White Point and St Paul Island

White Point, birth place of the revered traditional Scottish musician, Winston Scotty Fitzgerald (1914–1987), is a small fishing village located on the southeastern edge of Aspy Bay; the Atlantic Ocean laps the eastern coast of the spit of land that forms the eastern side of the harbour. In this view, the leftmost land seen is White Point Island, separated from White Point proper by a narrow strip of water known as The Tittle. Other small islets, hidden from view here, also lie in and along The Tittle. In the far distance some 36.7 km (22.8 mi) away lies the tragic and storied St Paul Island, in front of which a large sea-going vessel has just passed. Since this boat does not have the profile of the ferry connecting North Sydney to Port-aux-Basques on which I travelled in 2006, I would guess it to be a freighter.

The very small white cross one sees (on the land in the middle right of the photo directly below the right edge of St Paul Island) marks a cemetery in which are buried the bodies of sailors who perished in ship wrecks and washed up on shore. The cross is actually quite large and readily visible when one is on White Point; this telephoto view makes it look small because of both the height and the distance from which it was taken. The fishing vessel at the far left is a helpful guide in gauging the size of the objects seen here. The cliffs, according to The Nova Scotia Atlas, rise above 25 m (80 ft); that on the south end of White Point Island is clearly considerably higher (but the atlas doesn’t show any contours there, probably because the island is too small for them to be legible).

In photo #1, one can also see many tracks on White Point; some are mere paths while others are ATV tracks, some of which could be negotiated by jeeps or similarly high-slung vehicles. These tracks lead out to The Tittle and provide lovely views, even when there are lots of clouds (given the forecast for this day and the still expanding blue sky, I was hardly about to quibble over the clouds!). Once one is at and beyond the harbour there are glorious views of North Mountain and the Cape North Massif all the way out to Money Point at its tip; a portion of this gorgeous panorama was seen in the preceding photo of this essay.

In the wide-angled view in photo #2, taken from the same place as photo #1, one can better see the lie of the land as well as the harbour and its breakwater in the lee of the protecting land, which The Nova Scotia Atlas shows rises above 100m (328 ft). The main hiking trail follows the cliffs above the Atlantic coast out to Burnt Head, on the far side the ridge that rises above the harbour. I had hiked it once before, but had had to stop before reaching its end as I was out of time. Given the non-threatening weather of the morning and being very reluctant to leave such a beautiful spot, I hiked back out to Burnt Head and reached the apparent end of the trail (at GPS 46°52.392'N 60°20.204'W) only a few minutes past where I had turned around on my previous hike there. The massive pinkish-white boulders and large rocks strewn everywhere on White Point continue along the Atlantic Coast, adding to the uniqueness of the spot. On my way back, I also had great fun watching some pretty impressive rollers crash against the shore and into the narrow crevices and indentations the water has formed over the æons. I then climbed up to the top of the tallest of the hills on White Point and savoured the stark and wild beauty that surrounded me here on this unexpectedly fine morning, finally and very reluctantly meandering back to the parking area just past the harbour, where I saw (and heard!) three eagles in the airs above. White Point is one gorgeous place; if you don’t already know of it, you should definitely check it out!