. The mid-Century beds have headboards and foot posts, which were challenging for 6'6" Patrick.
I prepared a slide show of our ten days together for our final night cocktail party. It's always fun to see what we have already forgotten!
Dinner was in the Liscombe Restaurant and was very tasty. I had their planked salmon with maple syrup. Yum.
We dined with Linda and Denny Hohn, Philip and Virginia Chong and Ron and Helen Gerrard. The table was a hoot, with everyone picking on Denny and Ron telling outrageous jokes. We laughed til we cried. THIS is why I travel with Tauck.
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Marilyn Adaire
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