Wednesday, September 16, 2015

9/16 Baddeck, NS, and the Alexander Graham Bell National Museum

Nova Scotia consists of harbors and pretty fishing villages, but the interior is just a lot of trees.  Well, really a lot of trees.  I took just a few photos while driving today, but other than the occasional town, it all looks pretty much like this.


While some stretches were a divided limited-access freeway, the chunk below is a two-lane two-way traffic limited-access freeway with interchanges and everything.  Very unusual.


After a tiring 180 mile drive, I arrived in the early afternoon at Baddeck, a small town at the beginning of the Cabot Trail around the Cape Breton Peninsula. This town is also the location of the summer home of Alexander Graham Bell and his burial place, as well as the summer homes of his descendants.

Alexander Graham Bell and his wife spent their summers and later years in a 600 acre estate he bought.  In fact, he bought the whole end of a peninsula, and his descendants live there today in 18 homes.  It is not part of the national park, and very unlikely to ever be part of it because it would take the approval of all 18 families to turn it over.  Considering how incredibly beautiful this area is, that is extremely doubtful. 

The Canadian government has built a museum to house some of the artifacts obtained from the family and employees who lived in the village and helped Bell with his research that was conducted here.

This is a reproduction of his study, with the "portrait" of him painted by his wife as a joke because he was a night owl. 

And some of his inventions.


These are some of the trefoil kites he built. 

And this strange thing is an experimental hydrofoil boat he built.

Here is a better picture of the hydrofoils.  It was not very successful, however, so he abandoned the original on the beach near his home.

It did get up off the water a few times, but was hard to control.

These last three photos are of the original hydrofoil rescued from the beach.

It has fallen into three pieces, so at least you can see inside it.


Tomorrow, I hit the Cabot Trail! 
  

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