MOVING TO CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA

CAPE BRETON
C 1994 JoJo

In August of 1993, my husband was temporarily transferred by his Company to Sydney, Cape Breton Island. Getting ourselves, two cars and two dogs from Ottawa to Sydney was no mean feat. Rather than simply drive there via Quebec and New Brunswick, we decided to take an alternate route and indeed an altogether different approach to our journey. With our dogs in tow, we opted to drive to Portland, Maine and take the overnight ferry over to Yarmouth, thereby making what promised to be a tedious, monotonous journey into a holiday – or so we thought.

On arrival in Portland, we found to our dismay that the local shopkeepers turned up their noses at our Canadian money, and seeing that we had none of the U.S. variety, we decided we might as well join the car queue to board the ferry right away.

There was a one and a half hour wait, and I decided this would be an excellent opportunity to take the dogs on a walk-around, hoping that they’d do their doggy duty. Bobby performed faultlessly. Then I walked dear old Shango around (who was a b—- in more ways than one) but oh dear me no, she was far too hyper and distracted to concentrate on such mundane things as doing even so much as a pee. I tried to figure out how I could make the environment as similar as possible to that of her usual pooping grounds and the thought struck me – Of course – grass! She wouldn’t go, I thought, because it’s concrete, and concrete just isn’t good enough for her royal posterior! Looking around, I spotted a patch of grass on a sort of elevated bed with a stone wall around it, so I took her over, lifted her up onto it and instructed her “GO POOH, DAMMIT, GO POOH!” At this point, I happened to glance at the car directly ahead of ours in the queue (a very swish Cadillac Park Avenue with California licence plates), and there was an elderly couple sitting there watching my antics with big smiles on their faces. I walked over to them and said “You know why she won’t go don’t you? That (pointing) is not her grass, so it just isn’t good enough for her.” They laughed and we chatted for a bit, then I took Shango back to our car.

Eventually we boarded the “Scotia Prince”, and located our cabin, which turned out to have been about the size of your average jail cell (not that I know this from first-hand experience, mind you)! After unloading our overnight bags, we went off to explore the ferry and found that every which way we turned it seemed as if people were trying to part us from our money. There were waiters hawking exotic rum punches for the exorbitant sum of $5.95 per drink (and we would get to keep the cheap and nasty plastic glasses with “Scotia Prince” embossed on them). The entire ferry was nothing better than a floating casino, with literally hundreds of slots machines, one arm bandits, roulette and gambling tables from stem to stern.

We had dinner, following which we watched other people lose their money for a while, then decided to turn in.

There was a strong head wind blowing across the Bay of Fundy so the crossing was rough. The Scotia Prince’s stabilizers were singularly ineffectual, and it rolled and pitched all over the place. Passing someone in the narrow corridors was quite a challenge; although both intended to cross in the correct and proper manner, the ferry would roll tossing both to the same side resulting in an embarrassing collision.

Ours was an “upgraded” cabin, and I hate to think what it was upgraded from! There were two ground level bunks with about 3 ft. between them. The bunks themselves were no wider across than 2 and a half ft., so managing to roll over in bed without falling out in a heap onto the floor became a major achievement, especially in view of all the pitching and rolling that was going on! As for the toilet, well it was one of those suction operated gizmos which goes off making alarmingly loud sucking noises. In spite of the discomfort, being utterly exhausted, I managed to sleep reasonably well.

Next morning we were awakened by a “wake-up call” at 6.30 a.m. over the loudspeaker, informing us that we’d have to vacate our cabins so as to enable the stewards to make up the cabins for the poor sods who would be boarding at Yarmouth for the return trip to Portland. We grabbed some breakfast and as we ate, they informed us over the loudspeaker that due to the headwinds, we’d be a half hour late in docking. Both my hubby and I were worried about the dogs, who’d been put into the ferry kennels for the crossing. We were especially worried because Who Know Who had not gone potty right up to the time of being placed in said kennel. Also, we found that every available seat on board was occupied and there was nowhere to sit. We finally sat on the stairs and the heck with the fact that anyone going up or down them had to scrunch by us!

When we arrived, we got the dogs out of the kennel (and yes, dear old Shango had done her all and thank goodness there was no one in the kennel directly below hers because the base of her kennel was a mesh), and went down to our car, eventually docking and getting out of the Scotia Prince (who should be ashamed of himself). It was a loud, raucous and uncomfortable journey from end to end.