Crossing to Nova Scotia

2026-07-28
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada

Today was a repositioning day, moving from Alma (Funday National Park) to Chetticamp (Cape Breton National Park), roughly a seven hour drive. We got to see a a fair amount of the countryside as there are highways for only part of the journey.

We continued to play road sign Pictionary. We got to guess on "@" which turns out to be a public internet access point, and this thing that looked like a 70's era phone handset which could potentially mean an actual pay phone? By this point, I think it's safe to say that you want Val on your Pictionary team as she does a better job sussing them out.

The Scots and Irish make up about half the population of Nova Scotia, and a lot of the place names reflect that. There is also a First Nations presence, primarily the Mi'kmaq. Many of the road signs were in two languages. This is common in Canada as it's usually English and French. However, here the languages were English (i.e. Scotchtown) followed by a series of letters and apostrophes that were either Celtic or Mi'kmaq. Today I verified that I can neither read nor pronounce either language, and apparently I cannot even tell them apart.

We arrived to a cute motel along the river just outside the park. The brightly-painted rooms will make it easy to find our accommodations for the next three nights as we see some of Cape Breton.

Driving Distance: 540 km (336 miles)