Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia

When I woke up this morning (8:00am), I felt extremely excited. Today, we would spend our first full day in Cape Breton Highlands National Park! We quickly packed our belongings and headed off towards the Skyline Trail.

  At 9:00am, we arrived at the Skyline Trail. According to my mom, the trail is the main attraction in the national park. Looking in my park map, Skyline, 9.2 kilometres in length, offers hikers the most spectacular views in the Atlantic Maritime. In addition, moose, deer, and bear sightings are very common on the trail, so for the whole hike, I had high hopes in encountering a moose or two. 

  

Haunting trees that looked
like they were dead.

  At first, short grasses and dead trees surrounded the trail and I assumed that the soil was very poor. For a second, I felt scared by the possibility of turning a bend and surprising a black bear (with cubs!) that will fight for its life! Coupled with the eerie and uncomfortable silence, I opted to slow my pace down and walk with my family (instead of leading out in front).  

   Soon, the landscape changed, with coniferous and deciduous trees (alive with leaves/needles, not dead like before) popping out and looming over the trail (creating shadows). Five more minutes of hiking and the scenery changed again. As quickly as they appeared, the trees were replaced by short grasses (similar to those seen earlier). Fences were obstructed on the border of the transition from forests to grasses. A sign informed us that the fences kept the moose in the forest from overgrazing the low-shrub vegetation.   



Cabot Trail from
Skyline's lookout

Five minutes later, we reached the lookout point. Here, we were offered the best view of the Highlands and Gulf of St. Lawrence (just like the map had guaranteed). Here, I saw a bald eagle, but it was flying too far away for me to take a picture. Instead, I took multiple (around twenty) photos of the scenery, but sadly, I was not in any of them! As you can see, Cabot Trail twists and winds its way up and around the Highlands in the background of these three photos. 




Cabot Trail and Gulf of St. Lawrence

from the lookout

Grandfather posing





 

Female moose (called cows)

As we pressed on, I desperately scanned both sides of the trail for any signs of a bear  or moose. Suddenly, a dark cow-shaped figure resting in the shadows of the forest caught my eye.  Upon  scrutinizing the figure, I realized that right in front of my eyes was a female moose the size of a cow! I immediately ran back and told my chatty parents to zip it. I pointed out the moose and snapped a dozen photos (without flash of course) but sadly, I was too far away to get a quality shot. Sneakily (and with as little noise as possible) I wandered off the trail and approached the moose. Standing as close as I dared (close enough to snag a perfect picture, but far enough so that in case the moose felt threatened, I could retreat to safety), I took one photo (somehow with flash)! The moose grunted, and for a split second, I swore that it was going to charge! I took it as a sign that I was disturbing it and thus I ran back and onto the trail. By this time, a large hoard of hikers (who had caught up) were pointing and gasping at the moose, so my family decided to move on.

 

Male Moose (bull) partially
obscured by dense vegetation

After only travelling two hundred metres, I spotted another moose! Two moose in two hundred metres! Today was my lucky day! This one was a bull and had giant antlers sprouting from the top of his head. Unfortunately, I could not get a good position to take a picture because the moose was surrounded by thick vegetation. I took a few meaningless photos and left.

  

Young moose feeding

  After two moose sightings, I felt extremely satisfied and began to double my walking pace. I walked in silence for ten minutes and suddenly, I saw yet another moose! This time, it seemed as if the moose was a calf and I wondered if the two moose that I saw earlier were its parents. The moose was feeding and I could not get a proper photo from afar, so once again (driven by my excitement), I broke the park rules and scampered twenty metres into the forest and took a high-quality photo of the moose just as it was standing up!

  

As I returned to the trail and continued to hike back to the parking lot, I thought I saw a movement on the other side of the trail (possibly a black bear?). Then, I realized that my excitement was playing tricks on my mind.
  



Cabot Trail winding itself
up the Highlands

For the remainder of the trail, I did not spot a single animal (not even a bird), although the sight of three moose (and around fifty photos taken too!) delighted me and encouraged me to keep my eyes peeled for wildlife on other trails.



At 1:00pm, we returned to the parking lot and began to head northeast towards our next campground. We stopped at certain lookouts and I took those opportunities to take beautiful photos of the landscape (to the left).

We arrived at our next campsite (near Pleasant Bay) and decided to set our tents up early (4:00pm). After unpacking, I began to play cards with my parents once again, as we had five hours to kill. Once again, not a single mosquito invaded our campsite!

At 10:00pm, I decided to enter the tent and go to sleep. After encountering three moose and half a black bear today, I had no trouble falling asleep, as I began to dream about a potential black bear encounter tomorrow...