St. Peters Canal

After visiting the Lighthouse Museum I drove on to the Canso Causeway to Cape Breton Island.  Just on the island is a Tourist Information Centre, the first large one I had been into. It brought home to me how much material is produced in Nova Scotia, how well staffed the centres are, and the absolute wealth of knowledge of those working there.

My B&B for the night Sunday night 23rd June was Grandma's House at River Bourgeois   A splendid property standing in extensive grounds.  After strawberries & ice cream in a corn bowl to great me, breakfast next morning was a chanterelle mushroom omelette with local eggs and mushrooms from the grounds.

I headed around to the other side of the lake where I saw my first sight of wild lupins, which appear a lot within Cape Breton Island. 

This is looking back across to the B&B ...

and this the nearby pull in off the road

First place to visit was St. Peter's village only a few miles drive away. 

The St. Peters Canal is a small shipping canal crosses an isthmus in the village which connects St. Peters Inlet of Bras d'Or Lake to the north with St. Peters Bay of the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The area had long been travelled by the Mi'kmaq people who portaged their canoes across the isthmus on a "haulover road".  In effect it connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, as the lake is open to the ocean at the north end, so it creates a short cut as well as calmer weather.

For that reason there is only one loch, that's because the tides are different on either side of the gates, which also means it has unusual gates, they face both ways.  That's because the tide can be higher on one side or the other, unlike a normal canal where there a static levels on either side.

I parked up some distance from the lock keepers office, then I had been reading the information panels at the lock gate side for a few minutes.  Then the lock gate keeper drove up to his office, minutes later he walked down to me, introduced himself, gave me an information booklet, and offered to explain the operations there.   It's operated free of charge by Perks Canada as a National Historic Site and used mainly by leisure craft but also some commercial shipping.  This was something I found throughout the trip that local people went out of their way to speak to you, and had great enthusiasm for the area.

After an interesting hour it was now a couple of hours drive on remote twisting roads by the lakeside to my next location.