In 2008, I had hiked along the western edge of Big Lorraine Harbour, de­scribed here, fol­low­ing a trail said to lead to Louisbourg Lighthouse, but turned back because of in­ap­pro­pri­ate foot­wear for the boggy areas I had en­countered along it. Later that year, I hiked the Louisbourg Lighthouse Trail, which was then still under construction, and continued on a cobble­stone berm and a forest foot path to the edge of Brook Landing Cove; I turned around at that point as the trail forward was unclear and I didn’t want to get lost in the forest.

This year, on a gorgeous day that too rarely comes to Louisbourg, I initially hiked much the same path as in 2008. The Louisbourg Lighthouse Trail now sports a finished fine sand tread (over the large crushed stone base that was the tread in several places in 2008) and offers such amenities as interpretive panels, benches, and railed belvédères. A short side path has been built on the east side of the cliff seen in the bottom photo here that leads to a bench at the top of the cliff with the glorious views that I imagined when I wrote that essay.

The Louisbourg Lighthouse Trail ends in a loop along Gun Landing Cove, whence it returns to the lighthouse (see the map in the photo above). The cobblestone berm I remembered from 2008 was there and I crossed it; on the other side, the forest foot path had very recently undergone significant transformation—the path it follows was now cleared to a width of a metre/yard or more and the tread had been improved. Intrigued, I followed it along until I came upon the interpretive panel above Brook Landing Cove,¹ beside which I found a side path along the coast. That path, clearly marked with rocks and a fine gravel tread in the open coastal soil above the ocean, led out to a headland on the east end of Brook Landing Cove and beyond to another headland at the eastern end of Big Cove, offering spectacular views of the rocky coast and of the the lighthouse from all along its path.

From there, the trail continues above Hammer Head Cove (it does not go out to Hammer Head itself) and continues eastward for some distance above and around Moneyhunters Cove to arrive at Lorraine Head, at GPS 45°54.959'N 59°55.403'W. From Lorraine Head, the trail continues to the northeast and I followed it along, descending to water level and crossing on the rocks at what the topographical map labels as Sawpit Cove until the trail picked up again on the cliffs above. I followed it along to its end on a headland the topographical map labels as Eastern Point of Lorraine Head, at GPS 45°55.235'N 59°55.268'W, from which Big Lorraine Harbour was easily identifiable. I did not find the continuation of the trail from this headland on towards Big Lorraine seen in the photo above, though later study in Google Earth revealed that I was only about 500 m/yd from where I had been on the 2008 hike of Big Lorraine Harbour. So, while I haven’t yet completed the trek from the lighthouse to Big Lorraine, I’ve now done all but a short section of it, starting from both ends.

The trail was generally very clearly marked and, being along the coast with a view of the lighthouse from much of the hike, it was impossible to get lost (on a foggy day, this could be a rather different story!). There were occasional mucky spots, often crossed by planks in the soil, evidence that the trail was being actively maintained and enhanced. This is not a level trail, as it follows the terrain with significant up and down while repeatedly descending to cobblestone beaches and then ascending back up to the cliffs on the other side. But that was no problem for me, as the scenery compelled me to stop for photos of the superb coastal views with great frequency. After spending seven hours hiking it on a magnificent spring day, I can highly recommend this trail and its views!

¹ The topographical map lists, from west to east, Gun Landing Cove, Brook Landing Cove, Big Cove, Hammer Head Cove, and Moneyhunters Cove before arriving at Lorraine Head. In the map on the interpretive panel above, Brook Landing Cove and Big Cove are subsumed in Wolfe’s Cove and the other two coves are unnamed. Here, I’m following the topographical map’s naming and not the interpretive panel’s.↩

Inaugurated 28 May of this year, this new trail, whose name can be rendered in English as the Gypsum Mine Trail, connects the Quai Mathieu, in the heart of the village of Chéticamp, to Chéticamp Back Road and to the area between Belle-Marche and La Prairie containing the former gypsum mine that was in operation there between 1907 and World War II. The trail up to Chéticamp Back Road is of the same finished quality as the Trans-Canada Trail, with a fine sand tread astride a more solid base. Like the Trans-Canada Trail in Cape Breton, it is a multi-use trail suitable for bikes, ATV’s, and snowmobiles as well as for hikers.

Its initial course parallels the Barren Road, mostly hidden by a thin line of trees, and then passing by an open field with views of the Cape Breton Highlands to the north. It then leaves Barren Road heading to the northeast and makes a large bend switching from northeast to east to southeast; most of this part of the trail is through woods. As it descends to Chéticamp Back Road, it exits the forest and provides fine open views of the Cape Breton Highlands to the east.

Once the trail reaches Chéticamp Back Road, its subsequent course is not obvious. I walked up and down the road looking for a plausible continuation. Expecting to find a trail similar to the fine trail on which I had been hiking, I was perplexed: no signage is yet up to indicate where one is supposed to find the gypsum mine. As I was descending the trail to Chéticamp Back Road, I had noticed at the base of the mountains in the distance something that looked like a gypsum cliff face. So, I headed down a gravel road about 150 m/yd north of the trail I had left that my GPS showed led in the direction of the gypsum cliff face I had noticed. This road was in poor shape with lots of mud and water holes, but at least it was going in the right direction. Twenty minutes later, I had arrived at the base of the cliffs in what was clearly the area where the mine once was.

Numerous roads left from the mining days criss-cross the mine area, in which one could spend a lot of time looking at the various formations on the cliff faces. There’s a road up a slag heap at the top of which one has enough height to get some wider open views. By the time I got there, I did not have a lot of spare time left, having to meet a friend for dinner and a Candlelight Tour at the Highland Village in Iona later in the afternoon, so I did not spend nearly as much time there as I would have liked. (As it was, I made it to our meeting-up point exactly on time, with not a minute to spare.) I will have to return again to the mine to do it proper justice.

I assume the intent is to eventually transform the road from Chéticamp Back Road to the mine into a trail of the same quality as that between Chéticamp and Chéticamp Back Road (but have found nothing to confirm that assumption). It’s a fine hike with some excellent views. It’s mostly downhill on the hike out from Chéticamp, which I didn’t really notice until I found myself puffing pretty heavily on the return trip—nothing major like climbing a mountain, but a good work-out for an overweight and not-too-fit type like myself!

In 2008 after having discovered the magnificent backcountry panorama at the end of Churchview Road, I mentioned it to a friend who had once lived with her husband on a farm along Glencoe Road. She suggested that I should pay a visit to her old farm, which had passed out of her family; it remains private land, but she told me that she thought the current owner wouldn’t mind if I hiked up there. The driveway is gated, but bears a “No Hunting” sign rather than a “No Trespassing” sign, so I made a mental note that I should follow up on my friend’s suggestion. Nothing came of it until a late August day this year when I found myself along Glencoe Road and, though recovering from an exhausting Cape Mabou hike the previous day, still up for a short hike. So, I stopped there, left the car by the road, and climbed up to the ridge above the barns (the house is no longer standing).

The long driveway is now overgrown with grass and not easy walking; it’s pretty clear no one has done anything with this land for some time. About two thirds of the way up the driveway, one reaches a Y, with the left fork leading on to the barns and the right fork into a triangular shaped field surrounded by trees and hence without views. Apple trees line the upper end of the driveway on the left side heading up and they were full of ripening fruit. I took the left fork and, just before arriving at the first barn, turned northeast and headed straight up the huge open field that lies on and below the ridge. From the barn, the views were already very good, but from the top of the ridge, they were superb!

To the west, one sees the rolling hills and ridges of the coastal plain at Little Judique, with St. Georges Bay readily visible; Cape George lies on the other side a bit south of due west. Henry Island and its lighthouse are visible in the photos I took a bit north of west, but the water separating it from the mainland is barely visible and only at its north end—otherwise, it looks like a large hill at the edge of St. Georges Bay rather than an island well offshore.

To the southwest and south, a long ridge rises above the Southwest Mabou River (itself not visible from the ridge) on its way to West Mabou from its source in the Creignish Hills. The MacLeod Settlement Road parallels its course here, where a huge green field and a smaller one not far off Glencoe Road immediately draw one’s eyes. The ridge, part of the Creignish Hills, is high enough to obscure the view beyond towards Hillsdale and Judique and the southern coast of St. Georges Bay, but the shapes of the summits in the River Denys Mountain area to the south rise beyond the ridge. The long mass of the ridge with its very mixed forest is itself quite interesting to scan, as one attempts to trace the course of the river below (at most a wide brook here) through the gaps in its tree-covered slopes.

To the northwest, one can see the three silos of the farm on Justin Road below Rocky Ridge in Dungarry, and panning further to the east, one can make out Rocky Ridge as far east as Glengarry, above the mouth of the Southwest Mabou River. To the west of the three silos, the communications tower on Dunmore Road clearly identifies its location. Port Hood Island, if it is visible at all, blends so seamlessly with the shore that I am unable to positively identify it while Port Hood itself hides below the hills to its east, which rise up to Rocky Ridge.

After soaking in the marvellous views for a long while, I ambled south along the ridge for a ways to see whether other features to the north or south might come into range: trees line all but the west edge of the field on the ridge, interfering with the views to the north and south and completely blocking the views to the east. The improvement was slight, so I then turned to the northwest and started descending the ridge, intending to come out at the second barn. Brambles and brush two thirds of the way down forced me me to turn to the south before I had planned, so I came out between the two barns. From there I made my way back down the driveway to the car.

Like those from the summit of Churchview Road, the views from the ridge are magnificent, giving an excellent panorama of this corner of Inverness County. I expect I’ll be returning here again.

Lewis Mountain Road is an old pioneer road that connects the Bras d’Or Lake system at Little Narrows over the (unnamed, so far as I can determine) plateau to South Lake Ainslie. I have been familiar with the “Four Corners” at GPS 46°⁠01.845'N 61°⁠04.375'W since my first trip to the plateau on 2005 August 1, which my log book records as “SNS 104 / Trout Brook Road / Geldart Road” with no mention at all of the Lewis Mountain Road that Google Maps shows at the same coördinates. I went back there 2009 August 3 to look for the locality of Lewis Mountain, which The Nova Scotia Atlas shows at roughly GPS 46°01.500'N 61°03.000'W, but lacked the proper coördinates and didn’t locate anything that looked like a former settlement or even a hiking trail. Since then, I have been searching for the eastern end of Lewis Mountain Road, which I finally located earlier this summer exactly where it should have been: beyond the electric substation across from Exit 6 on the Trans-Canadian Highway. That I found it was apparently due to much less tall grass this year, which concealed it when I looked for it a couple of times last year.

With a friend who is able to tolerate my slow hiking pace and frequent stops, we climbed up from Exit 6 to the Four Corners, a distance my GPS device and software together compute as as 7.25 km (4.5 mi) one way. The first third of the road follows along and often above the eastern banks of MacPhersons Brook (i.e., actually along the flanks of Northside Mountain rather than those of Lewis Mountain, which is across the brook), which rises due south of the Four Corners. This was a stunningly beautiful walk, both visually and aurally, with lots of water falls, rapids, and deep pools along this part of the trail, all inside a canopy of beautiful fall colours. Moreover, even though I had not hiked for nearly two months, the trail up was gentle enough that I was rarely forced to stop to catch my breath. Given the way the terrain lies, there are no views at any point along the road of the Bras d’Or Lakes below, which are hidden by the flanks of Northside and Lewis Mountains.

As we ascended, we noticed the old wooden sluices installed by the pioneers, which were still eminently serviceable; those who built this road built it well! Further up, lack of maintenance has caused these sluices to become blocked, with the result that water now runs down the road, making walking in oxfords a wet mess. For most of this part of the hike up, we attempted to keep our feet dry by walking on the banks and even bushwhacking, but eventually we got our feet wet anyway, after which we gave up and often just splashed through the water oblivious to it. The upper portion of the road is in poor shape, with muddy and mucky spots and standing water: woods boots would definitely have been a better choice there than walking oxfords. My friend noticed fingerlings in the standing water, a sign that fish have made it up the brook and spawned high up on the plateau.

After two hours and ten minutes of hiking, not including photo stops and stops to rest, the trail turned into a gravel logging road. After a stop for lunch near the locality of Lewis Mountain (though recent and current logging activities hide any evidence of the pioneer settlement), we followed the gravel road on to the Four Corners, whereupon we turned around and retraced our steps. On our way there, I recognized where my 2009 attempt to locate Lewis Mountain Road went awry: I went to the right at a T junction where I should have continued straight ahead on a less good, but still drivable, road.

Lewis Mountain Road continues through the Four Corners to end on Highway 395 in South Lake Ainslie, where a newly erected highway sign identifies its western end. The hike up from there is a shorter one than the hike up from Exit 6; I have added it to my “to do” list.

The weather up was cloudy with occasional attempts by the sun to pierce the clouds, but those clouds won out and, on the way down, a drizzle was unable to dampen our spirits as we listened to the glorious song of the brook during the final third of the downhill hike. My lack of recent hiking experience resulted in a slower descent than ascent, as I had to stop more frequently to rest, but that allowed me more time to enjoy the glorious brook.

This is a superb hike and one I will surely repeat again, at least up to the end of the water falls (about GPS 46°00.248'N 61°01.454'W), a hike of about forty-five minutes. Other than this one trail description, I have found no information about this gorgeous hike. It has to count as another of the many unsung and unknown beautiful hikes in Cape Breton. Fortunately, that will change, as Lewis Mountain Road will eventually be incorporated into the Trans-Canada Trail, making it much better known than it currently is.