As the weather improved, we headed back to the western side of Cape Breton Island, driving from Mira River to the Whycocomagh Provincial Park. We hoped to get ready, once again to ride the Cabot Trail and figured that Whycocomagh was a good place to start and end.
It is a nice, hilly spacious provincial park--and less expensive than the commercial park we stayed at outside of Baddeck. Electricity & water aren't really worth $15/night and the sites at the provincial parks are not crowded in; the commercial parks line you up like sardines.
After settling in, we decided to take a relatively short ride on Friday, out to the Highland Village, an outdoor history museum that presents a short history of the Gaelic speaking Scots who emigrated to Cape Breton.
View Highland Village Ride in a larger map
The ride took us to the Little Narrows ferry and on to a "scenic diversion" that is part of the Bras d'Or Lakes Scenic Drive. It allowed us to circumnavigate a narrow peninsula in in the lake from Little Narrows to the Highland village and back to the ferry.
We chose the clockwise routing, which started off well, but then the road surface, although paved, became fairly rough and worn. It twisted and turned, mostly along the coast, bit also over a few hills to make it interesting. Aside from the bumps and bobbles, it was a good bile ride to the museum.
The museum itself, is a outdoor collection of buildings representing the Gaelic Scots immigrant community from the 1770's to the 1920's. Most of the buildings had a person, in the dress of the time, reenacting and explaining what life was like at the time.
It started off with two replica buildings. The first was a small stone, sod-roofed "black house" from Scotland. It was a rendition of the life in Scotland that the Gaels left. The second was a replica log house of the type that was built when they arrived in Cape Breton. It was a simple log cabin. Life was a bit more comfortable at this point.
The other buildings were actual period buildings moved from various places on the island. The oldest, from the ealry 19th century was a center chimney frame house, much like a small Cape, both in style and layout. It was a part of an exhibit farm with barn full of period machinery, with a friendly Clydesdale in the paddock next to it. They also had a small group of Highland cattle, a small flock of sheep, and a coop full of chickens.
The mid 19th century buildings included a church and a center hallway house, where stoves have replaced fireplaces and there are rooms on two floors, enough to hold the average family of 15 children, according to the very chatty occupant of this house.
The rest of the buildings represented an early 20th century village with a one room schoolhouse, general store, blacksmith's forge and and a carding mill, finally ending in a more modern turn of the century farmhouse. It was much like the ones on PEI that my grandmother grew up in. The furnishings, appliances and implements were still in use when I spent summers there in the 50's and early 60's.
The ride back was much nicer. We were now on the main section of the Scenic Drive and the road was new, curvy and smooth. It was back to ferry and to the park.
The Cabot Trail comes tomorrow.
Here are a few "tourist" photos from the last couple of days.
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