CHAPTER IV BRAS D’OR TO ANNAPOLIS VALLEY

Soon we passed from the Province of New Brunswick to the Province of Nova Scotia, rich in varied and scenic effects, and in romance and history. Leaving Mulgrave, our steamer “Lakeview” sailed down the Straits of Canso and around the beautiful Isle Madame. A cantilever bridge, operated by horse power, swung open for us. At the en- trance to St. Peter’s Canal we saw the quaint little French fishing village of St. Peters, and beyond a pastoral scene of great beauty. Going through the locks we continued through that enchanting sea, well named by the French, Bras d’Or, or “Arm of Gold.” Bras d’Or is an inland sea, for it is salt water with ocean entrances, and it spreads its blue area for 450 square miles through the heart of Cape

Breton Island.

Strange that a thing so wild, so free, As we conceive the tossing sea to be, Should thus be landlocked and imprisoned.

The tranquil loveliness of the Bras d’Or region con- trasts with the majesty of Cape Breton’s coast between the beautiful Bay of St. Anne’s and Cape North, and on the western side of the island. Here the bold cliffs and headlands are set against a magnificent back drop of wooded hills, range after range fading back to the horizon, from blue to misty purple. Cape Breton has been compared in scenery to the Western Highlands of Scotland, and history informs us it was the land fall of Cabot, who was seeking new lands for “Kynge Henry of England, a year before Columbus touched on the continent.

The limestone cliffs along "the shore, looking like

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