For Those Who Come Next: Itinerary for Walking the Trans Canada Trail in Nova Scotia

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

 Henry David Thoreau
 

How long does it take to hike across Cape Breton and Nova Scotia on the Trans Canada Trail?

 
There are moments within a long journey where it becomes necessary to step slightly outside of the day-to-day routine of walking and reflect on what the path has actually required.   Our goal is that as we walk from coast to coast to coast on the Trans Canada Trail, we will be able to continue sharing each day of the journey and, in the process, help those who might have an interest in something similar.  To this end, this entry is about sharing our itinerary for hiking across Cape Breton and Nova Scotia.

 
In the process, we hope to answer questions that anyone might have about the province that we have recently concluded, such as:
 
What is it like to hike across Nova Scotia on the Trans Canada Trail?
If you want to hike across Nova Scotia, how long might it take?
If you want to hike across Nova Scotia, what do the daily stages look like?
 
Hiking Across Cape Breton and Nova Scotia
 
Nova Scotia was the second province of our #Hike4Birds on the Trans Canada Trail.  We arrived after completing our trek across Newfoundland and stepping off the interprovincial ferry.   As we continued to walk every step of the national pathway, we encountered two distinctly new realities in Nova Scotia.  The first being the fact that from Sydney southward for approximately 100 km, there was a water route and no land trail, which required a workaround.  The second being that the TCT in Nova Scotia was not a continuous trail – instead it was a series of rail trails, local pathways, community cycling routes joined by long stretches of roadways, called “connectors”.  Regardless, we walked on from the ferry docks of Sydney across Cape Breton, through Nova Scotia, to the ferry docks of the Woods Island Ferry to the capital city of Halifax.

 
En route, we gave presentations to nature groups, Parks Canada sites, and at MEC.  In addition to which we found ourselves navigating the realities of rising summer temperatures and a hurricane making landfall.  Despite such challenges, we walked across Nova Scotia on the Trans Canada Trail.


What follows is not a guide in the traditional sense. It is not prescriptive, nor is it intended to suggest that this is how the route must be walked. It is instead a record of how we crossed Cape Breton and Nova Scotia - drawn from our journals, our daily shared blog entries, and the lived experience of our trek. 
 
We offer this information as a means to plan and ground your own trek – to have the same type of insights based on experience that we would have loved when we set out on the Great Trail.  

 
However, at the time of writing this (2019) the existing guidebooks for the Great Trail are incomplete, and most are more than a decade old.  In some cases, the TCT has moved its route or expanded the trail system significantly.  Moreover, the fact remains that some provinces (Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta) don’t even have a guidebook, which means for those who come next, there is a huge absence of information about the national pathway.
 
This record exists for those who are considering a Trans Canada journey, whether on foot or by bike.  It is not meant as a template, and certainly not a promise that this is how your journey will turn out.  The information here – and in our daily blogs – is a glimpse of what one passage across the province from east to west looked like, for two particular people, in one particular year.
 
It must always be remembered that routes change, conditions vary, and circumstances are never the same twice – day to day, year to year, and hiker to hiker.

 
With that said, sometimes knowing where someone once walked, struggled and succeeded can make things easier at the end of a hard day on the trail.  Knowing that you are standing and walking where others once also did to can make a world of difference in moments of doubt.  We certainly took faith in knowing that Dana Meise, Sara Jackson, Dianne Whelan and Mel Vogel had come before us.
 

The Trans Canada Trail in Cape Breton and Nova Scotia

 
The Trans Canada Trail in Nova Scotia is defined by wonderful rail trails and local pathways joined by “connectors,” which often means long stretches of walking along the side of a roadway. After Newfoundland, where the T’Railway offered a more continuous if often challenging line across the island, Nova Scotia introduced us to a different kind of Trans Canada Trail. Here, the route felt less like a single uninterrupted path and more like a network of connected possibilities.


This became clear almost immediately. From Cape Breton and mainland Nova Scotia, there were several possible ways to imagine a crossing. One could follow a more direct line toward the ferry to Prince Edward Island. One could turn south toward Halifax, as we did, before returning north and west to continue the national pathway. One could also bypass Prince Edward Island entirely and continue toward New Brunswick. In this sense, Nova Scotia was not simply a province to be crossed in one obvious way, but a province where the TCT opened into choices, detours, connections, and consequences.
 
The most cohesive long-distance section we encountered was the Celtic Shores Coastal Trail, which runs for roughly 90 kilometres along the western side of Cape Breton. After the necessary adjustments around the Sydney water route, this section offered one of the clearest and most enjoyable stretches of walking in the province. It had the feeling of an actual long-distance pathway: sustained, connected, scenic, and walkable in a way that allowed us to settle back into the rhythm of the trail.

 
Later in the province, there were many other wonderful trail sections, though they were often separated by road connectors. The Guysborough Nature Trail and Guysborough Rail Line, the Jitney Trail, the Cobequid Trail, and the network of pathways leading toward Halifax all offered reminders of how rewarding the TCT could be when it followed former rail beds, community trails, wetlands, coastal routes, and local greenways. In particular, the connected stretch formed by the Musquodoboit Trailway, the Chezzetcook Musquodoboit Trail, the Blueberry Run Trail, the Atlantic View Trail, the Salt Marsh Trail, and the Cole Harbour Trail created an especially enjoyable approach into Dartmouth and Halifax, extending for roughly 86 kilometres.

 
Yet the larger experience of Nova Scotia was still one of fragmentation. The daily stages were often shaped less by ideal walking distances than by the practical question of how different trail sections linked together. Some days had to stretch farther than we might have preferred in order to reach a viable stopping point. Other days were shorter because access, accommodation, weather, or logistics made it the sensible choice. This became one of Nova Scotia’s early lessons: hiking the Trans Canada Trail was not simply a matter of following a line across a map. It required adapting to the way the trail actually existed on the ground.
 

Stages and Itinerary for Hiking Across Nova Scotia

 
Remembering that our trek on the Trans Canada Trail across Nova Scotia took place in 2019, following our hike across Newfoundland. 

 
Taken together, Cape Breton and Nova Scotia took 36 calendar days to hike across, which was completed over a span of 54 days in the province.  The larger number reflects days off trail, rest days, resupply days, and days we spent giving public presentations about our #Hike4Birds citizen science outreach.
 
That time was not defined by distance alone, but by a combination of factors including weather, terrain, resupply points, days off the trail, nature presentations, and of course, the realities of the world. There were zero days built around necessity rather than rest, pauses for birding and giving presentations to school classrooms and nature groups – all of which slowed our progress. 
 

Itinerary for the Trans Canada Trail in Nova Scotia

 
July 20, 2019 – Ferry to Nova Scotia
July 21, 2019 – Around Sydney – off-trail
July 22, 2019 – Around Sydney – resupply 
July 23, 2019 – Baddeck and Cape Breton Highlands
July 24, 2019 – Cape Breton NP
July 25, 2019 – Cape Breton Trail
July 26, 2019 – Whycocomagh – return to TCT
July 27, 2019 – Whycocomagh to Trout River
July 28, 2019 – Trout River to beyond Scottsville
July 29, 2019 – Scottsville to Inverness
July 30, 2019 – Inverness to Mabou
July 31, 2019 – Mabou to Port Hood
August 1, 2019 – Port Hood to Creigmore
August 2, 2019 – into Port Hastings
August 3, 2019 – Port Hastings – rest day
August 4, 2019 – Port Hastings to Collins Pond
August 5, 2019 – Collins Pond to Boyleston PP
August 6, 2019 – Boylston PP to Ogden Wilderness
August 7, 2019 – Ogden Wilderness to Back Country
August 8, 2019 – Back Country to Newtown
August 9, 2019 – Newtown to before Sunnybrae
August 10, 2019 – Sunnybrae to New Glasgow
August 11, 2019 – New Glasgow – day off, resupply, recharge
August 12, 2019 – New Glasgow and Stellarton, NS
August 13, 2019 – Pictou and Museums
August 14, 2019 – 31 km beyond Pictou
August 15, 2019 – 26 km to North Earltown
August 16, 2019 – Earltown to Meguma Falls
August 17, 2019 – Meguma Falls to Kemptown
August 18, 2019 – Truro
August 19, 2019 – Kemptown to Truro
August 20, 2019 – Truro to Wide Open Wilderness Campground
August 21, 2019 – Wide Open Wilderness CG to Wild Nature CG
August 22, 2019 – Shubenacadie Wildlife Park
August 23, 2019 – into Dollar Lake PP
August 24, 2019 – Dollar Lake Provincial Park
August 25, 2019 – Dollar Lake to Musq. Harbour
August 26, 2019 – Musq. Harbour - presentation
August 27, 2019 – Presentation and onto Chezzetcook
August 28, 2019 – Chezzetcook to Porter Lake
August 29, 2019 – Porter Lake PP
August 30, 2019 – Porter Lake PP to Cole Harbour
August 31, 2019 – Cole Harbour to Halifax
September 1, 2019 – Fisherman's Cove
September 2, 2019 – Fisherman's Cove
September 3, 2019 – Halifax to Wolfville – by bus, Harvest Moon
September 4, 2019 – Grand-Pre and Wolfville – Harvest Moon
September 5, 2019 – Wolfville to Annapolis Royal – by bus, off-trail
September 6, 2019 – Annapolis Royal Bird Talk – off trail
September 7, 2019 – Annapolis Royal to Bedford – by taxi, off-trail
September 8, 2019 – Holiday Inn, Bedford - Hurricane Dorian landfall
September 9, 2019 – Presentation for MEC Halifax
September 10,, 2019 – Bus from Halifax to New Glasgow – had already hiked this
September 11, 2019 – New Glasgow to Wood Island Ferry Terminal
 

Position Within the Larger Journey

 
Nova Scotia was not only a province to be crossed. It was the continuation of our journey across Canada on foot, from coast to coast to coast, and it marked the point where our understanding of the Trans Canada Trail began to really deepen.

 
In Newfoundland, the T’Railway had offered a largely continuous line across the island, even if that line was often rough, remote, exposed, and difficult underfoot. Nova Scotia was different. Here, the trail was no longer continuous in the same way. The introduction of water routes meant that there were places where the mapped national pathway could not simply be walked from one end to the other. From Sydney southward, we had to make our way around a water route in order to continue on foot. Later, our decision to trek south to Halifax before continuing onward added just over 300 kilometres to what would have been strictly necessary if our only goal had been to move from the Newfoundland ferry toward Prince Edward Island.
 
That choice mattered. It meant that Nova Scotia became not simply a passage between provinces, but a larger exploration of the region. It also meant accepting long stretches of roadway, which, in the summer heat and traffic, were unwelcome new realities. Nova Scotia was the first place where we truly began to understand what days spent hiking along roadways could mean physically and mentally.

 
As we had already begun to realize in Newfoundland, there was also something humbling about the scale of Canada’s smaller provinces. Nova Scotia may look compact on a national map, but by the time we had walked from Sydney to Halifax and then onward toward the Wood Islands ferry, we had covered more than 800 kilometres. That distance was greater than what is required to cross many European countries on foot, including walking the Camino Francés across Spain or the Camino Portugués through Portugal. Once again, the Trans Canada Trail challenged our assumptions about distance, scale, and what it meant to move across a region under our own power – as well as reminding us just how vast Canada is as a nation.

Despite the distances covered  - or perhaps because of them - Nova Scotia left us feeling encouraged. We had now crossed two of Canada’s ten provinces on foot. We had adjusted to ferry schedules, water routes, road connectors, rail trails, heat, presentations, resupply days, and the ongoing fatigue of a journey that was already proving larger than our original planning had allowed. Yet we had done it. If we could make it across Newfoundland, Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, then it seemed possible that we could keep going and complete our #Hike4Birds.

 
The only real setback at this stage was time. By the time we entered PEI, we were already almost a month behind the itinerary we had imagined before setting out. Our bodies needed more rest than we had anticipated. Resupply days took longer than expected. Public presentations, weather, logistics, and recovery all slowed the neat progress we had once drawn on paper. But that, too, was part of what Nova Scotia taught us. A journey across Canada could not be forced to match a schedule created in advance. It had to be lived, adjusted, and walked one day at a time.
 
For those looking to explore more, this entry connects directly with our broader series:

 
Each offers a different perspective on exploring the TCT.
 

For Those Who Come Next

 
In total, it took us 36 days to walk approximately 831 kilometres along the Trans Canada Trail from Sydney to Halifax to the Woods Island Ferry – which is not the entirety of the national pathway in the province but which for us allowed us to visit the capital city and connect the route we were following between provinces.
 
These sections of the TCT represent the second easterly province on the Great Trail – along coastlines and regional rail trails from the Atlantic Ocean to the capital city to the ferry terminal that would take us to Prince Edward Island.


If you are considering walking across Nova Scotia, know that it is possible to do so within a defined period of time. The route exists, the connections are there, and the province can be crossed in a continuous line from North to South before turning westward again.   This makes it a great hike in a beautiful region. 
 
If you are reading this because you are considering hiking across Nova Scotia on the TCT, whether for a weekend or weeks at a time, we hope this listing helps in some small way.
 
Not because it tells you what to do, but because it shows what was possible under a specific set of circumstances, at a particular moment in time.
 
Your journey will not look exactly like this. It shouldn’t. Weather, wildlife, wildfires, construction, health, timing, and luck all shape how the TCT, each province and Canada as a whole reveal themselves. Some days will go farther than planned. Others will end early. Some will feel almost effortless; others will ask more than you expected to give.  Some will end in the joy of that day’s achievements, others will end in doubt and tears. 

 
What matters, in the end, is not matching someone else’s itinerary, but learning how to move through this landscape with the willingness to be adaptable, leaving no trace and with care.  If this record helps you plan, adjust, or simply imagine your own path, then it has done what it was meant to do.
 
We wish you safe walking, open eyes, and the grace to take each day as it comes.
 
See you on the trail!
Location: Wood Islands, Canada
Previous
Next

Comments

Post a Comment