Meandering to Quebec & The Maritime Provinces travel blog

Cape George look off to St. George's Bay

More like Christmas with the pine cones; they grow in clusters mostly...

The Cape George Lighthouse

The gang at Cape George

The faint view of land in the distance is Cape Breton Island;...

Harbor at Ballantyne's Cove

The Tuna Interpretive Center

The rocks and seascape around Ballantyne's Cove

Displays at the Tuna Interpretive Center

The Flying Tuna

Howard checking out the menu at the Fish & Ships...it was really...

The bowl tree

Joe checks out the bay in Arisaig Provincial Park

The trails we walked in the park

We had to lean way over the edge to get the picture...

Howard & Gail in Arisaig Provincial Park

Berries growing wild along the trails

And some more

The lighthouse park; we'll get closer later

Volcanic rock formations make a great home for the wildlife

We could see faint land in the distance but it wasn't that...

The Geology students confirmed this is volcanic rock

Wildlife perched on the rocks offshore

The Arisaig Lighthouse


We planned a short drive around the Cape George loop so we set out a little later than usual. Our first snag was when we came upon a warning sign that the road we wanted to travel on was closed close to the tip of the cape. We decided to continue on and it was a good thing we did. When we reached the road closed sign just before Ballantyne’s Cove, we took the detour on a short gravel road.

It’s hard to deter me from seeing a lighthouse so when we got to the other end of the detour, the signs said ‘local traffic only’….we figured the lighthouse was local so we took that road and ended up at the Cape George Lighthouse. The lighthouse itself wasn’t anything spectacular but it’s location was high on a bluff about 1,000 feet above the water. Even though a lighthouse has stood on the spot since 1895, the present structure was built in 1968. We enjoyed the views and decided we’d push our luck on the road closure and go to Ballantyne’s Cove.

We arrived and could turn off at the wharf just before the road closed stretch. In addition to the small harbor, there is a small interpretive center focused on Tuna. Some nice exhibits told the story of the tuna fishing industry. Luckily for us, they also had the only restrooms (here they’re called washrooms) in town. Then, we found a little Fish & Ships (no, that’s not a typo) shack and ordered lunch….the real thing cooked fresh to order right there in the shack; it was excellent food.

We continued on the route called the Sunrise Trail and visited Arisaig Provincial Park. Supposedly, fossils dating back four hundred million years can be found in the sedimentary rock along the shore. We contented ourselves with reading the interpretive displays and we took a long walk on the trails. We ended up at the lighthouse park where a group of Geology students from Halifax were on a field trip. Howard queried them about what they were doing and they were very willing to share their knowledge.

We enjoyed this little section of the Sunrise Trail and hope to drive a little more of that route on our way out of Nova Scotia. Tomorrow, we move to Port Hood on Cape Breton Island.

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