West Mabou Panorama

Another of my all-time favourite views is from the corner of West Mabou Road and the Cèilidh Trail (Highway 19). Endowed with a kiosk, picnic tables, and a parking lot in 2008, this lovely location along the Railway Trail (a part of the Trans-Canada Trail that has been recently rebranded as the Celtic Shores Coastal Trail) is a fine spot to begin and end a hike and to rest up afterwards. I frequently stop there to enjoy the sunsets, which can be very pretty there, and to soak in the views of which I never tire. These photos were taken in the morning of my next-to-last day on Cape Breton Island on my drive north to Meat Cove, just as the grey skies of the morning were beginning to open up and offer a promise of a better trip than I had expected.

Photo #1, taken at the widest angle of which my camera is capable, captures only a portion of the panorama that greets one here; there is considerably more to the left and to the right that is not included in the photos on this page. The water immediately in the foreground is Big Cove, which receives the outflow of one of the two mouths of the Southwest Mabou River; beyond Murphy Point, seen in the centre of the photo, is the Mabou River, which flows on majestically to the Gulf at Mabou Harbour Mouth. The boathouse at the far left sits on the near side of Nicholsons Island, beside the aforementioned mouth of the Southwest Mabou River;¹ the other mouth lies on the far side of Nicholsons Island and flows out into the Mabou on the far side of the unnamed point on Nicholsons Island across from Murphy Point. Dominating the entire scene are southeastern (at the left and into the centre) and eastern (from the centre to the far right) flanks of the Cape Mabou Highlands. Northeast Mabou sits below Cape Mabou to the right of centre. It is interesting to compare last year’s version of this scene with this one: the post-peak colours on the Highlands in the photo above make an interesting contrast to the pre-peak colours in that photo, which admittedly has the benefit of a much better day, sky, and lighting.

Photos #2 through #6 form a connected panorama at a longer focal length providing more detail of this beautiful panorama.

Photo #2 looks at the mouth of the Southwest Mabou and the boathouse across from Nicholsons Island. Not many deciduous trees are visible across the centre of this photo, running out to the unnamed point on Nicholsons Island, but those that are appear in various stages of change, nicely reflected in the placid waters of Big Cove, from the bright red right of centre to the green/orange mixtures on the unnamed point to barely changed green trees to the left of the bright red tree. The marsh grasses to the right of the boathouse along the mouth have a lovely reddish glow. At this same time last year, most of the deciduous trees were still at the very early stages of change, if they had changed at all, and the marsh grasses were decidedly greener, though showing some change.

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¹ The original version of this text incorrectly stated that the boathouse was on Nicholsons Island, where my head had mistakenly always put it. A close look at photo #2 does show what appears to be a water channel on this side of the boathouse, but other photos I have show that channel is but a short marshy inlet of Big Cove. The boathouse can clearly be seen in Google Maps on the peninsula stretching from the kiosk to the bridge and a 2010 photo I have in my collection confirms that mouth is on the far side of the boathouse below the birches left of centre. I am indebted to Mike Little for this correction; my apologies for the error.↩

Photo #3 looks between Nicholsons Island on the left and Murphys Point on the right across the Mabou River to Mabou Harbour on the southern flanks of Cape Mabou; the lovely green fields and the barns at the right attest to the farming activity carried on there; a few cattle can be seen in the original on the brownish field at the far right but compression has made them too indistinct to see in this version. Most of the deciduous trees on the upper reaches of the slopes are already bare, though some late post-peak colour remains above the edges of the fields. The objects in the waters of Big Cove are, as best as I can tell from a web search, part of an oyster operation.

Photo #4 looks across Big Cove to Murphy Point and the Cape Mabou Highlands at the point where they turn to the north behind Northeast Mabou. The grasses next to the water on the far side of the cove show nearly as much colour as the deciduous trees across Big Cove, though there is a nice red tree; magnification again shows that those on the slopes of Cape Mabou are mostly bereft of their leaves.

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Photo #5 looks along the eastern slopes of Cape Mabou above Northeast Mabou. A bit more colour is showing in the trees across Big Cove, but many bare trees are to be seen there as well. Again, the great mantle of pre-peak colour seen towards the end of last year’s fall colours essay draped across the entire eastern slopes of Cape Mabou is missing in action, with most of the trees bare and the rest quite dull. The trip I took the next day along the Northeast Mabou Road and out to Glenora Falls confirmed the poor colours on the slopes.

Photo #6 completes the panorama covered in photo #1. The occasional red tree can be seen across the cove amongst the evergreens, but numerous bare trees are there too. Disappointing, really: if there was any peak at all, it arrived in the few preceding days when the weather was poor. Nevertheless, the lack of autumnal colour can in no way diminish the glorious landscape seen from this grand vantage point!