Costumed interpreters at the Highland Village Museum in Iona, Nova Scotia, bring Cape Breton’s Gaelic history to life.
I loved Cape Breton’s Highland Village Museum when I visited last spring. Granted, I’m a sucker for museums in general and living history museums in particular, but this one really stayed with me, long after I left.
High on a hill overlooking Bras d’Or Lake, the site (part of the province-wide Nova Scotia Museum), is a collection of 11 buildings from various eras. Together, they recreate several centuries of Scottish settlement of this gorgeous but isolated landscape, with the help of animators who rarely break character as they attempt to draw you into a world long past. My group met “Margaret” (above) early in our visit, along a hilly walking trail designed to bring visitors through the site chronologically.
She would have lived in Black House, the stone cottage visible behind her, which was built in the style of Highland cottages back in Scotland. It would have been the first home of many immigrants who arrived in Cape Breton in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Margaret greeted us in Gaelic, then switched to English to tell us about cooking scones over an open hearth and surviving the harsh winters without modern comforts such as central heating and running water.
As we made our way through the 43-acre site, along a path bordered by a split-rail fence and blooming lupines, we encountered other “residents.” A fiddler treated us to an impromptu kitchen party. A young couple, holding hands, meandered home from the fields. We learned how women spent days together rubbing rough woven fabrics over a special ridged tabletop to soften the material, singing as they worked.
Cape Breton Island is full of spots to just take a breather and admire the view. This one is just down the hill from the Highland Village Museum.
Along the way, the homes became a bit more refined—evolving from a log house to a frame home with a small parlour organ—but none were fancy.
It was far from an easy life, but the descendants of the early settlers are fiercely proud of their ancestors’ determination, language and customs. Before you leave, I guarantee the museum’s animators will have tried to teach you at least one word of Gaelic: fàilte. It means “welcome.”
Throughout July and August 2017, I’ll be posting one photo a day that I’ve taken somewhere across Canada, in celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary. Want to see more photos in this series? Type “Canada 150 photo” in the search window on the right-hand side of this page.