Views at Grande-Grève

I continued northwest along the Eastside Grand River Road until its end in Grand River and then turned left onto the St Peter’s–Fourchu Road and crossed the bridge over the Grand River. I took the next left onto the Westside Grand River Road and drove to the Y with the Point Michaud Road, onto which I turned and followed it back to Grande-Grève (after the gravel changes to pavement, the road is known as Highway 247). The light was beginning to fade considerably, so I didn’t stop for photos, but enjoyed the views from the road, which are particularly fine in the Point Michaud area. At Grande-Grève, I turned left onto the Grande-Grève Road and followed it to its end at Ponds Cove; there was just enough light to justify a few photos.

You will find a view of Ponds Cove and Godie Point here, where the direction of the view is to the south; photo #1, taken from the driveable end of the road, looks to the north back along the Grande-Grève Road (the referenced south-facing view was taken from below the house seen here). Pointe Brûlée is at the far left of photo #1. The kelp along the shore attest to an autumn scene; they were present, though not quite so visible, in the referenced photo as well, taken just a little more than a year earlier.

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Photo #2 looks to the southeast at the dunes and cobblestones thrown up by the action of the waves in St Peters Bay. The pond in the foreground (seen at the left of this photo) has an outlet into Ponds Cove at the right of the photo and well outside its scope. The height of the cobblestones is impressive, though the sand dunes are rather higher, particularly further inland.

Photo #3 is a telephoto view of the cobblestone berm above the coast east of Ponds Cove. Plant life clearly finds the cobblestones rather inhospitable, although a few hardy plants have achieved toeholds scattered here and there among them.

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As I returned from Ponds Cove and before reaching Highway 247, I turned down Landry Harbour Road (at GPS 45°37.925'N 60°51.001'W), which I had not previously driven. This road leads out towards Grande-Grève Point, but ends at a private residence before reaching the point. I turned around before reaching the residence and then stopped for photos.

Photo #4 looks across St Peters Bay to the western end of the village of St Peter’s¹. The long ridge across the background of the photo is South Mountain.² Evergreens line the coast of St Peters Bay, but there are numerous hardwoods visible in the reduced light of dusk (the overcast skies don’t help much either); some of these have clearly changed into their fall colours and others have not yet.

Photo #5 looks across St Peters Bay towards River Tillard; The Nova Scotia Atlas shows the communications tower seen in the centre of the photo as being west of Highway 4 in River Tillard. The kelp in the foreground are along the south side of Grande-Grève Harbour; further down the road, a man was raking the kelp into piles that he then loaded into a wagon, presumably for use as fertilizer. Even in this very reduced light, a band of heather hues can be seen right of centre in the photo along the hillsides, attesting to some fall colours that are too dim in this light to show up properly.

Even though the weather on this day was a long way from perfect, it nevertheless did yield some photos of places well off the beaten path that I hope you have enjoyed; I certainly had a great time that day exploring old places and new.

¹ The correct spelling of “St Peters” depends on its context. In 1898, the Geographic Board of Canada adopted a rule which stated that the “possessive form of [place] names should be avoided whenever it could be done without destroying the euphony of a name or changing its descriptive application. The rule added that, if the possessive were retained, the apostrophe should be dropped. [¶] […] in the 1970s, the rule was amended in Canada to permit the apostrophe where it was well established and in current use. [¶] There are several names in Canada with the apostrophe. Examples are St. John’s in Newfoundland, St. Peter’s in Nova Scotia, Campbell’s Bay in Québec, and Lion’s Head in Ontario. These forms are in keeping with the principle of geographical naming that names established in the statutes by other authorities must be accepted without change.” [p. 70 of Alan Rayburn’s Naming Canada: Stories about Canadian Place Names, University of Toronto Press Incorporated, Toronto, revised and expanded edition of 2001, ISBN 0-8020-4725-4, courtesy of Google Books] Thus, St Peter’s (the village) has an officially sanctioned apostrophe and it is given one on the topographical maps and in The Nova Scotia Atlas; however, derived place names, such as St Peters Bay, St Peters Inlet, and St Peters Canal National Historic Site do not have an apostrophe in these sources. (Having said that, the village’s web site uses the apostrophe for such derived names as well.) As to the period after St, which some references use, I follow the practice of the topographical maps and The Nova Scotia Atlas, which omit it in all place names. By way of contrast to St Peter’s, note that St Anns officially has no apostrophe nor an ‘e’–though both are sometimes seen in local spellings.↩

² The index of The Nova Scotia Atlas lists three different places with this name, one in Victoria County, this one in Richmond County, and a third one on the mainland spanning Annapolis and Kings Counties. It’s obviously a very popular place name. As one might expect, each of these three South Mountains has a corresponding North Mountain, though the one corresponding to Richmond County’s South Mountain is in Inverness County and that on the mainland spans Digby, Annapolis, and Kings Counties.↩