By CINDA CHAVICH

(CAPE BRETON ISLAND, N.S.) - I’ve been on the Ceilidh Trail for only two days when I spot my first Rankin sister.

There she is, pretty Heather Rankin, at the Red Shoe Pub in Mabou. It’s 6 p.m. on a warm fall evening and the place is packed. But Heather is not harmonizing sweetly with her sisters Cookie and Raylene tonight - she’s standing next to my table and asking how I like the tourtière.

The thick slab of meat pie, smothered in gravy and served Cape Breton-style, with her Aunt Mary Lorette’s bread dressing, is delicious, a specialty at this cozy restaurant-cum-pub owned and operated by the famous trio. It’s like everything I’ve encountered so far on Cape Breton Island - warm, accessible and authentic.

I’ve come to Cape Breton - the land of step dancers and fiddlers - to explore all things Celtic. There’s a Celtic vein running through much of our Canadian musical history, and much of it can be traced to this rocky island.

This little corner of Canada has spawned so many Juno award winners – from Rita MacNeil and Natalie MacMaster to the aforementioned family of Rankins – that it’s hard to turn around without bumping into someone who is connected to this Canadian style of Celtic music, and the living culture that’s so steeped in it.  Everywhere I look there’s a notice stuck to a telephone pole or a town hall door, announcing another ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee). That’s Gaelic for a party featuring musicians and dancing, and there’s at least one, somewhere around here, nearly every night.

You might just luck out and see one of the famed Rankins take the stage, or run across some other local talent – from MacMaster to Ashley MacIsaac or the Barra MacNeils – all purveyors of their own unique east coast style.

In Halifax, where the Juno awards weekend is in full swing, the legendary pubs like The Lower Deck and the Halifax Alehouse have helped nurture a lively local music scene that’s spawned hot new talents like Sloan and The Trews.

But on Cape Breton Island, The Red Shoe is ceilidh central. Along with the poutine, “westside” chowder and sticky toffee pudding on the menu, the Rankin Sisters serve up Cape Breton’s most famous export, Celtic-Canadian music. A poster behind the pub’s historic storefront window announces a different musician every night of the week - well-known locals like fiddlers MairiRankin, Andrea Beaton and Dougie MacDonald.

The Rankins (and the Beatons and the MacDonalds) all still live in this part of Cape Breton as their forefathers did. They were among the Scots who crossed the pond 200 years ago during the infamous Highland Clearances, forced from their homes due to economic hardships or evicted by British “lairds” who preferred sheep over tenant farmers.

Thousands arrived on the shores of Cape Breton Island, a remote and isolated corner of Nova Scotia, from 1780 to 1840. With its rugged Atlantic coastline, and huge saltwater Bras d’Or Lake, Cape Breton must have reminded the Scottish Gaels of the islands they left behind, sort of a surrogate Isle of Skye complete with mountains, glens and lochs.

These early Highland immigrants arrived in geographical groups and stayed put where they settled - thus, the MacNeil clan from the Isle of Barra (like the Barra MacNeils of pop-folk music fame) came en masse and still populate the area around Iona in Cape Breton.

They arrived with their particular dialects of the Gaelic language, traditional songs and stories, and today Cape Breton is one of the few places in the world where that Highland culture, and it’s regional nuances, is still largely in intact. It’s become kind of a living museum for those keen to preserve their Gaelic traditions - a place that in some ways is more traditionally Scottish than Scotland.

A Scottish visitor sitting in on a Gaelic language lesson with Professor Hector MacNeil at the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts at St. Ann’s calls Cape Breton “the jewel in the crown of our Gaelic culture in Scotland.”

“Without this, we wouldn’t have had hard evidence that this culture was so precious,” he says.

MacNeil describes Cape Breton as “a cultural outpost of Gaelic” - a place where a study found 27 different dialects of speech in people across the island, the kind of Gaelic once spoken in isolated Scottish outposts like North Uist, Mull and Muck. Today, Scots come to the college to relearn the language, or study old step dances and the kind of fiddle and pipe tunes particular to each dance.

“So Cape Breton becomes a microcosm of Scotland,” MacNeil says, “a place where the Highlanders transferred local traditions, whole and intact. It’s the last Gaelic area in North America where you still hear Gaelic spoken in the community.”

Whatever the impetus for the 19th-century clearances, the disappearance of the population was so complete that the only evidence a modern Highlander in Scotland has of ancestral life is in museums. Scots were made to feel ashamed of their folk culture. Traditional piping was militarized - now the domain of pipe bands - while traditional fiddlers learned classical music. The Gaelic language is now considered “endangered” by organizations like UNESCO.

But on Cape Breton Island, customs and traditions which were eliminated from the culture in the homeland, have been kept alive for two centuries. Thanks to schools like the Gaelic College - founded in 1938 to preserve Celtic language and culture, and the only institution of its kind in North America - traditional Scottish music, dance and arts like weaving and kilt-making flourish.

Gaelic is still seen here on sign posts, still spoken by elder “Capers” and taught at schools. While other Canadian kids study French or Chinese as a second language, in towns like Mabou, Gaelic is part of the kindergarten-to-Grade 12 curriculum. And young musicians, like the Rankin sisters and their Cape Breton contemporaries, keep it alive and popular in their songs and performances.

At the Highland Museum - a living museum featuring costumed interpreters and historic buildings gathered from throughout the region - the strains of Highland pipes fill the air as I leave my car. It’s a world of homespun and shaggy Highland cows, where Gaelic is spoken and the lilt of the language permeates every conversation.

The museum sits near the town of Iona, named for the Hebredian island that traces its roots to the Irish saint who first brought Christianity to the Highlands. The replica “black house” - a round Highland-style dwelling with its stone walls and peaked thatched roof - recalls what the immigrant Scots left behind, while the wool mill, historic church, and log cabin speak to the new lives they created here.

“Gaelic is the working language here on the site,” says Seumas (a.k.a. Jim) Watson, the Gaelic co-ordinator at the museum. As we sit next to the open hearth in one of the historic homes that dot the hilly property, he breaks into one of the 1,000 Gaelic songs collected from people around the island. The music and stories are preserved and passed down here from older Cape Bretoners to younger ones, as they once were among family clans throughout the island.

Some historians have likened the Highland clearances, which sent so many Scots to Cape Breton, to modern-day “ethnic cleansing.” After their victories over the Jacobites in the 1700s, the British banned Gaelic language and customs, including the wearing of clan tartans and playing of bagpipes, in part to break down the fiercely proud Highland communities. Such political and economic strife forced families to scatter, with as many as 70,000 people leaving Scotland for North American colonies.

Scots bound for better lives, first settled in the Maritimes, but many also headed to western Canada, naming places like Calgary and Banff for the homes they left in the Highlands. Colourful Scots figure prominently in Canadian history - from the country’s first prime minister to many of the two million Canadians who can trace their roots to Scotland today.

The culture brought to Canada by these early Scots is woven deeply into our own traditions. Scratch almost anyone and you’ll likely find a Celt or two in the family tree, a kilt or a fiddle in the closet, which makes a trip to Cape Breton like a journey back home.

Special to The Globe and Mail 2006

IF YOU GO:

The Celtic Music Centre in Judique (www.celticmusicsite.com) offers live music and dance demonstrations by local musicians, plus a listening centre and archives where more than 200 Cape Breton musicians share anecdotes and musical history on tape. It’s also the logical place to plan any musical tour through the region, with a detailed Celtic Music Events Registry, listing ceilidhs and other small performances across Cape Breton Island. The Celtic Colours Festival – an annual 10-day event featuring dozens of local and internationally-reknowned Celtic musicians – is held each October (www.celtic-colours.com)

FOR FOOD AND DRINK:

The Red Shoe Pub in Mabou (Rankin Sisters, proprietors) is a great place for contemporary Cape Breton-style pub food and an ongoing schedule of live, local music. Whether it’s the maple smoked salmon cake (a take on the traditional salt cod cake, made with potatoes, caramelized shallots and house-smoked salmon), a braised chicken pub pie, or a pan-roasted salmon filet served with potato and kale colcannon and green tomato chow, it’s a menu that features fresh local products served in the Gaelic tradition.

Up the road at the Glenora Inn & Distillery (www.GlenoraDistillery.com) – the only single malt whisky produced in the Scottish tradition in Canada – husband and wife chefs John Haines and Tracey Wallace are turning out sophisticated regional Cape Breton cuisine.

Of course lobster turns up on most menus – in lobster rolls, crepes, pasta dishes and simply steamed – and you’ll find other Celtic-inspired specialties, from salmon to oat cakes and creamy fish chowders. Perhaps the best place to contemplate island life is in front of the big fireplace in the cosy lounge at the seaside Pictou Lodge Resort (www.maritimeinns.com), watching the sun set in this old-fashioned summer camp setting.

WHERE TO STAY: The Keltic Lodge is a lovely, sprawling hotel (circa.1920s) that morphed from a wealthy American’s summer home to a provincially-owned lodge, now privately operated and set in a national park on the cliffs of windswept Middle Head Peninsula. The rooms are small but with the kind of historical quirkiness that makes them fun. There’s a new spa and a breakfast buffet with maple bread pudding and Keltic fish cakes. Golfers will come for the famed Highland Links course next door.

For a truly personal experience, visit the Chanterelle Country Inn near Baddeck, where innkeeper and chef Earlene Busch will wow you with her “Cape Breton Fresh” cuisine. Featuring local and organic ingredients, from a dip of locally-caught crab to a delicious cheesecake with a surprise, candied chanterelle topping made with mushrooms from the property, the food is eclectic and exciting. Her pretty suites incorporate her own personal art, antiques and collections which make staying here akin to visiting a favourite friend. This environmentally-friendly property is smoke-free and “green” for the sensitive traveler (1-866-277-0577, www.chanterelleinn.com).

FOR INFORMATION: There are festivals and musical events throughout the island all year round, from family square dances to fiddler concerts and ceilidhs. Contact Nova Scotia Tourism at www.novascotia.com or Cape Breton visitor information centres at www.cbisland.com (festival events line: 1-888-562-9848)

©Cinda Chavich

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