Well, today was quite the wildlife encounter day! We started the morning with breakfast at the Keltic Lodge - me with my fruit bowl and Elizabeth with fresh blueberry pancakes. We then headed out and decided to do a number of short hikes around the Cabot Trail before culminating with the highly recommended Skyline Trial just before Cheticamp. So just a few minutes past Ingonish, we took the 4km or so Broad Cove Mountain trail to get a higher view of the Atlantic overlooking the Keltic Lodge.

As we were trekking up the trail (still feeling the repercussions of two days of the Cabot Trail Relay Race), I glanced to my left and saw a dark object that looked out of place high up a thin tree. I looked closely and... it was a black bear, just staring back at me! I called out for Elizabeth, she came back to where I was standing and we both marvelled at how still it was, looking intently at us. But after all of one photo and the start of a video, the bear looked at us one more time than started scrambling down the tree - and fast!

black bear on Broad Cove Trail, Cabot Trail

Now we're almost 100% sure that the bear was trying to get away from us, but that didn't start the adrenaline rush, and pulling out all the stops that come to mind with a bear encounter: walking slowly away, talking loudly and even picking up a rock to scare it away just in case. Needless to say, it never followed us and by 10am we'd already had our animal excitement for the day. We made it to the summit without further encounters, and after some nice vistas from the top, we made our way down very cautiously and loudly.

Broad Cove Trail, Cabot Trail near Ingonish, Nova Scotia

We continued along the Cabot Trail, with a few scenic stopoff points, and taking extended video of our way up both North Mountain and MacKenzie Mountain, including a neat hike called the Lone Shieling Trail around a Scottish settler's hut, and the MacKenzie waterfall trail. As we summitted MacKenzie Mountain, we also walked around a bog (or technically a sloped fen) where we could see many signs of moose but no activity that time of day. We did, interestingly, see what we think were frog eggs growing in the water right below the boardwalk.

Lone Shieling Trail, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

fishing boats along Cabot Trail, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

After an already busy morning, we were ready for our piece the resistance - the famous Skyline Trail near Cheticamp...

05/28/09 by visitEarth
Tags: Broad Cove, Cabot Trail, bear, black bear, Nova Scotia, Lone Shieling, hike, trail, Cape Breton, Cape Breton Island