French Brook

Photo #1 was taken from crossing stones in the middle of French Brook looking upstream towards Bear Hill rising in the distance. French Brook has carved a gully into the plain through which it empties into the Gulf; the sides of that gully are very visible here. The coastal plain is subject to quite chilling winds off the Gulf, even in high summer; if one were thinking of camping in this area, the gully would provide a measure of protection from those winds. Given the crossing stones, it is not difficult to cross this brook with dry feet, though tired feet on a hot day might well appreciate a dip in the cooling waters.

Photo #2 was taken from above the brook’s bed on the north bank of the gully; here, the twin-peaked mountain adjacent to Bear Hill forms the backdrop. Rather less water was in the brook the August day this was taken than on the June day photo #1 was taken. The brook bed is littered with stones and dead wood carried down when the flow was considerably faster and higher.

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Photo #3 was taken from alongside the brook looking at the stones on the north side; those extending out into the water are a darker hue than those at the far right, just a short distance inland, perhaps due to the greater contact with salt water. A fine piece of driftwood, a mass of complex shapes, attracts the eye at the far right, bleached to almost the colour of the rounded cobblestones in the foreground. As this photo makes quite clear, the mouth is not very wide at all.

Photo #4 looks across the mouth of French Brook in the foreground along the coast to the south. The photos on the next two pages of this essay will examine this coast line in greater detail. In the upper far left, the slope of the hill descending towards the Fox Den can be seen. The line of clouds across the water at the right and far right was not so dissimilar from the squall line we saw as we initially rounded Cape St Lawrence during the 2012 boat trip, but proved to be completely benign on this most gorgeous mid-summer day in 2006.

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As I was approaching Cape St Lawrence from Lowland Cove on my 2009 hike, I stopped just before French Brook, whose gully can be seen in the middle ground, and snapped this photo of a horse and two cows who were grazing on the north side of the brook. The indentations in the foreground before French Brook are scallops in the coast line similar to those seen at the far left; the outcroppings of rock seen in this photo are typical of the tip of Cape St Lawrence.