2025 Memories of a two-week train trip in Canada

 

2025 Memories of a two-week train trip to Nova Scotia

 

No overseas trips this year. How a bout Canada? Yes, our notes from most fantastic trip.

I lived and worked in Nova Scotia once, and left 50 (fifty) years ago. Time for a revisit.

Every day was sunny, and everything fell in place, just as planned.

I had lobster seven meals in a row, and managed to have one full lobster at three of them. Who wouldn't be happy then?

• Train to Montréal

There we spent our hours with our friend Neil, who took us to the Mt. Stephen club, now an upscale hotel. The cheapest room, never discounted, $ 1,000/night. I was a first-class member for 19 years until I left Montréal in 1994. Many, many of my then-customers have been entertained there.

I told the story of the missing and found aqain grand piano. It was lost in the 40s, when sold to a music school in Louisiana. This instrument was found again and brought back ca 1978, when I was part of a group doing library and newspaper clipping research to find it. It was made from the same wood as was used to panel the room it was in. Stunning.

• Overnight to Halifax. 

Lots of interesting people to talk to, of course. Our hotel was in the railroad station concourse.

• A couple of days wandering around Halifax.

The visit to the immigrants' museum was super. Rose found and printed out the original records of when her grandparents immigrated.

I found a picture of the passenger ship, M/S Kungsholm, that Monica and I danced our way over the Atlantic Ocean for nine days on.

I, again, enjoyed the visit on the Canadian Corvette patrol sip, one of many that did anti-submarine service during WW2.

The old man and family I am standing with is a retired fisherman. We compared notes about when I worked as a fisherman on a herring- trawler in the Baltic Sea the summer I was 14. He'd done that for forty years. (!)

• We rented a car and drove to Port Hawesbury, Cape Breton Island.

That's where I was a maintenance superintendent for a few years, when in my mid-30s, now fifty (!) years ago. I was met like the long-lost son. We spent several hours talking to the current staff, some of whom were the grandchildren of the people who worked for me.

I also walked around the house that we lived in then. Ingbritt was 7 - 8, and Annelie was just a baby. This story is also part of my memoirs. If you haven't read that section yet, I have included an excerpt. 

We had a late lunch, lobster of course, with Melodei's husband, Mike's mother and husband, before checking in with Chief Kelly at the Potlotek Native Indian reserve.

We stayed there for two nights and enjoyed the somewhat rustic cabin and fishing on the smooth-as-glass Bras D'Or lake.

The next day was spent enjoying the sights around Baddeck, on the other side of Bras d'Or Lake.

We did, of course, not miss the museum of Alexander Graham Bell. He did so much more than invent the telephone, often forgotten now.

Sure, we took in a number of shows too.

Touring the scenic Cabot Trail, almost 300 km long on the edge of the sea was spectacular. We wisely decided not to drive but joined a small group in a minivan. Far easier and less stressful.5

For the rest of the words I could write, I let the pictures speak for themselves.

I hope you like them.

Here is a link to the strory about living in Port Hawesbury, 1973 – 1975.