Time is a wonderfully malleable thing. We think that have just 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute – and while we do, how we use that time can make it stretch interminably or just fly by. Nova Scotians manage to stretch time beyond endurance. No one in Nova Scotia seems to be in a hurry and yet they find a multitude of ways to cut corners, reallocating time they might spend (read: waste) doing one thing to doing another.
The drive to Baddeck could have been done by road, but we were reliably informed that by driving 7 km out of our way (anti-intuitively), we could catch a ferry that would take 25 minutes off our total trip. So we did. And it worked. We didn’t even have to brake before rolling onto the ferry – perfect timing – and barely had time to cut the engine before it was time to roll off again.
Baddeck is a lovely little town on the edge of the Bras d’Or lake (try as I might, my tongue refuses to budge from a Brass Door pronunciation). Known by the Mi’kmaq Indians as Petoo’bok – a long dish of salt water, the French preferred the more arty Bras d’Or – arm of gold. At first we thought it was as series of lakes but no – apparently it’s Canada’s largest inland sea – of sorts. It’s both saltwater and freshwater (as in both species live in it) with five rivers and two ocean channels feeding into it. UNESCO has named it a biosphere reserve (a new one on me – apparently a place where people live in harmony with nature; I have to wonder whether it was the people or the nature that won the appellation).
Apart from being known for its yacht club and the start and finish of the Cabot Trail, Baddeck was also the summer home of Alexander Graham Bell – and it makes the most of it. We resisted the urge to visit the interactive Bell museum, and instead spent the time debating whether he or Marconi could lawfully claim the telephone as their own. But we debated over coffee in full view of the lighthouse with the sun reflecting on the water – as good a place as any to have a friendly bargy in the early hours of Thursday morning.
We were heading to Prince Edward Island via Pictou, the birthplace of Nova Scotia. On a search for a particular type of jam (an unsolicited bring-back) I asked in one shop and came up empty. But the woman of the house directed us to the waterfront, telling us to take a left by the boat. Mmm… a harbour with one boat? If only I’d studied my North American history…
It was here, in Pictou, back in 1773 that 200 Highland Scots disembarked from the good ship Hector and went about making the town their home. So successful were they that others followed in their wake and pretty soon this wave of migration gave rise to the birth of New Scotland. A replica of the ship is docked in the harbour today and it’s generally assumed that if you visit Pictou, that’s why you’re here. But, needless to say, if you visit in October, the museum and the heritage site will have closed for the season – like most of the town.
Perhaps it was the Scots that set the tone for firsts in this town – they’re not exactly short on temerity – but it was here, too, that Canada’s first and only black battalion was born. The boys fought in WWI, forming their own segregated unit when they’d been turned away time and time again from recruitment centres. Although based in Pictou, they included men from Ontario, too, and the Honorable Captain William Andrew White – the only Black Commissioned Officer in the British Army in WWI. Not bad for a small town.
While the Pictou Academy was the first school in Nova Scotia that any student could attend, regardless of their religion, men were also put in the pillory for three hours for kissing their wives on a Sunday. One has to wonder at religion and its motives. The old post office is apparently the only building in the world (the world, imagine) with a window in its chimney. And before it got the name it has today, the town was at various stages known as Coleraine, Alexandria, Donegal, Teignmouth, Southhampton, Wamsley, New Edinburgh and New Paisley. That in itself tells a story.
What I liked best about it though was the display of black-and-white photos on the walls of a side street detailing its history. From these, like the one above, where a bunch of lads with nothing better to do bought a bag of hats and decorated them with lilac, it’s clear that Pictou is a community in the truest sense – one that hasn’t time for pretentiousness as it’s too busy being itself. That said, I think I’d go stir crazy had I to live there. Lovely to visit, but…
From there we headed to Caribou to catch the ferry to P.E.I. (aka Prince Edward Island, home of the spuds) at Wood Island. It was time to leave Nova Scotia and venture into Canada’s smallest province. As we sailed out of the harbour, the gulls lined up to watch. An amazing send-off, almost like a guard of honour, that did Cape Breton proud. The journey would take 90 minutes and although parked in line for nearly 45 minutes before departure, we were one of the last to board. Of course, we’d forgotten it was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and the world and her mother were either going home or going to PEI for the long weekend.
I popped by the Ferry’s information desk and asked for a map of the island – just to be prepared. The ever-s0-helpful Margaret asked me where I wanted to go on P.E.I. I said I wanted to see Pugwash. ‘Oh dear’, says she, ‘that’s in Nova Scotia’. Okay, I thought, once again cursing my geography (or the lack thereof), what about Green Gables? She thought for a while before dropping the bombshell – ‘It’s not a great time to visit, dear, as the whole place practically closes after the season. Best stick to Charlottetown – it’s sure to still have some places open.’ With a vague stirring of disquiet, I went out to the viewing deck and shared the good news. Still, at least the world that was passing us by was worth looking at.
2 responses
Actually, *both* man and nature get the designation together for a biosphere reserve. That is the whole point, and why it is *officially* called the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme (or MaB).