The Cabot Trail has a reputation to live up to, and its start in Baddeck is the polite part. The loop of about three hundred kilometres around the Cape Breton Highlands was finished in the early 1930s, after years of work, and named after the explorer John Cabot, who sailed along these coasts in 1497, although nobody knows exactly where he landed. The park it circles was created in 1936, and the road is still the main reason most people come. Baddeck is where many riders start, with a tank of fuel and a big breakfast.
The heart of the island is Gaelic. Scottish Highlanders, cleared from their land in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, settled here in large numbers, and Cape Breton still keeps the music, the language and the stubbornness they brought. A few kilometres away at St. Anns, the Gaelic College teaches fiddle, piping, Gaelic song and step dancing, and across the island there are kitchen parties, ceilidhs and dances in church halls, where fiddlers play till late. It is worth timing a visit to catch one. In the villages along the trail you will hear Gaelic place names and Acadian French in the west, around Cheticamp, where the Acadian culture is equally strong.
What follows the start is some of the best riding in eastern Canada. The road climbs and drops over headlands with broad, well-sighted curves, plunges into forest and then bursts out on cliffs above the Atlantic, and the views over the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the ridges north of Pleasant Bay are the highlight. Traffic is heavy in July and August, with motorhomes crawling up the steep sections, and the best time is September, when the maples blaze red against the dark spruce and the roads are quieter. Moose wander across the highway at dawn and dusk, and a collision with one is a serious matter, so slow down in the forested sections.
Baddeck has fuel and supermarkets, but stations are far apart on the northern part of the loop, so fill up before you leave and again at Cheticamp. Try the lobster rolls, a chowder or a plate of oatcakes with butter, and book accommodation in summer, since the trail fills up. Weather changes fast on the headlands, with fog and wind coming off the sea, so pack a warm layer and waterproofs.