The Highland Village

Okay, so I know that I am quite behind in my holiday reporting...but seriously, I am trying to get caught up. Today I'm going to talk about the events and activities of the first Sunday of our trip (the day after Cheticamp and the Cabot Trail). We didn't really have too much planned that we wanted to do, so after quick visit to the local information centre we had some ideas.

Definitely the best surprise of the day was our visit to the Highland Village Museum in Iona. Not only was it a gorgeous day, with beautiful sights at every turn...


(doesn't the water look cool? The shadows aren't coming from clouds - there weren't any!)


But it was also a terrific history lesson. In some respects, it reminded me of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. There are a number of authentic buildings that have been moved to the site, and they help to recreate the progression of new Scottish immigrants through their settlement in Nova Scotia. You begin by walking up a fairly steep hill, and then slowly wind your way back down with stops in each of the buildings, starting at a primitive stone structure and moving through a long cabin, centre-chimney house, two chimney house, a school house, blacksmith shop, barn, church, etc. Almost half of the buildings have interpreters who can give you more details about the particular building and lives of it's former inhabitants...but they are very low-key (which I like). There were even animals situated around the barn, including these pretty chickens...


We really lucked out, since it was not very busy on the day we were there and we were often the only ones inside a given building. This made the visit even more special.

Each of the buildings were quite sparsely furnished and decorated. Aside from being quite true to the time period, it was also perfect for the obsever. All too often at such places I find that I suffer from over-stimulation and "max out" very early on. Not so here.

I also liked the subtle emphasis on crafts such as quilting, rug hooking, weaving, etc. and the subtle integration of these tools and samples in each building. I took a pictures of some of the things that I saw that day, and here are my favourites...


I don't know much about the Bluenose patterns, but something about this rug makes me think it could be one...



You might not be able to read it, but I love their simple instructions: "Produce many shades by using less than a package or more than a package"