Sydney

Day 47

Today was just as cold and foggy as the last few days – around 10⁰C.  We arrived in Sydney, Nova Scotia, named after the British Colonial Secretary Lord Sydney. (same as Sydney Australia)  The wharf has a statue of a hugh fiddle because they have more fiddlers here per population than any town in America or Canada.

We drove to the country along part of the famous Cabot Trail to visit the Alexander Graham Bell Museum.   His descendants still own the large, beautiful house on the hill at Baddeck.  We were surprised to learn that he had accomplished so much more than the invention of the telephone.  He actually performed poorly at school but when he went to live with his grandfather he was educated by him.

His father was responsible for writing the phonetic alphabet for the deaf and Alexander jnr initially worked teaching the deaf to speak.  He was very good at it and became famous for what he achieved and it was doing this work that he met Helen Keller and one of his students later became his wife. 

He soon became interested in invention and in addition to his work and development with electricity and communication he spent much time working to develop flight and aerofoils. 

I had my photo taken with a couple of the Mounties patroling the area.

The countryside here is beautiful and most of the people here are of Scottish descent. They have their own tartan and teach Gaelic in the schools. 

Their main industry here is fishing and lobsters and they even serve a McLobster in MacDonalds over here.