52 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



THE BAY OF ST. ANNS, CAPE BRETON, THE PORT OF EMBARKATION FOR THAT STRANGE 



HEGIRA TO NEW ZEALAND (SEE PAGE 53) 



time, connects the lake waters with the 

 Strait of Canso. 



"I have wanted to see the Bras d'Or 

 Lakes," said a summer visitor recently, 

 "since my first trip through the Canadian 

 Rockies. We had with us a well-known 

 guide, who listened patiently to our 

 raptures until one of the young girls of 

 the party turned to him and cried en- 

 thusiastically, 'How inspiring it must be 

 to live always in the midst of this mag- 

 nificent scenerv !' 'Scenery!' he said. 

 almost contemptuously. 'If you want to 

 see scenery. Miss, go down to the Bras 

 d'Or* Lakes, in Cape Breton, where I 

 was born; that's where vou'll see scen- 

 ery!'" 



This inland waterway was of great 

 strategic value to the French, as at a later 



* Though the name "Bras d'Or" (literally arm 

 of gold) is usually considered a descriptive term 

 original with the French, it is plain from the 

 first charts of the island that the present spell- 

 ing is simply the French rendering of the 

 earlier name, "Labrador." It is an interesting 

 conjecture whether that romantic Portuguese 

 navigator who named "Terra Labrador" to the 

 north may have first found his way into this 

 magnificent waterway and given it the name it 

 still bears. 



period it was a valuable means of trans- 

 portation — indeed, the only means of 

 transportation at first — to the Highland 

 Scottish settlers. Today it affords easy 

 access to the markets of the Sydneys for 

 the farmers of the interior, no less than 

 a natural playground for the people of 

 the industrial centers. 



ONE OF THE WORLD'S FINEST YACHTING 

 COURSES 



Here is one of the finest yachting 

 courses in the world, with deep-sea cruis- 

 ing within easy reach of sheltered har- 

 bors, deep-water fishing, and sea-bathing. 

 With only a few inches of tide, there are 

 no untidy beaches or mud flats and no 

 "head current when homeward bound." 



It was Charles Dudley Warner who 

 said : "The Bras d'Or is the most beauti- 

 ful salt-water lake I have ever seen, and 

 more beautiful than we had imagined a 

 body of salt water could be. Certainly, 

 as we glided out upon the summer waters 

 and began to get the graceful outlines of 

 the widening shores, it seemed as if we 

 had taken passage to the Fortunate Isles. 

 The most electric American, heir of all 



