cape chignecto in the bay of fundy, nova scotia

(warning – this is long!!)


After a long drive last Thursday, Dan and I arrived at Fundy Tides Campground in Advocate Harbour, Nova Scotia, where we were the only campers for the night. There were a few seasonal RVs – folks who summer at the campground – but we had the tent side of the grounds to ourselves. We watched a beautiful pink sunset over the cliffs of Cape Chignecto and slept well.

On Friday morning, we ate breakfast at the little restaurant on site. When we walked in, the regulars were already sipping coffee; at two of the five tables sat three Nova Scotian men who looked like they’d been eating there for 50 years (the one with a spectacularly bad haircut and cutoff sleeves named Murray was our favorite). The campground owner, John, was also the short-order cook and, as he informed us, the rescue crew for Cape Chignecto (“He’s also the Advocate Harbour mayor,” Murray quipped). The rumor that Nova Scotians are among the friendliest people on earth rung true for us – these salty old men welcomed us right into their restaurant and their banter. Murray was scolded for not remaking the coffee after he took the last cup. John was teased for not being a sexy enough waitress and so flitted around the restaurant, joking about putting on his “bee-kee-nee” after the sun came out. We were jibbed for being crazy enough to want to walk around the Cape for four days, especially when the mosquitoes were “some hungry.”

After breakfast, we packed up and headed off to Cape Chignecto. The thick fog lingered until about 10 AM and then faded to bright blue skies. We registered at the trailhead at Red Rocks and headed out on the beach for the first half mile since the tide was low. (The tides in the Bay of Fundy are the most dramatic in the world, changing by 50 feet or more in places!)

After about 8 miles of hiking up and down ravines, Dan and I arrived at our first stop – Refugee Cove – in the mid afternoon and settled ourselves in for the beach portion of our vacation. Refugee Cove was amazing. Dan napped and read on the beach I walked along the shore exploring little caves and rocky outcrops and taking pictures.

After a while, we went back up to camp and brought our stove and dinner down to eat on the beach.

In what would become our routine over the three nights on the trail, we made hot cocoa up at camp, hung the bear bag, and settled in to read in the tent. The first night, though, we were maybe a little TOO aware of how alone we were in the woods. I kept thinking I was hearing other campers arriving in the sounds of the babbling brook—apparently called that for a reason!—and Dan woke up at night to the sound of tiny footsteps accelerating toward us until some little creature crashed headfirst into the tent (not sure what that was, but we’re telling ourselves a baby raccoon).

We got a bit of a late start on Saturday morning after reading in the tent a while waiting for the skies to clear and the views to emerge. We made the big climb out of Refugee Cove and then worked our way around the Cape and onto the west side of the peninsula. We stopped for lunch at Little Bald Rock and then pushed on to Big Bald Rock. At this point, over 30 hours into the trip, we’d only seen people once and that was just in passing – a father and two sons doing the Cape loop in the opposite direction.

Dan interpreted this sign to mean...

Child: "Dad, look over there!"
Dad: "Son, don't bother Daddy while he's drinking a beer."

The clouds were spitting a little on the last leg of day two’s hike, but it cleared up soon after we set up camp. Our campsite at Big Bald Rock was in a beautiful spot, perched on a little hill above a brook, looking down at two fallen trees making a balance beam bridge across the water.

We headed down to the beach at Big Bald to read and explore but the sun was too intense and we didn’t stay long. After dinner, we headed back down to watch the awe-inspiring sunset. The sun started to drop into this massive expanse of clouds and then a distinct wall of fog started moving south, like a freight train headed toward the sun. The fog rolled in so quickly it almost scared us for a moment, and we thought of how of easily a tsunami could catch a community off-guard or a ship could get lost at sea. The coast here is perilous – huge islands emerge from the sea at low tide and all that marks them at high tide is perhaps a bit of water swirling suspiciously.

This picture was taken less than 45 seconds after the one above!!

For the third day, we decided to extent our original plan for the day and continue from Seal Cove on to Eatonville, subtracting 4 miles from the last day (this turned out to be a VERY good decision). After 6 miles, we arrived at gorgeous Seal Cove for lunch, where we had our second people encounter, another father-son group that continued on the trail soon after we settled on the beach. We didn’t see any seals sunning themselves on the beach, unfortunately, though we did see a group of five seals down in the water as we hiked along the edge of the cliff. The seals were all in a circle, like some fishing strategy huddle, with one seal apart from the group doing backflips under water (like the little girl whose parents signed her up for teeball and who does cartwheels and picks flowers while “manning” right field).

Eatonville turned out to be a beautiful campsite, next to a bigger river, and again, we were the only ones there. It poured all night, though, and neither of us slept well.

It's telling that this is the ONLY picture I took on Day Four:

Dan says I should not sugarcoat Day Four for you guys, so here it is: After three great days, Day Four just sucked. Those last 10 miles were brutally difficult. We started out strong, eager to get back to civilization by midday and enjoy some hot chowder at our next stop – Cape D’Or. By about mile 4, though, the soles of my feet had started to ache and every step started to be painful. By mile 5, moleskin was no longer working for Dan and he ripped some big blister wounds into the back of his heels. Around mile 6, I felt sharp-ish pains in my knees whenever we went downhill. After that, we pretty much hiked in silence, cataloguing to ourselves The Things That Hurt. Looking back, I’m actually amazed how quickly we deteriorated. Everything was fine, and then everything hurt. When we FINALLY reached the beach back towards Red Rocks for the last half mile to the car, I had to force myself to keep staggering forward. We joked about having John from the Fundy Tides Campground come rescue us 500 feet from the trailhead. When we finally reached the trailhead, we somehow convinced ourselves to pull it together for any tourists in the parking lot. There was just one couple at the top of the hill at the Visitor’s Centre. “Did you guys just come all the way from the Cape?” they asked. “Yup,” I responded. “We’re just a bit tired!” Oh, little did they know…