Contributor Shelley Cameron McCarron takes us on a journey around Canada's beautiful outpost and introduces us to the people and places that make Cape Breton so special.

WALLACE, NS — I gaze in wonderment as the setting sun silhouettes a small lighthouse standing on the jagged coastline where the mind-blowing Fox Harb’r Resort drifts off into the Northumberland Strait. It’s a Maritime scene worthy of a frame.

HALIFAX - Here we were, at 12,000 metres, looking out over the royal blue skies and the fluffy cloud carpet below. Across the aisle, excited and distinctly Scottish accents engaged in rapid conversation made us both smile. My wife, Lorraine, had long wanted to take her Glaswegian parents on a road trip through New Scotland to see its beauty and to experience its culture. None of us were getting younger — her parents in their late 70s — so for Christmas we gave them this trip.

HALIFAX - Dusk lingers, picture-perfect, over Halifax Harbour; a silver moon on the rise, a lighthouse blinking in the distance, skies glowing purple and pink. All along Harbourwalk, a 10-city-block-long path stretching from Casino Nova Scotia in the north to Pier 21 in the south, buskers perform their final shows before dark descends. Fiddle and horn players, accordionists, creators of giant balloons — they all attract holiday crowds.

ANNAPOLIS VALLEY, N.S. - When you conjure up images of Nova Scotia, it’s hard not to imagine rough Atlantic waters filled with seafaring stories, or scenes of small fishing villages, the kind that jut out along a shoreline enveloped by fog and boasting docks lined with wooden lobster traps.

CAPE BRETON ISLAND, N.S. - This magical island that juts out of the Atlantic east of Nova Scotia, is a Canadian treasure, offering one the most awe-inspiring looped drives in the world. It’s no wonder Cape Breton is often singled out by respected publications like National Geographic as one of the world’s must-see places.

BANFF, ALBERTA - Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer were once asked to design a golf course combining the best 18 holes they had played around the world.