Sunday, 2 July — Port Hood¹

I slept in late, not getting out of bed until nearly 10h10. It was a grey day, +18 (64), and puddles of standing water showed that it had rained in the night; everything is so dry that any rain is welcome. I worked on assembling Tuesday’s post from my notes. The sun was trying to come out when I left the motel around 11h45 and it felt quite humid. After getting gas in Port Hood, I drove to Whycocomagh via the paved route through Mabou and Brook Village. The sun was out in Mabou but I lost it in Skye Glen; clouds lay below the summit of “Northeast Mabou Mountain”, but not of Mabou Mountain, and below the highlands east of Skye Glen and below Whycocomagh and Skye Mountains; the temperature remained unchanged from Port Hood. A weird blinking red stop light controlled the one-lane traffic at the Skye River bridge on the Trans-Canada Highway under construction very much less effectively than a regular alternately red and green traffic light, but eventually I made it across during a gap in the nearly steady northbound traffic. I stopped in Wilburn for a panorama of the cloud-covered mountains across Whycocomagh Bay. I arrived just before 13h at the Frolic and Folk Pub in Iona after a foggy drive, so I took no other photos; it was also fogged in on the hill on which the pub overlooks the Barra Strait and the Bras d’Or Lake, so I again took no photos from there. While waiting for the music to get underway, I had dinner of a cup of chowder, a house salad, and the chicken pesto penne, all very tasty.

¹ Posted on Thursday, 13 July, for Sunday, 2 July. A couple of the photos have been replaced with alternate, but similar, versions of a bit better quality on the large screen.↩

I missed the afternoon KitchenFest! events at the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre and the Gaelic College in order to attend the Cape Breton Fiddlers’ Association fundraiser in Iona for their trip to Maxville (Ontario) for the Glengarry Highland Games at the beginning of August. As it turned out, this was so like a KitchenFest! event in sound and spirit as to make no difference. The music began with Mckayla MacNeil, Dara Smith-MacDonald, and Stephanie MacDonald on triple fiddles and with Adam Young accompanying on keyboard. Each of the fiddlers then played alone with the accompanist, usually Adam, but Susan MacLean played with Mckayla while Adam went to fetch his own keyboard and again with Stephanie. Mckayla is a wonderful young fiddler with great technical command of her instrument as well as a beautifully expressive player, as she demonstrated without cavil on a slow air I didn’t know and another one I did, both played to perfection; although she does play a set during the Cape Breton Fiddlers’ Association August concert each year, I don’t otherwise get to hear her very often, so today was an especial treat. Stephanie, whom I do get to hear a bit more frequently, was accompanied by Adam at the start and Susan later; she, too, is a fine player to whom I quite enjoy listening. Dara, who now frequently directs the Cape Breton Fiddlers’ Association, and Adam have recently released a new CD, with Brent Chaisson on guitar, The Lake Sessions, recorded by Brent at Adam’s new home on a lake off French Road (a locality between Marion Bridge and Gabarus), so they are very comfortable playing together, another combination I rarely get to hear. Several step dancers took to the floor during the various sets, including Betty Matheson, Kaye Handrahan, Stephanie first alone and then with Joan Gillis (her grandmother and sister to Jean MacNeil, mother of the Barra MacNeils), Wenda DeYoung first alone and then with Gerard Morrow, and then Kaye and Joan dancing together. The three fiddlers returned for the finale on triple fiddles with Adam accompanying. What a fine afternoon of music and dance!

Filtered sunlight brightened the area as I left Iona; the fog had lifted some over the Barra Strait, but still lay on the highlands above. I stopped off at a friend’s in Mabou and invited her and two others to join me later at the Shoe for the evening’s music; no table was available when I arrived, but I got one next to the bar after a while and ordered and ate supper (swordfish with lobster mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a tasty vegetable mixture, all excellent). My friends arrived about 20h30 when the pub was already full up and then some and I enjoyed conversing with them until the KitchenFest! cèilidh got underway on the dot of 21h when the emcee, Margie (Mrs Stanley) Beaton, opened the festivities. Tonight’s music featured Andrea Beaton and Gabrielle MacLellan on fiddles, Jackie Dunn-MacIsaac on piano, and Tom Daniels on guitar, who played much of the evening as a foursome. Two of the Red Shoe waitresses, Merissa MacNeil and Maggie Beaton, step danced together and Siobhan Beaton followed them during the same set. Rankin MacInnis on highland bagpipes, accompanied by Marion MacLeod on piano and Tom Daniels on guitar, gave us a fine set of pipe tunes and Joanne MacIntyre sang a beautiful Gaelic song in her lovely voice. After a break, Gerry Deveau surfaced for a set on spoons. A square set starting with nine and ending with eight couples was danced during the final hour. During the finale, Raymond Beaton, Dale Gillis, and Glenn Graham all step danced as did one or two ladies I was not close enough to positively identify (they mostly had their backs to me). The cèilidh went overtime, ending after 0h05. From the corner where I was sitting, the guitar was over-dominant for much of the night (a problem those I mentioned it to sitting elsewhere did not experience), but nothing could dampen my delight in the fantastic music from all the players the whole evening long.

As I drove back to Port Hood after the cèilidh, I encountered very light fog at the road level, unusual as the temperature was +19 (66) under a hazy moon. I was in bed by 1h, very content indeed after my second wonderful KitchenFest! day!