Paddling Picks on the East Coast

Summer 2008

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Keith Nicol

With close to 30,000 kilometres of shoreline, the best way to explore the four Atlantic Provinces is in the seat of an ocean kayak. The following suggestions will point you to just a small portion of what the Atlantic region offers to the sea kayaker. In the Summer 2007 issue of WaveLength Magazine I provided one great paddle pick from each province; this article continues with that approach. Let’s start with the province with the longest coastline, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Bay of Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador

You could paddle along a different shoreline of Newfoundland’s 17,000 kilometres of beaches, sea stacks and bold rocky cliffs every summer for many years and still never see it all. But one area that provides a huge variety of paddling opportunities in a relatively small area is the Bay of Islands, near Corner Brook on the province’s rugged west coast. Depending on the weather, you can choose to paddle along monstrous 300 – 400 metre cliffs or to numerous offshore islands complete with sandy beaches and great camping spots. Since some of the shoreline in the Bay of Islands is lined with communities, and put-ins are numerous, you can easily spend several days here exploring different areas.

For light wind days, a classic paddle is to circumnavigate South Head Lighthouse. We usually put in at the sandy beach in Bottle Cove (at the end of Highway 450) and then head out into the open Gulf of St. Lawrence. Off shore you can see glacially sculpted Guernsey Island, one of the islands that stands guard at the entrance to the Bay of Islands. There are not many pullouts along the first 6 kilometre stretch, so only attempt this trip when the swell and winds are light. Once you round South Head Light, the wind and waves usually drop off and there are several accessible beaches for lunch breaks. Be sure to stop for photos where a waterfall empties into the ocean, and at high tide you can paddle through an elegant arch closer to the take-out at Lark Harbour. The total trip is about 13 kilometres and can easily be done in three to four hours.

Other paddles in the Bay of Islands include trips to Woods Island, Seal Island or Governor’s Island. Get a weather forecast in advance, since winds can come up quickly in this area and kayakers have been stranded on the islands while they waited for winds to die down. For more information, contact the City of Corner Brook at www.cornerbrook.com.

Malpeque Bay, Prince Edward Island

Last summer we paddled in PEI, and one of our favorite trips was to Malpeque Bay, famous around the world for its oysters. We sampled the oysters one evening in a restaurant and although some people like them raw, we preferred them fried or broiled. Malpeque Bay Kayak Tours is a fine place to start if you want to explore this area. Anne Murray runs a kayak operation here, with numerous tours and programs including a kayak-art class which runs on Thursday evenings through the summer. Local artist Anne Gallant accompanies the group and they paddle to nearby Ram Island and set up with sketchpads on the beach. On our trip we joined a large group of eleven other paddlers for the regular half-day 6 – 7 kilometre circumnavigation of Ram Island. Since Malpeque Bay is fairly shallow, it warms up very nicely through the summer and even though the day was overcast, the chop spraying across our decks and arms was refreshing. The island has a huge population of cormorants and their guano has started to denude the trees in the area, producing eerie skeleton-like structures. Anne Murray told us that this area has the highest population of cormorants on PEI and that Malpeque Bay is an internationally recognized site for its rich bird populations. As we paddled around the island, the cormorants were everywhere, swooping and searching for food. When we stopped on the north end of the island for a snack, our guides provided an overview of the region’s human and natural history. The Mi’kmaq Indians were early users of this bay and knew of its richness long before Europeans settled here in the 1700s. Malpeque Bay Kayak Tours offers other half-day and longer trips to other destinations in the area. They can be reached at www.peikayaks.ca.

Deer Island, New Brunswick

Last summer we also were fortunate to get to Deer Island and had an epic day there paddling with Seascape Tours. Deer Island is in the southwest corner of New Brunswick very close to the US border. We knew things were off to a good start when we had barely begun paddling before our guide, Bruce Smith, pointed out the flashing backs of a school of porpoises just to our right. “They are probably chasing the herring which are running right now,” he said as we paddled our double kayaks out toward Helena Island. We had joined Seascape Tours for a full day paddle in the island-studded Bay of Fundy near the Maine and New Brunswick border. This part of the Bay of Fundy doesn’t have the huge tides of its upper reaches, but at 6 – 7 metres they are still a force to be reckoned with, especially in the maze of islands just off Deer Island and Passamaquoddy Bay. “We plan our daily paddles for the wind and weather of the day as well as what the tides are doing,” says Bruce, “but with all of the islands we can usually find an interesting place to go.”

On this day, the wind was gusting at 30 plus km/hour from the northwest, so we paddled in the lee of several islands and got as far as Barnes Island where we had lunch. Most of the islands here are uninhabited and have small beaches in between the otherwise rocky shoreline. The islands are generally composed of shale, conglomerate and other sedimentary rocks and are capped with a mix of shrubs, spruce and fir. This area has a rich marine life and we paddled past the unusual wooden fishing weirs for which this area is well known. These permanent fishing traps catch fish like herring that swim along the shore. Eagles were also abundant and two were swooping over us while we ate lunch. In the afternoon we paddled past Mowat and Simpson Island and caught sight of two fin whales that were being followed by a local whale watching boat. As we returned to Northwest Harbour, we were accompanied by the bobbing heads of harbour seals. This area certainly has much to recommend it for sea kayaking (see www.seascapekayaktours.com for more information).

Lower Prospect, Nova Scotia

Two summers ago we spent two weeks paddling in Nova Scotia. One of our favorite areas was Lower Prospect (near popular Peggy’s Cove), which is just a thirty minute drive south of Halifax. There we joined Dave Alder, who runs East Coast Outfitters (ECO) for a half-day paddle amongst the bold granite islands of Lower Prospect Bay. We were impressed with the variety of paddling choices accessible from this spot—from tricky rock hopping amongst the breaking swells for expert paddlers, to protected channels for novices. We paddled through the “Window” into the moderate swell along the shore of Ryan and Shannon Islands.

We were now in pond smooth water as we headed to a sandy beach on Hearn Island. The turquoise water almost looked like the Caribbean, but touching our toes in the water reminded us that we were still in Nova Scotia. Then it was back through a neat little channel on the other side of Shannon Island, past a small island full of cormorants to our dock and put-in point. Here we enjoyed a full lobster feast complete with wine and all the fixings. ECO offers a full range of programs from guide training to multi-day trips and has a fleet of over fifty kayaks available. Dave Adler explained that for those interested in multi-day trips, there were many options. “One great trip is to paddle from our operation near Mahone Bay/Lunenburg to this location in Lower Prospect. This takes six days and can be done either as an all camping option or all bed and breakfast or a combination of the two. For those people interested in shorter one or two-day overnight camping trips, we have that option here at Lower Prospect or in the LaHave Islands, near Mahone Bay.” For more information on these trips contact East Coast Outfitters at www.eastcoastoutfitters.net

Contributors Keith and Heather Nicol are avid sea kayakers. Keith Nicol has a popular Atlantic Canada Paddling web site at www.swgc.mun.ca/~knicol