Located on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, the site consists of 10 hectares of land, overlooking Baddeck Bay, part of the Bras d’Or Lakes, and Beinn Bhreagh, Bell’s summer home, where much of his scientific work was pursued.
The land slopes steeply from the exhibit complex to a small pond beside Highway 205. The Site is approximately two kilometers from the Trans Canada Highway 105, leading from Port Hawkesbury to North Sydney. It is located in a residential area on the edge of the village of Baddeck, a community of approximately 1000 people, which is the municipal and service center for Victoria County.
The site provides a center for the commemoration and interpretation of Alexander Graham Bell and his associates. It also functions as a center for the study of Bell’s scientific and humanitarian work as illustrated by the artifacts and documents preserved there.
The original part of the exhibit building (Hall A) was opened in 1956. Expansion to the building took place in the late 1970’s and 1996 has brought improved accessibility, a children’s area and the redesign of exhibits.
Best known as the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell was also one of the outstanding figures of his generation in the education of the deaf. Bell first came to Baddeck in 1885 and returned the next year to establish a vacation home for his family, far from the formality and summer heat of Washington. He regularly spent a substantial part of the year at Beinn Bhreagh and both he and his wife, Mabel Hubbard Bell, played an active role in the social and intellectual life of the village.
