DAY EIGHT--SYDNEY, NOVA SCOTIA

It was Sydney's bad luck to be a scheduled port stop the day following Charlottetown.  Whereas, I thought everything about Charlottetown was wonderful, Sydney was the sad remainder of a town down on its luck.  At one time it had been a thriving manufacturing community producing high grade steel fired by coal from the surrounding mines.  But years passed and times changed.  The industries are long gone, and with them the spirit that drove this community for decades.  Now, it's hanging on, hoping the cruise ships will postpone its last gasp.

I have to say this...I have struggled for days (turning into weeks) on the appropriate thing to say about our day in Sydney.  I don't want to sound ungrateful--we're extremely fortunate to be on a cruise, for heaven's sake.  But, there was very little to redeem Sydney, and I actually felt a bit guilty walking through town.

             

That's not to say we didn't find interesting sites in Sydney.  Here, BC is standing in the loft of the oldest Roman Catholic Church in Cape Breton, the first stop of our "walkaround".  St. Patrick's, now a museum, was built in 1828 although the area was settled much earlier.  The first priest to come to Sydney, Father Henry MacKeagney, was determined to save the souls of the local Micmac people and, to that end, helped create a written language for them.

As much as I've tried to translate, using the few versions I know, I'm lost.

 

Why denture clinics?  Bad water?  Bad hygiene?  I took these photos with the idea of finding something clever to say about them, but there really isn't anything.  They're simply symptomatic of the pervasive low-grade depression that hangs over this community, along with the heavy gray clouds.

 

Yes, Sacred Heart is a lovely little church, but look at the congregants.  Older women.  I don't see a man at all, except for the glimpse of a priest in the corner.  Now, I'm more than aware that can happen in the normal scheme of things (I do live in a retirement community), but this seems too much.  Simple old age...or decades of man-killing hours in the mines and foundries?   

 

Even sugar didn't brighten the afternoon. This extremely nice young man is valiantly hanging on to his little shop and mixing very good fudge in the process.  He sells unique gift items, many flavors of ice cream, and hosts live music on the weekends.  I hope he makes it, but we were his only customers.

 

We watched a particularly poignant documentary in the Cape Breton Centre for Science and Heritage on George Street.  It must have lasted an hour and was extremely well done.  As the years unspooled  before us--discovery, exploration, settlement, growth, industry, growth, middle-class, growth, smiles and laughter, WWII ended, gradual decline, shocked faces, closed factories, lowered heads, tearful eyes, shaken voices...silence.

 

There is a sad place in my heart for the people of Sydney.  They are holding on tightly.