Looking Downriver
from the First Side Trail above the First Pool

Two minutes after leaving the First Pool, one arrives at a knoll whereon one sees a stone wall and a cabin for the use of the park wardens. Two minutes after that, one comes to a side trail to the rocks below. Thus, the downriver view here is four minutes above the First Pool.

I did not notice any signage for the “Chance Pool”, which Clarence Barrett describes on page 75 in his Cape Breton Highlands National Park: A Park Lover’s Companion, which is also mentioned on this Parks Canada web page, and which is shown on the Parks Canada trail map. The topographic map shows a “Channel Pool” near this location; this is most likely a typo for “Chance Pool”. There are two possible locations that might conceivably be the “Chance Pool”, this one and one another three minutes further upriver, where an old foot bridge used to exist and which will be shown presently. Since Barrett’s description could apply to either of these sites, I am unsure whether the pool in this photo is the Chance Pool or not.

Whatever its proper identification may be, it is another very beautiful site. The foam seen at the First Pool is present here as well. La Montagne Noire still looms large in the centre of this downriver view, but now one also has a view of the gorge through which the river runs and again a strong impression of an inclined plane down which the water rushes. Note that the bedrock in the foreground disappears beyond the pool and boulders once again line both sides of the river.