August 8, Friday – Movin’ down the line

We started out searching for a gas station because we were low when we quit the night before. Gas prices were making major hits and the search for “a lower price” can cause me to go by one station after another until you’re out in the country with no stations. In Pugwash was a local station with the locals hanging out on a bench drinking their morning coffee. “Working hard?” I called to them from the cab of Snee-Oosh. A quick laughing exchange fired back and forth but the price of gas was no lower. Melanie and I crossed on to Cape Breton Island at the Canso Causeway which was a road on a rock fill with a swing bridge which enabled ships and boats to pass through. Causeways are a cheap way of crossing shallow waters so I was real surprised to learn that the mountainside adjacent to the canal had been dynamited to provide the fill for the causeway. They had to build up the causeway from a depth of 213 feet!!
Cape Breton had a magic to it: very rural , very laid back. We setup base camp at the Whycocomaugh Provincial Park near Baddeck. The silhouette of Cape Breton Island looks like a lobster without claws. It’s head is the northern end of the island with the curled around tail being Sidney and Louisbourg. The spaces inside the tail curl are both fresh and saltwater inlets or lakes, big lakes, big, big lakes.
We unhooked the RV at the campground at noon and headed for the historically reconstructed Fort Louisbourg on the northeastern coast. The French fort was constructed in 1713 as a trading center, fisheries and home port for the small French Navy. Because of the huge success of the area, the support village was enclosed behind the stockade walls changing the status from a fort to a fortress.
In the 1960’s the fortress was historically reconstructed using unemployed coal miners, It is now a national park with people dressed in period costume. We were able to spend an hour walking the grounds before the end-of-the-day assembly on the quay for the firing of the cannon. It was then the two hour drive back to the campground. Full day.