WATERFALLS OF NOVA SCOTIA

SOLDIERS COVE FALLS
Soldiers Cove, Richmond County
N 45° 41.736 W 060° 44.204
20T E 65821 6 N 5058674

RIVER: Soldiers Cove Brook
CLASS: multiple, steep cascades
SIZE: 15 ',15', 10'
RATING: excellent (***)

TRAIL: roadside, downstream
DISTANCE: <200m
HIKING TIME: 30min
CONDITIONS: challenging

NS Atlas Page: 34/X1
NS topo map: 011F10 (St. Peter's)

photo: Amanda MacLoed (2013)

DIRECTIONS: from St. Peter's, drive eastward from the village,
following HWY4 along the shores of the Bras D'Or Lake. Follow
this highway for 1 2km, passing through the Potlotek (Chapel
Island) First Nation, to the bridge over Soldiers Cove Brook at
the top of a hill. This is a busy highway and I 've found it best to
park up the road, alongside at a small pull off, but there is also a
large white farmhouse driveway on the left, just before the
bridge. These falls cross their land, and if approached, have
generally no problem for people to park and go down the small
trail to share their lovely corner of Nova Scotia.

Trail Description: from the highway parking area, walk back
down the road and approach the stream from the far side of the
bridge, walking through the tunnel in the stream itself, under the
road. This would of course, not be recommended after heavy
rains. Once on the other side of the tunnel, a steep trail on your
right hand side leads you to the base of the first cascade, then
trails lead to the next two falls along this short section of stream
as it prepares to empty into the Bras D'Or.

photo: Amanda MacLoed (2013)

As this is a pristine site on private land, please practice the "Leave No Trace" policy, and take
out any litter you bring in, as well as any you see along the trail. This is a very quiet out of the
way waterfall that thousands of people pass every year, never knowing its a quiet sun-dappled
canyon with perfect cascades that lay just feet away from the highway.
Soldiers Cove appears on the 1767 "Plan of the Island of Cape Breton" map as Moone's Cove.
The settlement here was originally called "Laugh at the Yankees" and was settled by British
veterans of the Peninsula War in Spain (1808-13) who had later served during the Warof 1812
(1812-15). The Soldiers Cove post office opened in 1845.

photo: Amanda MacLoed (2013)