September 20, 2018

Another cool morning of about 10°C as the ship docked at Sydney, Nova Scotia.

On the pier, just beside the ship, is the iconic 20 meter Big Fiddle of the Ceilidh, officially named Fidheal Mhor A’ Ceilidh. After breakfast we hurried to the Visitor Center to update the blog and post pictures, before a lot of people arrived and slowed down the complimentary Wi-Fi. The pictures were loaded at a pace of nine per minute. While we were loading photos, a couple from the Seabourn ship that was cruising from London, England to New York, noticed Larry’s San Diego Padres hoodie. They were from San Diego. During the conversation they offered to send us some information about what to see and where to stay, the next time we visited San Diego (next spring). When we checked the email after the walking tour, Pat from San Diego had already sent an informative email. Within 30 minutes there were over 150 people on phones and Ipads which made it hard to open an email!We had time before the 11 a.m. walking tour to walk around the streets which featured some houses dating back to the 18th century and Victorian times. Steps 3,784

We met on the pier for our walking tour of Old Sydney. The French originally claimed Île Royale and built the Louisburg fortress on a windy point about 40 kilometers away. In 1745 the British sacked the fortress, but the French returned two years later. The British founded Halifax in 1750 and again attacked Louisburg in 1758 and destroyed the huge fortress to discourage French plans to return. Sydney was founded by the British in 1758 as a naval base and settlement at Spanish Harbour was closed. The French settlers were expelled to French Louisiana and France. However, with the American Revolutionary War raging from 1776 to 1783, the area was British and Loyalists were fleeing from the American colonies to the British colonies further north of Halifax, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. In 1785 Governor DeBarres, commander of the Spanish Bay military base arrived and renamed the bay to Sydney Harbour, to honour Lord Sydney, the British Secretary of State. DeBarres directed the building of the town along a street design like that of Bath, England, and the construction of barracks for the 33rd Regiment. The region already had fishing resources, was harvesting lumber and, since 1713, was mining of coal. Sydney was the capital of the Colony of Cape Breton until 1820 when the colony was annexed to the mainland colony of Nova Scotia. From 1849 to 1850 there was in influx of Irish and Scotland settlers. The Irish were leaving Ireland due to the Potato Famine. In 1901 Sydney Steel was established and immigrants from eastern Europe arrived to work in the steel mill.

Our walking tour started by climbing to the street above the pier where the first Roman Catholic church, St. Patrick’s, stood on Esplanade Street. It was constructed between 1828 and 1839 and later expanded. Like many foundations and colonial buildings in Sydney, material was obtained from the ruined Louisburg fortress. It was built by volunteers who were also ship builders and the original roof was so solidly made that after 190 years it has never leaked.

Next our group of 14 walked up one street to Jost House on Charlotte Street, which was the first general merchandise store in the new colony built in 1785 and later it was purchased by Halifax merchant Thomas Jost in 1836 and remained in the family until 1971 having been converted to the family home in 1853, when the Josts built a two storey house next door that became the town’s first department store. The original house was expanded over 100 years ago to a full two storeys with a servant’s loft on the third floor. The house is furnished with Victorian artifacts including an 1888 mechanical washing machine, invented by David Fairchild, in the basement where the original kitchen was located. The kitchen had a bread baking oven as well as a fireplace. The Jost House guide explained that when determining the proper temperature to bake bread after the oven was heated, a feather into the cavity. If it burned then the oven was still too hot. But, if the feather was only lightly singed, then it was just right for baking the bread.

We walked 100 meters toward the city center to the 1787 Cossit House, the home of the first Anglican minister, who arrived as a Loyalist with his wife and six children. They eventually had seven more children, 10 of them lived to adulthood. In the kitchen of the house we tasted spruce tea which was brewed from spruce needles and yeast giving it an alcohol content of about 3%. It was a way to prevent scurvy. On the neighbouring property, a red one storey school was built and has be expanded over the past two centuries and is now a private residence.

Both Jost House and Cossit House are some of the oldest buildings on Cape Breton Island.

A short walk took the group to St. George’s Anglican Church where Rev. Ranna Cossit was the first minister. It was the original regimental chapel where the soldiers were expected to stand crammed into the small building for a weekly two or three hour service. When settlers arrived, the church was expanded and pews were added to the building. The foundation was also built from stone taken from Louisburg fortress and the roof was built by shipbuilders. It no longer holds regular services but can be rented for wedding and baptisms. The historical society is trying to preserve the church.

The last stop was the former Bank of Montreal built in 1817, which is the home of the Old Sydney Society where we offered tea cups of hot tea and oatcakes.

Steps 7,334

We continued further along Charlotte Street into the town’s business section passing the light green painted 1918 United Heritage Church all the way to Wentworth Park. Here there was a pretty pond with fountains. We proceeded toward the harbour and took the broad tunnel under Kings Road to the boardwalk that took us the eight blocks back to the ship. Along the boardwalk were signs explaining Sydney Harbour’s contribution to assembling merchant ship convoys during World War 2‘s Battle of the Atlantic from 1940 to 1945.

At the pier, we stopped at the Beavertails food truck and shared a beavertail pastry, our lunch. We checked our emails and uploaded the GPS maps of our walks. There were several hundred people in the Visitor Center causing the slow downloads. Steps 13,169

Back at the ship we changed and went to the Oceanview café for a light afternoon tea, since we were meeting Audrey & David and Carol & Al for dinner in about an hour. At table 217, our waiter, Soe, had made a special order yesterday for tonight’s dinner and he served us a beet and feta salad with cherry tomatoes and lettuce. We had mentioned last evening that we regretted that the beet and feta plate was no longer a menu item on the first day of the cruise. After dinner we watched the comedian, Mike Wilson’s hilarious show. Following his show, we climbed up to the Revelations Lounge on Deck 11 for the Captain’s Club Senior Officer’s Cocktail party where the dance band Dance Town was playing. We chose complimentary Cosmopolitan and Apple Martini cocktails and danced on the dance floor with only 3 or 4 other couples.

Final steps 17,263