This difference in language makes no difference, however, in their hospitality. And oh, the pictures sketched by these little cottages so snugly tucked away in the glen!
The language of beauty which they speak is easily understood. Beauty that belongs to simple architecture speaks from every line of door and window and roof; speaks in every line of the great, whitewashed chimney, which, never lacking fuel, proclaims in friendly smoke seen curling up out of the glen—long before the cottage comes to view—that tea brews on the hearth.
The people of this part of Cape Breton, striking inland, and across country to Saint Ann’s Bay and Ingonish, are, in the main, agriculturists. This is the farming section. So, in August and September, in the tawny fields of oats and barley, the figures of the reapers and gleaners, especially in the neighborhood of Ingonish, proclaim that Breton-Canada no less than Breton-France affords many “a Millet subject”.
But even the farmer of these parts turns fisherman in season. Alongshore “Old man with lobster-pots” is a frequent “character”, from Mabou all down the Gulf shore, doubling Cape North, and back along the south shore of the peninsula to Point Aconi; and, of course, on the Atlantic side, about Gabarouse and Saint Peter’s. One of the dominating physical features of Cape Breton is Cape Smoky, towering a thousand feet above the waters where the Atlantic and Saint Ann’s Bay meet. Smoky is a personality. Because its stern, old brow is always softened by an ever-moving fog-wreath, the English-speaking people call it “Smoky”; the French folk “Enfumez”. It is worth travelling far to view Cape Smoky after rain, especially in the afternoon when the westering sun turns the shifting fog into rainbows, flitting, flashing, jewel-like bits of colour, gone in a moment.
There is something unexplainably winning about Cape Smoky. Cape Breton folk look to it as Nova Scotians to Blomidon. In speaking of it they sometimes say “Dear Old ‘Smoky’,” as if they loved it.
“Sugar-Loaf,” near Dingwall, and “Cape North”, the Lands’ End of Canada, are each distinctive in character, and “landmarks” of navigation.
A feature of the road familiar in these parts is the mail-carrier. With an old wagon and his trusty horse, the road over Smoky presents no difficulties to the Jehu of “His Majesty’s Mail”. And when you watch for him to appear on the shingle at Ingonish from “Down North”, if he has no passengers, it is an adventure to jump into his cart and ride over Smoky, even if you have to walk the six miles back, as we once did.
The Bay at Ingonish is sheltered by Cape Smoky, and so this small harbour has become a happy anchorage for fishing-schooners, and South Ingonish a place where codfish dries on fish stages. There is a family lobster cannery here, seldom boasting more than two big iron pots aboil in a sheltered nook of the shingle, but creating a romantic atmosphere with its driftwood fire.
Lads lend a hand with the fish-drying at Ingonish. It is from here, watching the fishing schooners going out to meet the ocean swell around Smoky, that, in dreams, they reach out to the day when their turn will come to sail away in a fishing-schooner to “The Grand Banks”.
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