The northwestern end of Cape St Lawrence

As can be seen in photo #1, the leading edge of the “boomerang” (here seen from the side) is the point where the Cape St Lawrence coast turns from the northwest to directly west; at the tip of Cape St Lawrence, the coast turns again to the southwest. This page looks at the coastal features found along this relatively short stretch of the shore line.

Bear Hill again features prominently in the background of this photo, though the descending ridge in the centre hides a goodly portion of the bare gravel covering much of its lower flanks, some of which can be seen as grey-toned spots amid the vegetation right of centre and at the far right. The ridged cliffs seen on the previous page are at the left of the photo; the cliffs seen here appear to be of the same kind of rock, but with the marked white intrusions seen descending diagonally to the right on the cliff face. The strangely shaped white rock face at the right is very noticeable when standing near the automated light on Cape St Lawrence; I take it for an isolated deposit of gypsum. The coastal plain along the coast south of Cape St Lawrence to Lowland Point can be seen beginning to the right of that white rock.

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Photo #2 is a close-up of the ridged cliffs seen at the left and middle left of photo #1, at the foot of which the photo reveals some gravel beaches. While the two wide stripes are immediately obvious, they are accompanied by other much narrower intrusions of white material at various points between them.

Photo #3 shows a telephoto view of the beach and the hollowed, cave-like structure behind; similar to the “vaulted cave” seen further east, this one lacks as much of an overhead covering. Especially noticeable is the considerable fracturing in the reddish strata; while the grey strata are not immune to fracturing, they seem to be resisting better.

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Photo #4, a wide-angled shot, shows the area just to the right of the hollow seen in photo #3; the ridge leading out to the tip of Cape St Lawrence has levelled off considerably here. The indentations seen in this photo and the lack of any vegetation at the coast attest to the power of the wind and waves. The white rock face, seen nearly head-on in this photo, is at the left of the gully right of centre in this photo; another intrusion of white appears in the narrow gully at the far right of this photo, likely gypsum as well.

Photo #5 is a telephoto view from further west and farther out and brings the white rock into a sideways view. Distances in telephoto views are very tricky; the gravel at the upper middle right of the photo is at the base of Bear Hill, considerably further away than it looks here (compare photo #1). Judging from the height of a tree, the gully carved by run-off from Bear Hill that reaches the coast at the middle left of the photo looks fairly deep; whether or not it is impassible I cannot say, but I chose not to attempt to cross it, though I was some distance inland when I made the attempt; if once could get across it, the path to the area above the “vaulted cave” looks reasonably clear, at least from down below.