What's It All About, eh?

Cape Breton evokes deep memories and strong emotions for me as well as a deep appreciation for the beauty of my adopted island. My hopes are that you too might find the photos evocative - maybe a view you've not enjoyed before, or an 'Oh I've been there', or if from away that you may be encouraged to visit this fair isle so that you might come to love and breathe Cape Breton as I do. One word about place names that I use - some are completely local usage while others are from maps of Cape Breton that I've purchased over the years. I frequently post travel and other photos that are of interest to me - and hopefully you.

On the right hand side bar find my take on Single Malt whiskey - from how to best enjoy this noble drink to reviews (in a most non-professional manner) of ones that I have tried and liked - or not. Also musings, mine and others, on life in general.

Photographs are roughly 98%+ my own and copy-righted. For the occasional photo that is borrowed, credit is given where possible - recently I have started posting unusual net photographs that seem unique. Feel free to borrow any of my photos for non-commercial use, otherwise contact me. Starting late in 2013 I have tried to be consistent in identifying my photographs using ©smck on all out of camera photos I personally captured - (I often do minor computer changes such as 'crop' or 'shadow' etc but usually nothing major), and using
©norvellhimself on all photos that I have played around with in case it might not be obvious. Lately I have dropped the ©smck and have watermarked them with the blog name.

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"Out To The Arundel" - an old expression from when I was a kid


There now is a gathering of condominiums at the head of the North East River which is called North East Isles.  A nice long pier - shown above - is one of the amenities offered for living snug-by-jowl with your neighbor.  This pier is set up nicely for moorings and bears the appropriate signage stating that it is for residents only, 

but years ago, another pier - locally called The Arundel Pier - in the same location was built to contain a small spur from the Pennsylvania Railroad used to bring in open-top freight cars in which to load the unending streams of gravel brought in by barge from various open mining pits and from dredges that were mining the waters of the river it self - my dad as a budding young man worked there as a 'loader' shoveling eight hours a day with other labourers (for a pittance I'm sure) - over time the mining of gravel continued through out the county but the means of hauling shifted to large 'gravel-trucks' that lumbered day and night through-out the area - and by this time I was a young teen-ager and the 'Old Arundel' was vacateds creating a small magnet for teen-aged boys by days and drunken tramps by night - it was dangerous diving and swimming into the deep waters for down along the bottom all manner of debris was strewn from the halcyon days of uncontrolled dumping of any cast-offs anywhere and especially into the all cleansing sight of open water and especially for some reason the dumping of dozens upon dozens of wire coils which where like a modern denizen of the netherworld waiting to ensnare the unaware - it was a place specifically banned to me by my father but those bans have been broken through untold generations of parents and kid and I have memories of several 'close encounters' of harrowing kind - but those will be for another day



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