The Old, Abandoned Homesteads of Cape Breton

A few hundred years ago, Europeans (mostly of French and Scottish descent) started settling on the island.  The now quiet rural areas of Cape Breton were once bustling communities.  The very remote area of Framboise on the south coast of the island was much busier 100 years ago than it is now.  Today, it's much like a ghost town.  Businesses that once flourished closed and old family homesteads were left to deteriorate after residents headed out west and to the eastern United States in search of work.  When I come across an old home like this one pictured, I often wonder if there are grandchildren and great-grand children somewhere, perhaps in Calgary, Toronto or Boston, who have no idea that their old family home still stands in a desolate corner of Cape Breton.  Unfortunately, this old home burned down not long after I took this photo but many more just like it are still standing in remote areas of the island.  Left just as they were when their inhabitants reluctantly walked away, perhaps thinking that, someday, they would return. 

This old home must have once been beautiful before it was left to deteriorate. At well over 100 years old, it's owners are long gone but it's rugged and aged beauty graced an overgrown plot of land on Crooked Lake Road until it burned down a few years back.  My curiosity got the better of me one day and I peaked inside and on the floor in the porch was old newspapers from the 1930s.  Imagine newspapers almost a century old and still intact!