The Cabot Trail from French Mountain

Three of the four photos on this page were taken from the look-off containing the Veterans Monument; the fourth was taken from a short distance down the road.

By the time I took photo #1 in the middle of Saturday afternoon, the blue skies had mostly given way in the southwest to the cloud cover one sees here. The sun was still shining brightly here, however, and there were blue skies above, but the end of the astonishingly good weather was close at hand. I was nevertheless very content, as I had gotten far more fine photos than I had ever thought would be possible.

In photo #1, which looks inland towards Jerome Mountain (in the centre of the photo furthest away), the salient features are the dark, nearly black, hillsides (of mixed evergreen and deciduous trees), the Cabot Trail itself, and the ice-covered Gulf of St Lawrence. While there is a bit of open water here (and even more in photo #3), this is a change from the previous day, as seen in the photo #2, taken Friday afternoon, showing this same scene though looking enough further to the west to reveal Presqu’Île in the middle ground, which is truncated in the photo at the top. Directly in the foreground is the Cap-Rouge look-off; beyond it at the base of the hill left of centre is the Corney Brook Campground, which offers also parking for the lovely Corney Brook Trail. The Trout Brook picnic area, past the far side of that hill, sits atop the cliffs; it also has a newly created parking area for the new trail named Le vieux chemin du Cap-Rouge (The Old Cap-Rouge Road), opened in 2010 August, which passes along the upper third of the mountains seen in the photo above, following the original Cabot Trail route past the now demolished homes of those who were displaced when the park was created. La Bloque and its ruined quai (the horizontal black line seen to the right of the snow cover along the shore) is at the base of Jerome Mountain and Presqu’Île is just beyond. Chéticamp and a portion of Chéticamp Island lie in the far background. In addition to showing how quickly the sea ice can change, I have included photo #2 because I very much like the way the sun spotlights a very small portion of this beautiful scene, emphasizing the point between Corney Brook Campground and the Trout Brook picnic area as well as the cliffs and road directly above.

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Photo #3 is a much wider-angled view of this whole panorama, taken on Saturday. The steeple of l’Église-St-Pierre is at the centre of the photo and if one looks carefully in the far distance, one can distinguish the grey of the coastal mountains from the clouds above; the original is not sufficiently clear that I can make out with certainty what I’m seeing, but the profile of the furthest mountain is very similar to that of Sight Point, which is often visible from here on a good day, with Margaree Island, considerably further north, likely superimposed upon it.

Photo #4 looks directly above at a slope near the summit of French Mountain. That is not a cloud, but a localized blizzard raging up there, driven by the very strong winds that were blowing that afternoon. All sorts of things to contemplate and ponder in this most beautiful place!