Air Conditioning Like None Other

Early days in Big Bras d’Or deliver untoward volumes of heat, mosquitoes and carpenter ants. Keen for a taste of nature’s own air conditioning, we head for Cape Breton’s eastern shore with Lynn and Louise, one day to Big Lorraine and Wild Cove, another—Canada Day—to the Baleine headlands.

While town folk swelter in temperatures close to 30 C, Atlantic air cools us down to just 14 C. Were we the sort of folks inclined to gloat, witnesses would see plenty of crowing. Fortuitously, there are no witnesses to give testimony, at least not of the human variety.

Wildflowers run riot wherever we walk, some familiar, many not. We see legions of birds too, principally the sort that prefer to perpetuate their kind on windswept rocky islets. Though it is hard to imagine in early summer these headlands are not to be confused with grandma’s benign front room: they are dangerous places. As usual on our coastal rambles we find dessicated bird carcasses—a few dozen—gulls, murres, guillemots, storm-petrels, dovekies, most of them likely brought to ruin in the fierce winter storms of January and February.

Those lost in winter are replaced in early summer. On islets off the Baleine headland binoculars allow us to spy on nesting kittiwakes, cormorants, guillemots and eiders. Squadrons of gannets patrol inshore waters, seizing opportunity as it arises.  A handsome male harrier hunts for voles among the Baleine barrens. Then something quite out of place: a laughing gull flies purposefully over our heads. Why is it here? Where is headed?

A grey seal lolls in the surf, wondering what we’re about. Off Wild Cove a single pilot whale forages for who-knows-what in the labyrinth of lobster pots. How do any lobsters survive the seasonal onslaught?

Should wildflowers and birds grow wearisome—which they do not—other attractions offer themselves: butterflies and bugs, landforms and geology. Among the beach cobble we keep eyes peeled for the unusual, and always find it. At Baleine we find wave-washed grottoes at the waters’ edge and a natural bridge offering a dramatic photo op.

Landward of the grottoes lie the sprawling Baleine barrens. It was here in September 1936 that supremely brave Beryl Markham crash-landed her crippled Percival Bull monoplane after crossing the Atlantic solo. I contemplate the courage it took to undertake the 21-and-a-half-hour ocean crossing and cannot fathom by what means marvelous Ms Markham summoned it.

Cape Breton’s Atlantic headlands are a long way from the beloved Sooke Hills of south Vancouver Island, but they elicit similar emotion and euphoria: as in a day with Mike and Mary on Mount McDonald, or Braden or Thunderbird, a sunny day with the monozygotes leaves me feeling alive, connected, grateful to be mobile at my advanced age.

Day’s end brings not disappointment, but further delight. Port Morien or Louisbourg offer good eateries: fish chowder, braised scallops or lobster rolls eased to their destination with chilled chablis or a pint of Alexander Keith’s.

Lucky is the man who recognizes his good fortune.