Hyclass Ocean Campground, Havre Boucher, Nova Scotia
We woke to blue, blue skies and much appreciated relief from the overcast and drizzly days we've been having. It was still a bit cold, but I will take the sunshine anyway I can get it.
Our route this morning took us to the Eastern Shores of Nova Scotia. I believe it's the most remote and least populated of the Nova Scotia shores, at least it seemed that way to us. We got a kick out of all the strange sounding "towns" (just houses) that we drove through such as Head of Chezzetcook, Mushaboom, and Ecum Secum. This area is heavily wooded and has few services of any kind on the main road. The houses we did glimpse were rather modest or trailer homes, no longer "salt box" design or period pieces. Given the lobster traps we saw in front of the houses we did glimpse, we assumed the main industry in this end of the island was fishing. It's currently lobster season, so we weren't surprised by all the lobster traps. We stopped by a small smoked fish operation to pick up some smoked salmon. Yes, it was nice to take a break from lobster and the ubiquitous potatoes that accompany everything. Unlike the Lighthouse Route, there really aren't many fishing villages, coves or inlets. The two big "cities" are Sheet Harbor and our destination, Sherbrooke.
In my opinion, Sherbrooke is a real national treasure. It was an actual town first established in 1840 and was thriving until 1916. The majority of the residences were Scottish. The courthouse in town was functional until the year 2000! Sherbrooke Village is a period living re-enactment place, one that cost an admission, but what makes this so different from others is that almost everything is original and still functional. We spent over 3 hours here visiting all the shops such as the blacksmith, pottery, boat making, tailors, and private residences. My favorite was visiting the "gaol". The original jail was in someone's home!! There were two iron gate doors placed on bedrooms and the family was compensated for taking care of the prisoners. It was so interesting to see the parlour, kitchen, bedrooms and 4 jail rooms. I can't imagine raising a family as I housed prisoners. Each place we visited had a person, in period costume, explaining the customs or trade of their situation. The woman who housed the prisoners was making rhubarb tarts in the wood burning oven and offered us some. Yes, every home is still functional and most had fireplaces and ovens going and the water pumps in the houses still worked. The tailors shop and pharmacy still had all the original equipment or tinctures and ointments in them! Amazing.
By far, what I loved the most was the telephone exchange! Alexander Bell was a resident of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton) and invented the phone in 1875. This town installed the phone soon after, in 1877. Because there were several mines in the area it was important to the owners to have a quick system of communication. At the turn of the century a telephone exchange was installed in this town and is still working today - yes the original exchange. You can call 9 people in town. A gentlemen was sitting at the switchboard and showed us how the electric current generated from cranking the phone flipped a little metal flap on his switchboard. He could then see who was calling and connect them to another person in town. He demonstrated the receiving and outgoing wires and how they worked. I asked him if I could give it a try and he said "Go for it!" I initiated a call to Joann, the woman who was baking the rhubarb tarts in the jail home. When she picked up the phone I thanked her for them, much to her surprise. Glen, the phone operator, could hear the whole transaction. What a riot. How many towns in this world still have the original phone exchange between the houses?!
This town is situated right on the St. Mary's river, so one could see how the local provisioners or grocery store received a shipment from the dock off the river right into their store. I LOVED seeing a real butter churn with a treadmill attached. A dog would run on the treadmill to churn the butter. Too funny.
Ned enjoyed the working water sawmill. We got to see how a water wheel ran a series of pulleys that in turn ran an up-and-down saw that cut through logs. We took a nature trail through the woods and were able to see the logging camp, how the loggers lived and floated the logs down river to the mill. There was also a gold mine and stamp mill. That we know enough about, so we weren't so blown away by that.
From Sherbrooke we headed due north for the Northumberland Shore. As we drove through very fertile farmland it came as no surprise that this was the area inhabited by the English and Scots. One of the largest towns in Northumberland is Antigonish, a charming town that hosts St. Francis Xavier University and is known for it's Scottish culture. It's very modern and upscale and could pass for any tourist town except for all the Scottish Gaelic on the signs. We thought about camping here, but just weren't into the whole shopping, golf scene experience so we continued to the tip of Northumberland just across the way from the Island of Cape Breton. We're looking forward to exploring the Cape tomorrow and hope the weather holds.
