At Cape St Lawrence

On this page, I present photos taken from near the automated light on top of Cape St Lawrence; all were taken on the hike I made in 2009 to Lowland Cove, returning by Cape St Lawrence—the opposite direction of my 2006 hike described with photos here. On this perfect day, instead of having to contend with the morning sun, I had to deal with the late afternoon sun instead, but I think the photos came out rather better. The first three photos, all wide-angled views giving a decent idea of the distances involved, form a connected panorama; the other two are other views taken from roughly the same vantage point. I don’t have GPS coördinates for these photos; those given are those computed from Google Earth.

Photo #1 looks south of east across the coastal plain at Cape St Lawrence to the forest behind, with Bear Hill at the left and the unnamed mountain at the middle right in the middle distance. From where I was standing, the distance as the crow flies to the summit of Bear Hill is roughly 1325 m (0.8 mi).

Photo #2 looks to the south at the Cape Breton Highlands across the grassy plain of Cape St Lawrence. All of the prominences here are unnamed, so far as I am aware. The sloping hill at the far right leads down to the coast near the Fox Den; the much higher prominence beyond is inland of Lowland Cove. Both the unnamed mountain at the left and that in the far distance have similar profiles, with twin summits separated by a long, slightly sloping, ridge; the one at the left has the gravel flanks also seen on Bear Hill, while the one at the right does not.

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Photo #3 looks down the grassy plain to the hill descending to the Fox Den (the topographical map places Tittle Point on the far side of the hill at the entrance to Lowland Cove). Hidden in this view is French Brook, whose course is in a depression about halfway to the point seen right of centre, which is at the southern end of the Fox Den, a cliff with a gravel beach along the shore which will be seen in its glory on a subsequent page in this essay. (I have no idea why it is so named.) Cattle and horses (and moose) graze along this plain and as far south as Polletts Cove; while I saw no domestic animals on my 2006 hike, I saw several horses and two cows on this hike.

Photo #4 looks backward (to the west) at the automated light on top of the cliffs at the tip of Cape St Lawrence. While, as we have seen, the soil is not very thick here and likely not very fertile either, it is still sufficient to make a fine pasture (and grow rare flowers). The rocks strewn about in the grass here are all over the plain and as far south as Lowlands Cove; especially where the grass is high, they can present a twisted-ankle hazard for the hiker.

Photo #5 shows the remains of former buildings at Cape St Lawrence in the foreground and a more detailed view of the forest east of the coastal plain. The line of evergreens that crosses the entire width of the photo can be taken as a proxy for the course of French Brook as it nears the Gulf.