Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Bell's HD-4 hydofoil

Today was mostly spent traveling from Prince Edward Island to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Our one stop was in Baddeck at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. Bell invented the telephone in his 20’s, which made him (along with his wife’s money) and rich man. He had his summer home here to escape the busy life in Boston and Washington. The exhibit was well done, explaining how his experiments to help the deaf led to the telephone. He enjoyed experimenting and beside the telephone, also made major improvements to the phonograph, then went on to work on gigantic kites that could carry a man. He and his colleagues eventually created several aircraft models and there’s was the first plane to fly publicly for more than a kilometer. He took what he learned here and began working on hydrofoils creating a boat that held the speed record in the 1910’s. He married one of his deaf pupils and they lived their lives together dieing within 5 months of each other – a lover as well as a scientist.