June 26th, 2019 – July 4th, 2019

We drove along the north shore of the mainland of Nova Scotia, making our way to Cape Breton Island. One of our first stops was a pub that had been recommended to us by a Cape Bretoner that we had met in Halifax. Besides having good food and drink, The Red Shoe Pub is a music venue located in the small town of Mabou. For those of you who are familiar with East coast musicians, the pub is owned by the award winning Rankin Family, and there is live music there almost every night of the week.

We found the pub, but there didn’t appear to be any sort of camping nearby, but we definitely wanted to spend the evening there and probably have a few beers…we went inside and asked one of the waitresses if she knew of anywhere that we could park our camper for the night. Turns out the town doesn’t mind if people park behind at the community centre right across the street…perfect!

We set up and walked around town with Piper as it was still early in the day. When we got to the pub, the place was full except for some tall stools at a ledge near the windows. We decided these seats were actually some of the best in the house as we could see over the crowd to the small stage area.

We had dinner and watched the locals as we waited for the artist to take the stage. We got talking to a young man at the table next to us. He introduced himself to us as David Rankin. “Oh, of The Rankin Family?” we asked. No, he was not related but was indeed a musician.

The one man show featured east coast songs, many that would be familiar to almost every Canadian. The singer/guitar player joked that with it being Cape Breton, you couldn’t toss a stone without hitting a musician, and we believe him. During the night a few locals got up and played or sang with him.

At one point during the show, a couple at a table of four indicated that they were from Alberta. Towards the end of the evening we approached them and told them that we too were from Alberta. They had just met the other couple at the table that night, sharing the space due to the pub being so crowded. The woman of the other couple was also a Rankin, and this time was closely related to The Rankin Family group members…..so many Rankins. It is possible that it might be hard to toss a stone in Cape Breton and not hit a Rankin.

The next day we headed north along the Cabot Trail, stopping and camping for two nights in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

We drove a small road to the far northern end of Cape Breton to the small community of Meat Cove. The weather was pretty rainy, but we parked in a lovely location, then did a small hike to a view point.

That night Derek barbecued a steak for us over an open fire at a campground, where, the next day, we would take a boat tour to Bird Island….I have way too many pictures from that trip, so I will be sending out a separate post about the trip. Pretty good day for me and Piper, and a pretty good birthday for Derek.