A Cape Breton Boat Tour and Visiting the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site
Volume 8-Our Last Day on Cape Breton Island was Awesome
We hated to leave. Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. What an awesome place! We spent two days here and managed to pack in quite a bit for sure.
I hope you are enjoying my series of articles documenting our summer vacation trip to Maine, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Following is my article regarding us exploring the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton.
Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site
Yesterday morning, before taking the aforementioned boat tour, we visited this historic site/museum.
We all know that Bell invented the telephone. But there’s so much more to his story that I didn’t know. Perhaps you did.
His wife, Mabel, was deaf from an early age and they met when she was a student of his as he was instrumental in teaching the deaf using speech therapy and lip reading. They eventually married . She became an avid gardener and grew vegetables and flowers at their estate, Beinn Bhreagh Hall, in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. We stayed in Baddeck, a lovely little coastal town, during our visit.
The museum was not built on the site of Beinn Bhreagh Hall, however it still exists. We were disappointed to learn that it is not open to the public and only visible from the water.
What I didn’t know was that Bell was also heavily involved in hydrofoil boats and aeronautics as well.
He did a substantial amount of work developing hydrofoil boats and hydroplanes. In 1919, his HD-4 hydrofoil set a world marine speed record of 70.86 mph.
In February 1909, his Silver Dart plane took off from the ice in Baddeck to become the first aircraft flight in Canada.
The museum contains many of Bell’s early telephones and other inventions. Also, it houses the Silver Dart as well as the hull from the HD-4. The HD-4 was abandoned on the shore until around the late 1950s when the Canadian government rescued it, and eventually restored it for the museum.
It is a fantastic museum and we’ll worth the visit.
Bird Island Boat Tour
In the afternoon we went for a bird tour with Bird Island Boat Tours, a little Northeast of Englishtown, NS. Although it was very scenic, the main attraction was the birds. Oh my did we see birds! And seals, lots of seals. My bird photos were taken with my digital camera, and I have no way of retrieving the images from the memory card until we get home.
For now I will post my iPhone photos. I also learned how difficult it is take photos from a boat. Especially with the digital camera.
Bird Island Boat Tours is a small family run business. It was well organized and the Captain and crew (his sons) were extremely knowledgeable with the history of the area and the birds.
They took us around 2 different islands, maneuvering the boat with precision to give the passengers the best view possible of the birds and seals.
The tour lasted almost 3 hours! It was wonderful. In fact awesome!
Heading Home
Today the 3rd of August (actually my birthday) we are starting our journey home. But we still have at least one more trick up our sleeve. Stay tuned.