Cabot Trail

This is what we did on August 4th…..

Early this morning we boarded a bus to tour the north end of Cape Breton Island on a road known as the Cabot Trail. This trail, named for John Cabot who first landed here in 1497, is about 185 miles long and has some of the most spectacular coastline scenery in Canada.

This area was initially settled by the Scotch, Irish and French Acadians. Initially, the main industry in the area was coal mining and fishing. Years ago, about 30 million pounds of cod were shipped to France every year. There were 12 coal mines in the area with some them having tunnels 4-5 miles long that went out under the Atlantic Ocean. Now the cod fishery is extremely depleted and fishermen now harvest lobster and crab. The coal mines have shut down and tourism is a major industry.

We passed through a number of coves surrounded by small fishing villages. It seems that no matter how many of these we see that we still enjoy seeing these picturesque settings. Lobster season has ended for the year in this area so most of the harbors are stacked with lobster pots in readiness for the next season.

The very northern end of the island is home to Cape Breton National Park. This largely wilderness area is loaded with gorgeous scenery and a lot of moose. Karen thought the Canadian Moose was a myth because we hadn’t seen any on the trip yet! We also saw eagles and whales from “lookoffs”. Lookoff is the Canadian equivalent of our “overlooks”. There are several steep mountains that go right down to the sea. Our roads were up to 9% grades several times!

We stopped at a French Catholic Church named for St. Peter in the town of Cheticamp. It has the most beautiful church interior we’ve seen. The church serves 900 French speaking families in the area.



We then stopped at a garden party at Joe’s Place. Many years ago Joe retired and went about making a garden at his house along the highway. To deter the birds from eating all his crops he made elaborate scarecrows. So many people stopped to photograph the scarecrows; he gave up on the dismal garden and added more scarecrows of different people, real and imaginary.

Joe has passed on but his son has continued adding/changing scarecrows through the years. He has also added an ice cream parlor to the property. These people up here do LOVE ice cream. Of course, so do we!!