Day 3: Maple syrup in my coffee…is this Elf?!

Chéticamp, Canada

Today was our longest drive time we’ll have our entire trip, so we found miscellaneous stops along the route to Cape Brenton Island. If you haven’t seen the movie Elf, you may not follow…but, this morning we started off the day with a hardy breakfast and stop at Sugar Moon Farms, a local producer of maple syrup. Bryan couldn’t pass up trying maple syrup in his coffee (like Elf), and we were severed the most delicious wheat biscuits with fresh maple butter before even placing our orders. As we awaited our breakfast, we enjoyed sampling syrups, maple and cinnamon flax seed, and browsing the retail section of the farm (they even sold maple vodka, but we decided that was just a little too much maple for us!). Shortly, our towers of maple/pecan and blueberry pancakes with bacon and knoxworth arrived…and we quickly learned that even maple added to mustard makes the perfect condiment for knoxworth! It was also pretty cool that the road Sugar Moon Farms happens to be on is the same name as our sister-in-law’s father (Alex MacDonald). We entered Cape Breton Island from the famous Cabot Trail (a highway and scenic roadway in northern Victoria County and Inverness County). The views truly are beautiful along the water front and continued winding across the hilly landscape. I would equate this to Highway 1 on the west coast. The next stop along the way was at Galloping Cows, a local jam producer that actually puts together special gift packages for the Oscars. We couldn’t refuse their jalapeño & seasonal wild blueberry jam. We also had a fun adventure getting here…seems that we found all the dirt roads in Nova Scotia today. All other areas have been highway systems or “highways” that are essentially well paved country roads. Our GPS suddenly took us down a road that had us questioning if we should be on it…but, then we noticed another car not too far ahead and decided it must be the local route (see Bryan’s time lapse video on Facebook). Sure enough, it got us to our destination (this just made us smile because our directions to Sugar Moon Farm also had us end on a dirt road)…guess it was just destine to be a dirt road kind of day (go figure the main music stations we’ve tuned into have been predominately country). As we rounded through more turning highway we arrived to Glenora Distillery, the first/oldest single malt whisky (this is the Scottish spelling of it) distillery in North America (Ps. We were safe back on the roads following this visit, as I’m not a whiskey or scotch drinker). We strolled the property and joined a tour to see each step of how the distillery creates it’s clean, well defined single malt concoction. From the reading room where you could study the history and evolution of whisky, to the mash house, to the final stop of the distillery (the tasting room) we became well educated on the process. We also had the opportunity to eat a lovely meal in their pub while listening to some excellent Celtic music! Bry had haddock fish & chips while I opted for ribs, neither of us were disappointed with our choices. We decided two big meals were plenty for the day and moseyed back up the highway making our next stop at Inverness Beach. The weather has been comfortable and sunny for us, but just for a few minutes while making this stop we had some serious winds and cloud cover. It was actually a nice cool down and made for some fun photographs of crashing waves and dancing tall grass. Soon we had completed the final 50 minutes of today’s long hall (~3.5/4 hrs) to Cape Breton Island and our B&B for the night in Cheticamp. We were pleased to find our B&B, the Maison Fiset House was darling and well maintained. Not to mention, only 10 minutes from the visitor center of the Cape Breton National Park. After getting acclimated to our home for the night (checking out our little private patio area off the bedroom), we changed and headed to the park’s visitor center to pick up our tickets and meet our guide for a sunset hike on a seven-kilometre, looping, hiking trail in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, the Skyline Trail. It lies on the western side of the Cabot Trail, near French Mountain’s summit. By the way, we couldn’t help but laugh we we drove through a little construction resulting in one more dirt road on our way to the trail head! Our park guide, Jean Marc, was extremely knowledgable and made the hike with our small group fun. This is also the French side of the island, so it was entertaining to hear him switch between English and French seamlessly as we learned more about our surroundings. The moose population in this national park is actually over abundant, so we were very hopeful we’d spot one (they estimate about 2 moose/square mile). This is a concern for the habitat, as it seems their food sources are decreasing which lead to a large decrease in their population several years ago. When this happened, the moose were actually taken to the main providence of Nova Scotia and the island of Cape Brenton later received western moose to grow and inhabit the land (so, the western moose live here (in the east) and the eastern moose are found on the mainland (west)). Sad to hear, but the park continues to explore various ideas on how to re-generate more of their preferred pine trees like barricading off areas for rapid growth ( you’ll see one we passed through that has white gates (and is about the size of 9 football fields) that will “reopen” to the moose after the growth occurs). Shortly after we crossed passed this gated area, we stumbled upon a moose! It was spectacular! He was completely calm and unphased by us as we quietly passed by. Our guide recommended keeping at least 30 ft between us and it, but it made for some amazing photos and we enjoyed watching this big creature graze on the vegetation around him with the sun approaching its resting spot for the night. What a cool experience…we most certainly have never seen a moose, especially that close. We also learned they have poor vision and tend to be more active in the evening. He really looked so peaceful that everyone felt he was almost approachable and we felt the urge to “pet” him…of course we did not, and that would NOT be recommended. Just seems like a cuddly giant. Having “see a moose” checked off the list, we rounded out to the halfway point of our hike on the dock like path/lookout point with about 25 minutes to take in the scenes as the sun dipped into the waterfront. For a few moments our group thought we were seeing a whale off the shore, but then discovered it was a small boat instead (not sure my excitement level at this point could have handled a moose and a whale with a breathtaking sunset all in one night) 🙂 With senses heightened on the dark trail returning back to the trail head, the smell of the surrounding pine was suddenly very present to me, and I loved taking in some extra breaths of fresh air and this scent. I also quickly realized how happy I was that we chose to take this “guided tour” as we would have missed out on so much great info and likely been in this part of the park at a different time of day/had a completely different experience (I’m not sure Bryan and I would have been confident enough in our hiking knowledge to do this on our own at night the first time either). I’m sure morning and midday have its benefits too, but we are feeling very lucky for tonight’s adventure. As we got closer to a break in the trail head and parking lot we noticed some of the beautiful stars overhead! Simply stunning. It was time to say goodnight to the new friends (a nice couple from FL, single man from Long Island, NY, law students from Washington DC, and a few others from the northern regions of Canada we couldn’t converse well with due to them being predominately French speaking, but were still friendly) and our guide, and this night is one we won’t soon forget! Doing the evening hike had us back to our B&B pretty late, so we took in a few minutes of relaxing on the main patio and didn’t find anyone else awake when we came in. Looking forward to mingling with a few other guests over breakfast in the morning! Anyhow…good night. More to discover tomorrow!