2009-04-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

The ice is melting! We are getting the gear ready for another big season out on the water. We hope to spend a lot of time sleeping on the cobble beaches and coastal pastures out around the cape this year. There is nothing like the roar of the surf to lull tired muscles to sleep. Of course I think there is nothing like hot coffee waiting for me when I awake from my sea soothed sleep, and you can be sure Michael is good for that (early morning hot hot coffee). We hope to take a lot of you folks out for one, two or even five nights on the wilds of the cape breton highlands coast....everyone loves the line, it really does fit: where the mountains meet the sea, it's like a slightly shorter banff dumping right into the north atlantic...which is a sea of icebergs at the moment. Ah yes, not much for kayaking in just yet, but home to a lot of birthing seals, seals which have for the time being stayed out of sight on the moving ice packs from Cape bretons two token sealing boats (we did get a disproportionately large amount of CBC airtime, for the actual number of boats-2-sealing from cape breton). There are several seal colonies around Cape North, the big bulls will howl and moan to passing kayaks, while others will chase along behind. But don't worry, everyone (kayaker and seal) eats their lobster suppers separately! And so back to the sap collections for now (30 litres of golden maple syrup made so far....the birch trees will be running next up, Michael thinks he watched the first drop flow from one big golden birch today under a suprising burst of warm sunshine).

2009-03-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

Ah the sun of march after the long haul of Feburary....does it ever have one dreaming farther into summer. Can you not just picture yourself basking on some stretch of calm water, a light breeze taking off the excessive heat of the day....The only time I feel excessive heat these days is when I've been hacking a while at the ice encrusted logs from the frozen tomb of our wood pile.
There are things to look forward too-the sweet nectar of the maple syrup season-reward for the excessive digging and hauling neccessary to produce it. Here at Eagle North we've just set the seasons first test taps, though up on the hill where our forest lies the season is at least a week away. We tap 300 trees on a north facing slope that runs along the North Mountain Range, near the Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Cape Breton. Once the sap starts we'll be hauling home a couple thousand litres of sap (so good straight from the tree, if you never have you should), and boil on our old wood evapourator, and boil and boil and boil. It's never better then frest from the pot, cooled just enough to drink, 1/2 boiled or fully, it's truely magical.
But here I was thinking of summer....
This is our first blog, and we have a nice new site too...www.kayakingcapebreton.ca and utube videos.. We maple syrup and wood and write in the off season and then kayak all spring summer and fall. Thanks for reading!

Kayaking in Cape Breton