7-2015 Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia

There are two Canadian sayings about Cape Breton—–both very appropriate. “Where the mountains meet the sea” and “God’s masterpiece.”   I would have to agree with both.   These pictures show why it has received these names. These are a few scenes of the coastline within 15 minutes of where we were camping.

The water on the west side of Nova Scotia seen in these pictures is the Gulf of St Lawrence, much smaller than the Gulf of Mexico. It has frozen for the last two winters. The snowfall here is measured in feet! We were told that because of the gulf creating so much moisture as fronts move across the island, the snowfall is incredible. I cannot imagine what it would be like to live through a winter here. Imagine what this picture would look like with the water frozen and 5-10 feet of snow on top of it. Wow.

We spent three days camping inside the National Park on the western side of Cape Breton NP near the small town of Cheticamp. After exploring this side of the park, we moved to the west side for two more days.  This shows where we were near Cheticamp.

The famous Cabot Trail is a renowned scenic drive that goes around much of Cape Breton Island. When Canada made this a national park in the 30’s, much of the Cabot Trail was inside the park. The Cabot trail is one of the top 10 cycling destinations in the world according to park literature. My National Geographic travel guide voted it one of the most scenic drives in North America!  I agree.

We did quite a bit of hiking to explore this park. One trail we hiked was the Skyline Trail  and 35,000 people hike it every summer.  It is best known for the dramatic sunsets so we could not resist. We chose a guided hike to take advantage of learning from the conservationist. Sunset here was at 8:55 pm. The hike started at 7. We drove to a high elevation on the Cabot Trail to the trailhead. That made the hike fairly flat and easy but with the reward of the high vista and views of the western shore and shoreline.   Here is a picture of our guide.

He has lived here in Cheticamp for 25 years—spent his career in banking and finance but semi-retired to work as a park interpretive guide. He loves the outdoors and nature. Among other things, he guides this hike and teaches about the park 3 nights a week.

This picture is a park service aerial photo of the end of the skyline trail—it shows how it is literally on a narrow ridge at the crest of this mountain.

This next picture of Celia is at the end of the skyline trail—-looking south down the coast from the ridge. You see the road below her? That’s the Cabot Trail as it turns inland from the shoreline and moves across the park.  This was taken about 10 minutes before sunset.

I made these pictures the next day from the road below to show where we were. In the zoomed image, you can see people hiking the trail.  Because this is a fragile area for mountain vegetation, they have built a long boardwalk for the last 100 yards along this ridge to allow hikers to access this amazing spot and still protect the area.

I have never witnessed a sunset where there was absolutely nothing occluding the sun.   The different shades of orange were just brilliant.   Scroll down to see this sunset.   Amazing and definitely worth the 3 hour hike!!

One of the unique features of Cape Breton is the diversity of forests here. The most common is called a Boreal forest —which is made up of mostly spruce and fir trees. Our guide explained to us a concern here on Cape Breton relating to this beautiful Boreal forest. The overpopulation of moose eating the balsam fir trees and parasite infestation are destroying the forest.  Here’s the story…By 1900, the native moose population had been hunted to extinction on Cape Breton island. Soon after establishing the park, the park service decided to reintroduce moose to the island.   They moved 18 adult moose from another location around 1940 and released them here. After several years—the moose population really began to increase–at it’s height there were 8000 moose counted inside the park.  Now there are 4000 and that is still too many. In addition, around 1970, there was an infestation of the spruce budworm which destroyed many of the trees. The moose’s favorite food here in the winter is the tender needles of the Balsam fir trees, so they also damage or destroy many trees. As new trees try to grow —-the moose eat them. This is a picture along the road of a healthy Boreal forest.

On our hike—we passed through some areas where the forest has not been able to regenerate properly from the spruce budworm infestation and moose damage.  The forest in these areas is being replaced with grasslands.  Once this happens—it’s difficult for the reforestation to occur.

These next two shots were made across to another mountain of a damaged area and a normal area of forest.

These next few pictures show trees that have been damaged by moose but are still alive. Notice that the middle part of the trees are damaged. The bottom 4-5 feet is buried in snow and the moose eat the part that they can reach.   This makes an interesting looking damaged tree to me.

One solution the Canadian Park Service is trying is to build “moose proof” exclosures (to keep moose out). They will fill these areas with new trees and see if they can aide reforestation.   It is planned to leave this exclosure in place for 10 years. They are also looking at other options to the moose problem like opening the park up to limited moose hunting, etc.

One thing that surprised us is the beautiful wildflowers that grow here. This was the most unusual one to us. These next few pictures are of an insect eating plant called the Purple Pitcher Plant.

There were quite a few wild orchids growing.

We also ran across this variety of wild roses.

We went on a hike that went along the coast through an area that was inhabited by a community of French immigrants. They lived here from about 1840 until the park service bought their land in the 1930’s. At one time there were about 10 families living on this bluff and the park service moved them out. This is the foundation of a small home of a family with 10 children. The men here made a living from fishing and lobstering. It was a tough existence.

While we were hiking this bluff — I looked out on this beach toward the small community of Cheticamp. This is at the southwestern border of the national park. Note—the air temp was about 64, it was quite windy, and the surf temperature is 45-48 degrees. These Canadians are amazing. They are swimming in this water!!! We are all bundled up and they are in shorts, T-shirts or sleeveless tops.

when you zoom in on the same picture—

Lastly—we took a hike in a hardwood forest in one of the valleys.  On our way there—we took this picture overlooking the small village of Pleasant Bay.  People live here year round.

Look at this coast line right north of Pleasant Bay.  Check out the neat cloud formations over the mountain.

The island has many mountain valleys, rivers, and creeks.  This adds to the diversity.

We hiked in this hardwood forest in an mountain valley.  This is one of the oldest, untouched sugar maple forests in Canada.  This forest is 97% sugar maple trees.  According to park literature–this is a very healthy forest.  Look at all the seedlings growing.  Many of these adult trees here are 200-300 years old.

This was the reward at the end of the trail for hiking on this day.

We did all of this in 3 nights, 2 days.  To say the least–we were tired.  One last adventure on our 3rd night here will be my next post before we moved to the west side of the park.