14

Quarn or grinding stone
Circa 1800
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

15

Interpreter creating Barvisware pottery
11 July 2007
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Maria MacMillan

16

Type of first shelter for settlers
16 September 2000
Pictou, NS

Credits:
Rodney Chaisson

17

What type of shelter the settlers used that first year while they were building their permant home is not known. It may have been the style shown here, a type of lean-to or shelter made of spruce branches. Oral history also says some lived on the shore under the very boat they had sailed in to get to the land.

18

Log cabin
9 September 2000
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Pauline MacLean

19

The first permanant home was the log cabin. Cape Breton was heavily treed down to the shore in most places. The settlers cut the trees and used them to build the cabin. Dirt floors and boughs on the roof had to do until better came along. The openings between the logs were chinked with moss and clay to keep out the wind. Windows came later when they were able to get glass. A stone fire place stood at one end and was used for light and heat. The stumps remaining were burned and potatoes were planted amoung them. The ash from the fires made a good fertilizer for growth.

20

Interior of log cabin
9 September 2000
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Rodney Chaisson

21

Fire place in the log cabin
26 August 2006
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Pauline MacLean

22

Hands at the milling table
18 August 2005
Inverness, Inverness County, NS
TEXT ATTACHMENT


23

As the people settled into their life in Cape Breton, they cleared land, planted crops and added livestock to their farms. One story tells of the settler who, in 1822, walked to Pictou to buy a cow and drove it back to his home in Cape Breton. As more people came to live in Cape Breton, saw mills and saw pits were built. From the timber on their property, boards were sawn to make the frame house. One such home, built in 1829, is located at the Highland Village Museum. Also called a centre chimny house because of the large stone chimny which went through the centre of the house and supported the frame, it had multiple rooms and windows to fit the growing families. Life for the settlers was difficult and required that they be self-sufficient. Cloth was woven on a loom and prepared for use by milling as shown in the preceeding photo. Wetting the cloth and pounding it on a rough table would soften the fibres and shrink them as well. Rythmic milling songs were sung by the people as the cloth was passed from hand to hand.

24

1830's house at Highland Village
Circa 2005
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

25

Kitchen table in the 1829 house
26 August 2006
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Pauline MacLean

26

Kitchen of 1829 house
26 August 2006
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Pauline MacLean

27

Cooking in the fireplace
9 September 2000
Highland Village Museum, Victoria County, NS

Credits:
Rodney Chaisson