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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Road Side Cafe









By contrast these vultures have my admiration, doing a tough job admirably well - the only draw back this old-timer can see is that the Black Vulture has fairly well replaced the ubiquitous Turkey Buzzard of my youth, but then invasive homo sapiens have fairly well replaced the native population here-abouts except for a remaining few crusty types like Himself!

It's Official


The lovely little town where I was born and that I grew up in and around is now officially a jerk-water tourist designation catering to the likes of these jerk-water proprietors with their jerk-water signs.  Well to every thing there is a season ...

First Floor Bedroom

The original house was built from hand-hewn oak logs cut on the property by 'Eddie' Tuonomin, a Finnish immigrant, about 1920.  Later owners covered the walls with both stucco and sheet-rock as in this small downstairs room off the kitchen from which I early on removed the sheet-rock and then using a mixture of wood glue and cement along with chicken wire as a base, filled the spaces between the logs and left the logs untreated as they were originally placed.  Eddie was an expert with the hewing adze leaving the logs roughly squared and somewhat smooth with the adze strokes clearly visible.  The only rough faced logs were where the sheet-rockers had hacked away some of the natural sway or curve of the log in order to lay the rigidly smooth sheet-rock,  This is my way of testimony to the labor of those early immigrants to this little oasis of natural wood land on the peninsula between the rivers.

Green Mars