The big camping experience last winter was spending a night in a yurt at kejimkujik national park. The only problem was finding an open weekend to book one of the two Yurts at the park. With time running out, we booked a single overnight in late March at the Eel Weir Yurt.

Samuel de Champlain visited the Bay of Fundy in 1604 and legend has it that he named this area Cape d'Or because the copper minerals reflecting from the cliffs reminded him of gold. However, the copper was known to the local Mi'kmaq far before that time. Champlain found copper on the west side of the point.

The Cape to Cape footpath is approximately 400 kilometres of trail starting at Cape Chignecto and crosses mainland Nova Scotia to Cape George. Being a community based project, trail segments were established throughout four counties. Trail systems such as Rogart Mountain Trail, Kenomee Trail System and the Gully Lake Wilderness Area are part of this footpath.

You see, the road from Halifax to Windsor had mile markers along the way. Most were made out of wood, but some were carved into stone. Somewhere along the Post Road trail was mile marker 27.

I decided to check out the beach first. The beach overlooked Psyche Cove. I've been walking along the Beach Walk trail until I was reached the junction to the Spry Bay Trail. The well marked trail signs showed me that I could do the 4km loop or a more adventurous 12km loop by adding the Headland Trail.

There's something about hiking along a shoreline in the fall that I enjoy. It must be the cooler temperature, or the scenery when the leaves have started to fall off the trees. The grass is still green and I need to be outside!

The period between 1850 - 1940 was an interesting time around Kejimkujik Lake. The area was populated with logging mills, gold mines, hunting lodges and cabins. Today when we enter the park, we don't see this part of history right away, especially since some of these locations are in less traveled sections of the park.

Annapolis Royal and surrounding areas are an important part of my family history. When I open up a book about our branch of the "Cyr" family, it all started with Pierre Sire who landed in Port-Royal in 1668. I decided to pass by the area and check out three important sites during the time of Acadian settlement..

The walk across the blue bridge back to Lane's Privateers Inn took a little longer than expected. By this time the event had already started. I walked inside and proceeded to the bar area where I was given a letter of Marque, a reproduction map to Liverpool from the early 1800s and a piece of silver to make it official that I was a privateer for the day while in LIverpool.

I entered into a meeting room one day and started to look at the Nova Scotia Geological Map and the other person in the room told me a story about how early European traders used to throw out their ballast to make room for all of treasures they would bring back to Europe from the fur trade with the local Mi'kmaw. The ballast would include non-native stones such as flint which was found & used afterwards.