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June 2004
Cape Breton National Park
David Aaronson2005-09-30 10:47:54
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Cape Breton is technically an island encompassing the northern reaches of Nova Scotia. It is reached by crossing the narrow Canso Causeway. The island itself is full of large inlets and major lakes effectively making it into a series of smaller islands. The westernmost of these is the first place we visited, and is home to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. But before we went there, we stopped at the Glenora Distillery. Located a little south of the town of Inverness the Glenora Distillery has a hotel, cabins, a restaurant and pub, and of course a distillery (1). Claiming to be the only single malt distillery in North America (the term Scotch cannot technically be used), Glenora actually imports their peat from Scotland. We stayed here, ate in the restaurant, sampled the whiskey and the next morning took the distillery tour. It's a tad remote but a very nice place to stay, as the source of the water used in the distillery runs past most of the rooms on its way down the mountain. Plus it's a short walk to your room after some time spent in the pub listening to local Gaelic music and sampling the wares. If you're really lucky, you'll get Chris as a bartender too.
Inverness is a big town for Cape Breton. Nearly all the towns are located along the coast at reasonable intervals. A few thousand people is easily enough to make it a major town in the area. Inverness, like so many of Cape Breton's towns is primarily a fishing and lobstering village. This is the beach located in 'downtown' Inverness (2).
North of Inverness the Gaelic influence decreases a bit and the Acadian influence returns culminating in the town of Cheticamp. Cheticamp is primarily French speaking and also acts as the visitor center to the national park which begins just on the north side of the town. We stopped at an Acadian bakery here to pick up some snacks for in the park. The smell of the cinnamon rolls probably had something
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See photographs from:
Canada Gallery
