Revision of 2012
From the vantage point of 2012, this first photo essay, released 2005 November 3, is excessively minimalist: it had no introduction, only sixteen photos, and very laconic descriptions, if any: indeed, by the standards of those that followed, it was much more a slideshow than a photo essay. Bandwidth and web site storage space have greatly expanded in the interim, so what was not practical at that time has become so now. In spite of its barebones nature, it nevertheless began the series and its photos, now in much larger versions, are still worthy ones. They are presented in the order in which they were taken.
In this revision, I have left things pretty much as they were in the original; the garish red-orange background, which I then thought appropriate for a series of fall photos, has been replaced by the colours used for the rest of this web site and the captions contain a bit more information than the originals; the laconic comments, however, have been reworded in some cases, though not significantly expanded.
Since this “essay” was first published, in what has become an almost annual tradition, five more fall colours essays have followed, one each for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011 (there was none in 2010 because the weather was so bad I didn’t get enough usable photos for a photo essay of the sort that had become usual by that time); you should be able therefore to find much better coverage of Cape Breton’s fall colours on this site than the meagre selection on offer here.
In any case, I hope you enjoy the initial offering in this series, as revised.
Victor Maurice Faubert
2012 January 9
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Note 1: If you are unfamiliar with the place names mentioned in this essay, a list of map resources is given here. Of these, the best computer-readable map of Cape Breton Island that I currently know about is the Cape Breton Travel Map, produced by Destination Cape Breton and, thanks to their express written permission, available as a PDF file here; I strongly urge you to download it. This map scales nicely, allowing you to zoom in on an area of interest, has a very helpful place name index, and provides a level of detail, both of back roads and streams, that is quite good.
Note 2: See the description here for the notation I use for GPS (Global Positioning System) coördinates. I did not have a GPS device when I took the photos in this essay; the coördinates found here are those written down on later trips or computed from Google Maps; when no coördinate is given, I have been unable to reconstruct where I was exactly when the photo was taken.
Feedback on the photos and the accompanying commentary, including corrections, is always welcome; send it to the address in the footer below. All of the essays in this series are archived here.