Sonya's Blog - Day 83 - Driving the Cabot Trail

Sonya’s Blog - Day 83 - September 13th - Driving the Cabot Trail

Today we drive from Margaree to Ingonish, which is about 2 1/2 hours altogether. It will take us all day though as I am sure we will have plenty of stops. After breakfast at the cabin, our first stop was The Salmon Museum, which was about 5 minutes away. The Museum is in an old schoolhouse and has everything relating to Salmon Fishing in the Margaree River. We started out by watching a short video on the Atlantic Salmon life cycle. Then we toured the Museum. The history of fishing in the Margaree River was represented, from spears that were used by the Mi’kmaq to fly fishing reels dating back to the 1840’s. They had many rods and mounted fish, and hundreds of flys. Each fly has a different name and they are little works of art. Many people have traveled to the Margaree annually to fish it and some of those people have donated items to the Museum. It was interesting. They have a rod from a gentleman who fought in both WWI and WWII. He taught Goering how to fly fish and in the meantime took photographs of the German military that were being built up. These pictures were the evidence that Churchill used to convince England of the threat that Germany posed in 1939. He loved fly fishing and after the war came to the Margaree area and his wife donated his rod and leather case to the Museum. They also had jars with preserved stages of the salmon’s life from birth. It was pretty interesting and informative. We spent about an hour in the Museum.

Blake wanted to backtrack a bit and go to The Glenora Distillery and to check out Inverness. First we went to Inverness and headed down to the beach area. It was a cloudy and cool day, so we got on our coats and headed out. The boys went in the water, but Tash and I just walked up and down the beach. We got chilly so we headed back to a local coffee shop, Downstreet Coffee Company, and had some warm drinks and snacks. It was tasty and the coffees were good.

We headed to The Glenora Distillery next. This was the first Single Malt Distillery in Cape Breton and they fashioned it after Scottish Distilleries. They cannot call it Scotch, as the Scots own that name, they have to call it single malt. We took the tour and learned about making whiskey then tasted some 10 year single malt - not my favourite. After the tour we went over to the restaurant for some lunch and there was a family there playing live celtic music. Mum on the piano, 2 daughters on the fiddle and then the other daughter on guitar. They sang and played and were very good and our lunch was very good. We then went to gift store to check it out, that whiskey is some expensive!

We followed the Ceilidh Trail after we left the distillery until it met up with the Cabot Trail which is what we needed to be on to get to Ingonish. Our next stop was Chéticamp and when we got there we turned onto Chéticamp Island to check it out. There wasn’t much on the Island so we went to the beach to skip some stones and have a walk.

We continued on our way and entered Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We decided it was time for a hike so we stopped at Le Buttereau Trail. It had great views and an interesting history. It is a self-guided hike that explores Acadian Forest, old fields and foundation ruins of Acadian Pioneers. A Buttereau is a small hill and it overlooks the Gulf of St. Lawrence and The Chéticamp River. There were five families that had homestead there and in 1936 when the area was turned into a National Park the families had to be relocated. They have plaques denoting where the families houses were and you can see parts of the foundations. I chose to take a picture of the LeBlanc homestead because Blake’s Mum has Acadian roots and LeBlanc was her Mother’s maiden name (not from this area though). As you hike along the trail there are several interpretive panels that tell the story of their lives in this area. It was a beautiful hike and educational.

When we got back in the truck we continued on our way. We made a couple of more stops to check out views and read roadside interpretive panels. The MacKenzie Mountain Look-off - The Highland Plateau was one of my favourites. We also saw a Bull Moose and then a little ways up the road we saw a cow with her baby. It was starting to get late so we thought we should head to Ingonish and find our cabin and then head out for supper. We got to the cabin at 7:30 and then had to race out to find somewhere to eat because every restaurant in the area stopped serving at 8 PM.

We decided on the Seagull Restaurant because it had good reviews when I did a quick search in the immediate area. We got a table on the covered porch area and had great views overlooking the ocean. We could hear the waves crashing against the rocks below us as we ate our meal. We all had fish and it was super tasty, plus the service was quick. After we were all stuffed we headed back to the cabin, unpacked the truck and then got ready for bed. Isaac called his Nana for a chat and the rest of us read our books. I chatted with my Mum for a bit after Isaac was done and getting ready for bed. I then read for a bit and called it a night.

A view of the Cabot Trail, that we have already driven, behind us and Chéticamp in the distance:

Sonya