Taken 2009 March 29 in the Polletts Cove Aspy Fault Wilderness Area
from south of McEvoys Barren on North Mountain
GPS 46°53.???'N 60°36.???'W
This photograph is copyright © 2009 by Hector Hines,
remains the sole property of the photographer,
and has been used here with explicit permission.
This superb winter photo looks to the east from south of McEvoys Barren towards White Point, which lies just right of centre in the far distance. Immediately below the snowy ridge in the foreground lies the valley carved by Grays Hollow Brook,¹ which turns to the east a bit left of centre of the photo and flows out past Tenerife Mountain (the highest prominence here left of centre of the photo) to enter the North Aspy River close to the bridge over the latter on the road connecting the communities of Cape North Village and Bay St Lawrence. The locality of Grays Hollow lies on the southern flank of Tenerife Mountain; Bill Danielson’s ever informative Cape Breton Weather Watching for the naturally curious tells us that “[a] patch [of snow] on the high slopes of Gray’s Hollow in northern Cape Breton lasts into July nearly every year” and provides a photo showing one in 2002.² The Aspy Fault runs along the eastern (far) side of Tenerife Mountain in a southwesterly to northeasterly direction.
Except for the coastal areas along Aspy Bay (including White Point) and a section of the Cabot Trail running from the community of Cape North to Big Intervale below North Mountain (none these latter are visible here), the bulk of this view lies within the Polletts Cove Aspy Fault Wilderness Area; the Cape Breton Highlands National Park abuts it on the south (again, not visible here) but can be seen in the far distance at the far right of the photo.
The Cape Bretons Highlands’ heavily accidented terrain is one of the glories of Cape Breton Island in any season, easily visible from the aforementioned road connecting Cape North Village and Bay St Lawrence or, further away, from the road running from South Harbour to Smelt Brook to White Point. But never before have I seen these lands from so far inland nor under the stark beauty and clarity of a winter’s mantle of white. Breathtakingly beautiful indeed!
¹ Spelt with ‘a’, not ‘e’, in all maps and sources available to me.↩
² Cape Breton University Press, Sydney, 2007 [ISBN-13: 978-1-897009-13-0; ISBN-10: 1-897009-13-5], p. 57.↩