Following the daytripping herd to the Cabot Trail, doing it like an Italian. Or a Francophone. Or a Scotsman. Or youthful tourists in a German-registered Transit campervan.
I’ve barely even started, and already I’m confused.
Certainly everything here is openly more European than Mi’kmaq, which seems wrong.
Acadian flags and bilingual signs. LeBlanc and his infamous crab traps – there should be a law against that.
The cute roadside art gallery with the Mona Lisa sign drawn by the cows, for the cows.
Along the waterfront at Cheticamp, a non-existent Acadian restaurant, seemingly replaced by a busy Home – complete with slightly sinister tagline: “We’ve got your lumber”.
A few miles up, past the imposing white wooden church, Tim Horton and Mr Chicken are in fierce competition. Iced cappuccinos and hot wings at dawn … perish the thought.
All of the B&Bs, the too-small motels, the holiday shacks, the art studios, spaced out in sustained intervals along both sides of the highway, an indication that I’m close to Something Big.
Up the winding road that was laid in a gale … Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
I’ve arrived in a front cover magazine shot – the one with the article about all the various shades of Canadian grey (more than fifty, by my reckoning).
The person on the counter at the Visitor Centre tells me where to go, by pointing at a map, and I do this immediately by sitting in the wrong lane at the ticket booth outside.
I’m a courageous discoverer, I am – stationary on a mountain pass, listening to Erasure, goddamnit!
Amazingly, this still grants me access rights.
Up and around the coast, the Skyline Trail is one for the dogs – if only they were allowed in. Moose and bears have seen them off.
Racing people around the looping path, where we’re all running from fast-descending weather fronts, which can be seen approaching with full force from up the valley, and from out over the sea, too.
I’m glad I brought along my vintage wacker, is my thought.
Because around here, the craic is totally wack. Like – we all arrived here on Paddy’s motorbike, we washed up merry.
On the steps down to the edge, taking care in placing one foot in front of the other, there are too many people … some already going overboard.
The grimly elegant view is over there, where all of the smartphones are pointing towards. When are selfies going to be banned, is my main thought.
With incredible timing, a gale force gust of wind unexpectedly sweeps down the mountainside, blowing them all away, ha!
Suddenly, the Skyline Trail is all mine … if only I can stay upright and semi-dry.
This proves to be somewhat difficult in the rushing stormlike conditions.
Washed out, the long walk back to the parking lot, past the moose enclosure with no moose.
But then, I have heard that moose can be very dry, so this figures – those deadpan beasts are all undercover.
On the path, I’m a scat man – dodging the droppings and freshly-laid dregs.
When I arrive back to the half-empty car park, a vacant oaf in an F150 truck decides that rather than park up in any of the scores of empty parking spots, the space immediately next to my car is the one for him.
Pulling up within inches of me, just at the point where I’m trying to offload my sodden wet weather gear with some degree of dignity, and space.
In my silently damp anguish, I secretly hope he and his passengers are all lip-readers … which is wrong I know.
Yet in a moment of clarity, I even take the trouble to mime my expletives in both English and French, just in case.
After the Stop sign, a further series of travails; temporary cones leading us all to increasingly ridiculous lookout points, which have dropped in from another planet.
The welcome at Pleasant Bay is initiated today, as I believe it is on most days, by the unusually cheery and heavily-bearded fisherman, dressed up in the latest fisherman fashion, head to toe in yellow togs.
And waving a fish at me, almost as a kind of warning.
I reciprocate with a slightly raised hand from the steering wheel, and a moderately raised eyebrow.
Through downtown, if there is such a thing here, past the old store which is straight out of a Western and you know has been robbed many times over by gun-slinging highwaymen in horse and carriages. Adam Ant and the like – the first wave.
I’m overnighting in the Mountain Sunrise suite, although it appears both the mountain and the sun have long-since risen and buggered off.
Brian the owner appears to welcome me, then tells me the baseball game between the locals and the buddhist monks is cancelled.
I’m overcome by a touch of the Dharma bums, yet I know the cheery fisherman is still there up the road at the Rusty Anchor to see me through with a fresh fish supper.
Yes, I am here for my lobster dinner!
An Outside World 