Views from Maple Brook Road

Maple Brook Road runs from Kingsville to Glendale through the back country; it is named for Maple Brook, a decently sized stream that rises halfway between Big Brook (along the River Denys Road) and Glendale and, after crossing the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 105) in Glendale near St Mary of the Angels Church, where it is joined by other brooks coming down from the Big Ridge, empties into River Inhabitants southwest of the church. I had driven the part of the road that leads from the Trans-Canada Highway in Glendale past and beyond Mason Road last year, but had turned around after a short distance when the road deteriorated, so most of this road was new to me. This year, I drove it from the Kingsville end and made it all the way through to Glendale; I found the Glendale end in better shape, though still quite rough and requiring some care in my Prius (it would be fine in a truck or a higher-slung vehicle), while the remainder of the road was easily passable.

From Kingsville, Maple Brook Road climbs quite abruptly up the side of a small mountain (the topographical map gives its height as greater than 120 m (400 ft)) and then levels off on a plateau that the road traverses. Photo #1 was taken from this plateau and shows the countryside off to the east. At the middle right in the far distance is a long rounded mountain that has a communications tower on top (invisible in this compressed version, but there in the original and in other telephoto views): the The Nova Scotia Atlas names the mountain on which it stands as MacIntoshs Mountain,¹ a part of North Mountain, located between Big Brook and the Marshes (on West Bay on the Marble Mountain Road). The middle left would be in the general direction of the community of River Denys. Lovely country!

Photo #2 was taken a short distance further north than the previous view and shows the point where Maple Brook Road descends back down the plateau it has been crossing. Maple Brook runs (from right to left) across the valley at the bottom of the hill, but is invisible here. A bridge crosses the brook around the curve at the centre of the photo behind the trees which hide it from view and one then immediately reaches the Maple Brook Road’s junction with the Maccuish Road, which runs first north and then east to eventually come out on the Big Brook Road, which connects the communities of West Bay Road and River Denys. I continued on Maple Brook Road, which here turns from the northeast to the northwest and parallels Maple Brook on its way to the Trans-Canada Highway in Glendale.

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¹ This spelling is that given in the The Nova Scotia Atlas; it also appears (in all caps) on the topographical map, so it’s not clear there whether the ‘I’ is capitalized or not.↩

Once Maple Brook Road turns to the northwest, the views are far more restricted (or perhaps I missed them due to the need to be very attentive to my driving). I did find the view in photo #3 about half the way back to Glendale, which, because of all of the dead white spruce and thanks to some previous logging, is sufficiently open to show McIntyres Mountain across the valley. It is next to impossible to see in this smaller version, but in the original the communications tower on McIntyres Mountain can be seen intersecting the upper left branches of the dead tree in the middle right.

After having made this drive, I was told that a waterfall on Maple Brook is accessible from Maple Brook Road close to its junction with Maccuish Road. I drove back there another time, but was unable to find the flagging tape that is said to mark the short path down to the waterfall. I will have to try again, walking the road on foot and will perhaps have better luck.