DOWNEAST NOVA SCOTIA
31 December 1969 | Mackenzie Cove, Bras DOr Lakes, Nova Scotia
Were anchored in a little cove on the northwest shore of Bras dOr Lake. For the first time since we left Long Island Sound, the sky is clear and cloudless, so deep a blue it has weight. Ashore, the pine trees come right down to the lakes edge to end in a tangle of snags and fallen limbs at the boundary between green trees and blue water. A bald eagle watches for fish from the trunk of a dead birch canted out over the lake. An Arctic tern makes one full revolution of the boat, squeaking and keaing at our presence. The wavelets splash with a hollow sound on our transom, and the light breeze hums in our rigging.
There can be no doubt that we have come a long way north. The heat wave a few weeks ago seems far more than 700 miles away now that were wearing thermal underwear during the day and sleeping under two wool blankets and a down comforter at night. Its harder to remember weve come as far east as north. But weve moved our clocks forward to Atlantic time, an hour later than NY or Boston. The Maine terminology of down east only makes sense if youve sailed this coast. From Boston to Newfoundland, the coast trends as much east as north, a downwind run with the prevailing southwesterlies. The best way to attack this coast is to set a direct course and sail offshore as far as you intend to go, then cruise slowly home, sailing on easterlies whenever possible.
Last time we were in this area, in 1999 at the beginning of our voyage on HAWK, we only visited one anchorage in Nova Scotia, promising ourselves we would return someday when we were back in the northeast and desperate for some sailing. The three-hundred mile long province parallels the Canadian coast, running from the Maine border northeast to within fifty miles of Newfoundland, with dozens of coves, rivers and wooded inlets to explore. It would be an island except for the narrow neck of land that connects its midsection to New Brunswick. The Bay of Fundy runs between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick south of that neck; the Gulf of St. Lawrence lies to the north of it.
The northern third of Nova Scotia is an island Cape Breton Island and the locals refer to the rest of the province as the mainland and themselves as Cape Bretoners, not as Nova Scotians. The island retains a rich mix of French and Celtic heritage, and the French language seems to be only a bit less common than it is in Quebec. English is spoken with an accent that reminds me of Newfoundland, where every other sentence is punctuated by byes for boys and young fellas for young men.
This area has yet to experience the boom that has come to the Nova Scotian mainland as the influx of summer dwellers has spilled north out of Maine and into Yarmouth, Shelburne and Lunenberg. Land here is still as cheap as it was in Newfoundland when we were there in 1999. We walked past a little house on two and a half acres on a ridge between the Atlantic and the lake with views of both that was selling for $35,000. In one sense, were a long, long way from NYC and Boston, but it did only take us three and a half days to get here by boat. Of course it will take us a good deal longer to get back if we dont want to be tacking all the way.
Cape Breton Island is all but bisected by a set of large inlets, long extensions of the sea. Two arms stretch into the island from the northeast, running parallel to one another for more than fifteen miles before joining and opening into Great Bras dOr. A tiny narrows connects this to the southern inlet, Bras dOr Lake, twice as wide as Great Bras dOr and more than ten miles across with two long arms that make it nearly thirty miles long.
At the southernmost part of this lake, a narrow, twisting channel that looks like a wide river ends at the half mile long rock cut that leads to the lock, built when the old schooners fished cod in the waters off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The water temperature jumps by 10 to 15 degrees when passing through the lock to the lake, and the air temperature with it. The fog, strong currents, large tidal ranges and cold water along the coast give way to moderate tides and currents, sunshine, blue skies and brackish water almost warm enough to swim in. Its as if a magical piece of summer had been set down inside the gray, fogbound coast. The run through the Bras dOr offered the old sailing schooners a sheltered inside passage to Cabot Strait, a hundred miles of warm, fog-free, swell-free sailing with good sheltered anchorages to wait in at the far end before braving the notorious passage across the Strait.
We entered the lake through that lock and rock cut, and weve spent nearly a week at anchor off the marina in the southwesternmost corner of the lake. Yesterday I finished the articles I was working on, we sent of the photos to go with it, and we picked up the anchor to explore the Bras dOr. We had almost no wind at all, but after motoring out the series of interconnected doglegs for three miles to reach the open lake, we were able to ghost along at 2-3 knots in 5 knots of breeze for a couple of hours before having to turn the engine on once again. I used the time to give our dinghy a thorough washdown, sorely needed after two years folded up and stowed in its bag. Well spend the next four or five days exploring the golden arms of this lovely lake before we make our way to Baddeck to meet up with the rest of the Ocean Cruising Club boats.
Beth and Evans
s/v Hawk