Day 023: Off Cape Breton

Today we crossed the Strait of Canso on the southwest coast of Cape Breton, which meant a couple hours of fighting a fierce wind that was coming straight across the water. Most of the rain came once we rejoined mainland west of Port Hastings.

It’s funny how your perception of mainland changes on the east coast of Canada. At one point we were on Fogo Island, and Newfoundland was ‘mainland,’ before we reached Port aux Basques and Cape Breton became ‘mainland,’ and now it feels like we’ve just reached ‘mainland’ in Antigonish.

Maybe that’s a little hard to follow. The point is that I’ve found that the term ‘mainland’ is entirely subjective when you’re surrounded by ocean.

In between rainstorms Asad stopped ahead of me on a long uphill climb. I got closer to find that he was holding a broken remote speaker microphone. He held it to his face. “Jonathon, come in Jonathon. This is Asad, come in Jonathon. Over.”

He grinned. “I thought we could try a new way of communicating.” His phone is still broken so it was only a half-bad idea.

We stopped in Paqtnkek First Nation to listen to Chief Paul Prosper. Working on that audio now. He gifted us with beaded eagle feathers and handmade dreamcatchers, which we’re gratefully carrying with us.

It was dark by the time we reached Antigonish, and rainy, but we had a place to stay and dinner ready for us and that made the last few hills possible. I’m listening to a podcast about the English Revolution (yeah), so while I was biking I just figured well hey, at least I’m not getting run down by Oliver Cromwell’s cavalry regiments.